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By Nitram
Among all the negative stories about Arsenal, one of the most persistent is how we have been favoured by the referees and the PGMOL. The evidence of this is that we received zero red cards and conceded zero penalties.
This notion raises a few questions.
1: Is it unique to receive zero red cards and concede zero penalties?
2: Does this situation prove Arsenal were favoured by the referees?
3: If so, what does that say about how we have been treated over the last 20 or so years?
Now I’m not going back over the last 20 years, or all the usual top six teams for that matter, (which show a ridiculous bias against Arsenal ever since Riley took over as head of the PGMOL), as I have done that a few times before. I am just going to focus on the last three Champions over the last four seasons.
And this is because I only did this sort of analysis recently, and the results are to hand. I will, however, set out below the penalty stats for the last 10 years for Arsenal, Manchester City, and Liverpool; the three teams I am going to focus on in the review that follows:
Team Penalties across the last ten seasons
Club Penalties for Penalties against Differntial
Arsenal 51 51 0
Manchester City 80 30 +142%
Liverpool 61 30 +103%
As you can see, the treatment of the three different clubs is quite strange. One could say it is “mad”.
But does this extreme bias against Arsenal manifest itself across these last four seasons in which we have challenged for the title? The short answer is yes, but by nowhere near as much. Nevertheless, the bias remains.
In the tables below, we have the numbers for both penalties and red cards for Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool over the seasons 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26.
The obvious place to start is how the three teams have performed over those four seasons. This gives us a flavour for how well each team has performed over the period, and perhaps more importantly, how attack-minded each team was, because of course, this could have a big impact on how many penalties you receive and concede.
So this is the cumulative table for the last 4 seasons.
Team Goals scored Goals against Goal difference Points
Arsenal 3190 133 186 332
Manchester City 339 146 193 329
Liverpool 310 182 128 293
So as you can see, Arsenal were not just the best team last season, but they have been the best team over the last four seasons. Liverpool are a fair way behind.
So let’s put these differences into percentage terms to see just how close Arsenal and Manchester City are as teams, as well as how Liverpool compares.
GOALS SCORED
Manchester City have scored just 6% more goals than Arsenal
Arsenal have scored just 2.8% more goals than Liverpool
So as attacking forces, the difference is marginal. The defensive numbers are also pretty close, especially between Arsenal and Man City. In other words, when it comes to comparing Arsenal and Man City in particular, there is barely a ‘fag paper’ between them.
But the question is, will this reflect in both the penalty and red card numbers?
PENALTIES
So, as above these are the numbers of penalties for, against and the differential, but this time for just the last four seasons:
Team Goals scored Goals against Goal difference
Arsenal 20 11 +81%
Manchester City 28 12 +133%
Liverpool 24 11 +118%
Don’t forget, Arsenal and Manchester City are separated by just 6% when it comes goals scored. This presumably means they both spend similar amounts of time in and around the opponent’s penalty box and in and around their own box. Yet when it comes to the awarding of penalties, we get awarded fewer and concede more. The differential in this case is around 50% in favour of Manchester City.
Even in the season just gone, the one we are getting such ridicule for, each team received four penalties. Now it is true that we conceded zero penaltiesto Manchester City’s 2two, but come on!!
And even so, is it unique to register zero penalties against? Well, it is rare but it has happened before:
Season 2021/22:
Champions: Manchester City.Penalties FOR = 8.Penalties AGAINST = 0.Red Cards = 1
Season 2012 – 2013:
Champions: Man Utd.Penalties FOR = 6.Penalties AGAINST = 0.Red Cards = 1
And I don’t recall anybody putting an ‘asterisk’ beside those clubs’ names!
RED CARDS across the last four seasons
Liverpool: 1 + 5 + 3 + 1 = 10
Arsenal: 0 – 2 – 6 – 0 = 8
Manchester City: 1 – 2 – 2 – 0 = 5
Okay, so Liverpool have had 0.5 of a red card more than Arsenal per season. But again, we see Man City to be the most leniently treated.
Manchester City get awarded the most penalties, has the best for/against ratio and receives the fewest red cards.
Yet Arsenal have a season when they don’t get shafted, and there’s outrage. Cheating refs. Corrupt PGMOL. Put an asterisk by their name!
But this is the narrative being constantly pushed on social media, and now in the mainstream media by channels such as Talksport, allegedly the biggest radio sports broadcaster on the planet.
It is a joke. It is shameful. But sadly, we are used to it.
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Arsenal make radical changes to their medical team as problems at the WC continue.
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