Kai Havertz leads Arsenal suspension shift as Declan Rice bucks the trend with Tottenham absence
Kai Havertz was Arsenal’s most-booked player in the Premier League last season as he secured 11 yellow cards across the season – Ben White had the next highest with eight. His fifth came frustratingly in match week 18 meaning he would miss the 19th league game against West Ham – a match Arsenal would fail to win and lose 2-0 in the absence of their German forward.
Havertz was however something of an outlier last season as Arsenal finished with the second-lowest number of bookings in the league at 62. Only Manchester City had fewer and recorded 52 yellow cards as they saw Rodri face a damaging suspension that eventually they would overcome anyway.
This season Arsenal already have eight yellow cards, the joint-highest of any with Declan Rice accounting for more than 37% of the total. His two yellow cards against Brighton will see him miss the North London Derby through suspension and what is worse is this took him to a total of three meaning he must avoid being booked twice more before match week 19 otherwise he will be suspended for yet another game.
Despite the eight bookings in total, which nine other sides also have in the league, Arsenal overall are managing to keep individual numbers down outside of Rice. No player has been booked more than once besides Rice and Arteta will hope this continues.
With a North London Derby however being the next game, the chances for cards in such a frenetic and characteristically feisty tie are indeed unsurprisingly high. There were ten yellow cards given out across the two meetings last season, although Tottenham received the greater number (six).
Discipline was a focus of Arteta’s early tenure with the club as red cards became a regularity. However, of late these have diminished sizeably and two of the last three suffered by Rice, Fabio Vieira and Takehiro Tomiyasu were both double yellows, rather than a straight red, with a high level of controversy attached to them.
There was little argument with Vieira’s straight red but Tomiyasu’s second yellow at Crystal Palace last season was wildly harsh. Arsenal are sure to experience further contentious choices throughout the season but need to let their football do the talking.
Referees certainly are still having big influences on games and of course, the title race but the best teams aim to win regardless of what decisions are made by the officials. Arsenal need to take their upcoming games out of the hands of those they have no control of and win in spite of whatever bad luck comes their way.
