As we're going round in circles everywhere today, it's not that we're unfairly booked, it's that the opposition are unfairly let off. I can even think of a couple of times off the top of my head where McKenna could have got booked and got away with it. One of them was a late tackle where he had no control and the freekick was given near the half way line (it was the game when Basso got sent crashing to the floor by their lump of a striker because I complained about that as a relative thing). The other was the Ipswich game. The ref played advantage, they wasted it, we countered and Delaney ended up getting booked for a foul on us. 3 or 4 of their players knew it should have been a booking for the lunge McKenna had made and as I said after the game, if I'd been the ref the way their players all came running up to tell me it was a booking is the only reason I wouldn't have booked him.
To be fair, Snodgrass is on 8 as well. Edit - Scrub that, one of those was in an international and another in the Carling Cup.
The Leeds thing was a bit of a dig in case the likes of Iqbal was looking (he won't have been though because they don't care about us). I couldn't think quickly of any other dirty sides in this league but there must be some around the bottom; Watford weren't a very nice side when we played them at the KC. Why aren't their entire midfield getting suspended?
I thought Watford were worse than Leeds to be honest, never was a late winner deserved more than in that game.
I've just done a bit of number crunching. In overall fouls committed we're 7th in the table (375), but we're less than a foul a game worse than 17th placed M'boro (342). Pompey are worst (426), Watford are 3rd (412), Leeds are 4th (407), and Blackpool are bottom (277). Unless there's a particular reason that all their fouls are worse than other teams Brighton are the most harshly treated team because they get booked for every 5th foul. We get booked for every 6.8 fouls (putting us 9th), and Watford are the least harshly treated at 8.6 fouls per booking. Leeds with 7.1 are 14th. When it comes to red cards, other than Cardiff and Reading who haven't had one yet us and Derby are the least penalised (1 each from 375 fouls). Leicester are top with a red every 44.5 fouls, Leeds are 6th with 81.4 fouls per red card, and Watford are 17th with 206 fouls per red card. What that tells me is there's no wonder Watford are dirty ****ers, they're pretty much the side most able to get away with it. EDIT: Stats taken from the FL website, so I don't know if they include cups or not.
They must have been doing something wrong, they've had six reds this season, only Boro(7) have had more.
And Leicester with 8. I don't know if for the team stats getting sent off for 2 yellows just goes as a red. It probably does because it does for players, but if they're being penalised more harshly for fouls in the first place you'd expect more of them to pick up 2 bookings in a game as well.
