The Dirtiest Teams in the Premier League: 2025/26 Season Review
7th June 2026
The 2025/26 Premier League season is done and dusted, the World Cup is days away, and it’s time to hand out the awards nobody wants to win. Which teams spent the season hacking, shoving, and collecting yellows like they were going out of fashion?
We’ve dug into the full discipline rankings from statz.ai to find the Premier League’s dirtiest teams – and the players referees got to know on a first-name basis.
The Foul Merchants: Team Rankings
No surprises at the top. Wolves committed a league-high 493 fouls across their 38 games, averaging 13.0 per game. That’s roughly a foul every seven minutes. For a team that finished rock bottom on 20 points, you could argue desperation drove the numbers – but 493 is still staggering.
Spurs were second with 462 fouls at 12.2 per game, followed by Bournemouth on 457 and Brighton on 453. West Ham rounded out the top five with 421.
At the other end? Man City committed the fewest fouls in the division with just 368, averaging 9.7 per game. Over three fewer fouls per match than Wolves.
Yellow Card Table: Spurs Lead the Way
Here’s where it gets interesting. Spurs didn’t just foul a lot – they got punished for it more than anyone. Their 101 yellow cards across the season works out at 2.7 per game, the worst record in the Premier League.
Chelsea weren’t far behind on 98 yellows at 2.6 per game. Bournemouth picked up 88, Brighton 86, and Sunderland 82 to complete the top five.
The cleanest side? Arsenal, and it wasn’t even close. The champions collected just 51 yellows all season – 1.3 per game. Half the rate of Spurs. There’s a lesson in there somewhere about discipline and winning titles.
Tackle Merchants: Effort Without Quality
Spurs also topped the tackling charts with 741 tackles at 19.5 per game. Wolves were right behind them on 724 at 19.1, with Palace, Everton, and Man Utd filling out the top five.
Liverpool made the fewest tackles in the league with 493 at 13.0 per game – which tells you everything about the difference between teams who control the ball and teams who chase it. Spurs tackled like their lives depended on it and still finished 17th with 41 points. All that energy, all that aggression, and they were five points above the drop. Effort without quality in a nutshell.
The Individual Offenders
Igor Thiago of Brentford was the Premier League’s most penalised player with 74 fouls in 38 appearances. That’s basically two fouls per game, every game, all season. Relentless.
João Gomes was second on 69 fouls in 35 apps – one of two Wolves players making the wrong kind of headlines. Elliot Anderson committed 57 fouls in 38 games for Forest, while Moisés Caicedo racked up 54 in 33 for Chelsea. Saša Lukić rounded out the top five with 53 in just 26 appearances for Fulham – the highest per-game rate of the lot.
The Yellow Card Kings
Three players shared the dubious honour of most yellows with 12 apiece. James Garner picked up his dozen in 38 games for Everton, while Wolves pair Yerson Mosquera and André both hit 12 – Mosquera in just 27 appearances, André in 35. The relegation dirty duo, right there.
Caicedo wasn’t far off with 11 yellows in 33 games, adding to his reputation as one of the league’s most aggressive midfielders.
What Does It All Mean?
The numbers tell a clear story. Arsenal won the league with the fewest yellow cards. Wolves went down committing the most fouls. Spurs tackled more than anyone and still nearly got relegated.
But it’s not all black and white. Bournemouth were the third-dirtiest team for fouls and finished sixth – their aggression was a feature, not a bug. Sometimes controlled chaos works.
As the World Cup kicks off on June 11, a few of these players might want to rein it in. International referees tend to have less patience than Premier League ones – and nobody wants to pick up a suspension before the knockout rounds.