Top Five ‘Dirtiest’ Players In The Premier League So Far This Season
Getting sent off and picking up bookings generally gets a player classed as a “dirty” player in English football, although it must be said that there are far fewer stars in the modern game who deserve to be labelled with that tag.
Tactical fouls and stricter refereeing mean that footballers, who no one would describe as hard tacklers, can rack up the yellow and red cards.
Even so, we have compiled our list from the latest data from WhoScored, taking into account the cards handed out by referees from the first nine rounds of league fixtures.
Press the next page as we list the five ‘dirtiest’ players in the top flight so far this season.
5) Oliver Skipp (Tottenham) – 4 Yellow Cards in 9 Games
The Spurs midfielder has broken into the first team this campaign, following an impressive loan at Norwich where he helped them to promotion.
Skipp does a lot of the dirty work in the middle of the park for Nuno Espirito Santo’s side (along with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg) and it inevitably means he gets into trouble with the referee.
4) Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa) – 4 Yellow Cards in 8 Games
Villa’s defending at the start of this season has been rather poor, to say the list, having conceded 15 in just nine Premier League games.
Mings’ performances as captain have left a lot to be desired, and he is been in the referee’s notebook on too many occasions since the campaign began back in August.
3) Joel Veltman (Brighton) – 4 Yellow Cards in 7 Games
The Dutchman is a useful player in the sense he can play either as a right wingback or as a centre-half in a back three but he has been caught out of position on occasion, leading to him picking up a booking or two.
It will be interesting to see whether Veltman features as regularly now Tariq Lamptey has returned to full fitness, following a lengthy period out with a hamstring injury.
2) Emmanuel Dennis (Watford) – 5 Yellow Cards in 9 Games
Strikers are usually the ones being fouled but there have been forwards (most notably Kevin Davies) who are willing to give as much as they get when it comes to putting in challenges.
Dennis has not shied away from committing fouls since his arrival from Club Brugge in the summer. Whether he’ll settle down now manager Claudio Ranieri is in charge, we shall have to wait and see.
1) Paul Pogba (Manchester United) – 4 Yellows and 1 Red In 9 Games
The Frenchman’s recent disciplinary problems do raise some questions. He has already surpassed the three bookings that he received in the whole of last campaign, and we are not even a quarter of the way through this season yet.
Whether Pogba’s future is playing on his mind, it is anyone’s guess. His current deal at Old Trafford expires next summer and perhaps he just isn’t as committed as he once was.
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