By Tony Attwood
There seems to be a lot of joy among the journalistic community as they point out that the ManC are now within three points of Arsenal and with a better goal difference. But of course Arsenal have this game in hand and we are all hoping for a win.
There is a link from the BBC which includes the words “team news” but which has no such thing on it at least as I write this, which is a bit naughty of the Corporation, especially since I pay my licence fee every year. I wonder how I can request that they don’t use misleading headlines?
So I moved on to the [Metro](https://metro.co.uk/2026/02/12/brentford-vs-arsenal-predicted-lineup-today-confirmed-team-news-26851337/), which has a predicted line-up of
Raya
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel Calafiori
Rice Zubemend,i Eze
Madueke, Gyokeres, Martinelli
I should add that in the UK it is on TNT Sport 1.
[Sportsmole](https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/arsenal/title-race/preview/brentford-vs-arsenal-prediction-team-news-lineups_591770.html) can always be relied on to come up with some interesting factoids along the way, and today they have “The leaders can now register four straight shut-outs for the first time since their 812-minute streak without conceding in November, and since the start of the 2022-23 campaign, they have avoided defeat in 19 of their 20 London derbies away from home.”
They also remind us of the extremely frustrating news that Kai Havertz, who has looked so good following his return, now has a muscular problem and will be out for a couple of weeks, which is why Eze is pulled back into the first team line-up.
They, however, still predict an Arsenal win by 1-2, and give us the team of
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori;
Eze, Zubimendi, Rice;
Madueke, Gyokeres, Martinelli
which as you may have noticed, is the same as the previous prediction.
But we do always let three writers have a go before we pull the plug, and the third out of the hat this time is the Standard who say…
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie;
Zubimendi, Rice; Madueke,
Eze, Martinelli
Gyokeres
So yes this time we do some positional changes, and it is with Hincapie coming in at full back.
Meanwhile, and apropos nothing else, I decided to have a look at the yellow card situation, which shows us that six playes who have picked up five or more yellows this season: Lewis-Skelly, Merino, Rice, Timber, Calafiori and Zubimendi.
This compares with Brentford’s total of one player on five cards, three on six cards and one on seven.
Now the yellow card total is particularly interesting this season, which is perhaps why some of the usual sites that carry this data have hidden it away somewhat. But when it is there, the numbers do vary a bit from website to website. However, this list below seems to be more or less right.. If it isn’t 100% then it is only out by one or two cards per club at most… ManC it seems have 11 more cards than Arsenal. Tottehnam have 30 more than Arsenal!!!
Position
**Club**
**Yellow CardS**
1
Tottenham Hotspur
64
2
AFC Bournemouth
62
3
Brighton & Hove Albion
60
4
Chelsea
59
5
Fulham
53
6
Wolverhampton Wanderers
53
7
Sunderland
52
8
Brentford
49
9
Crystal Palace
48
10
Everton
46
11
Manchester City
45
12
Leeds United
41
13
Liverpool
41
14
Burnley
41
15
West Ham United
40
16
Nottingham Forest
37
17
Newcastle United
37
18
Aston Villa
35
**19**
**Arsenal**
**34**
20
Manchester United
32
Some sites have Arsenal actually at the bottom, or just one yellow away from ManU but either way, this is going to be either completely accurate or near enough for football. After all, yellow cards are waved by members of the PGMO community, and therefore we can expect a certain randomness or even bias in the procedure.
So there we are. Arsenal play tonight. Brentford win their home games on average 2-1, and Arsenal win their away games on average 2-1, so on that basis, it looks like being a draw, but I am still hoping for an Arsenal win to restore that six point lead.