Off the Charts highlights players whose output in a specific area has been outstanding. For Matchday 6 of the 2025-26 Premier League season, we look at the players and teams who play rough… or just celebrate goals too wildly.
In last week’s Off the Charts, we highlighted the Premier League’s best players in defensive situations. But not everyone times their tackles to perfection.
Today, we’re focusing on the teams and players to commit fouls and pick up cards like they’re going out of fashion, as well as the referees who enjoy dishing them out.
At Opta Analyst, we’ve already reviewed the MD6 action on a team level with our weekly Knee-Jerk Reactions, but we also like to shine a light on individual players who were prominent over the weekend.
Let’s dive into Off the Charts for MD6…
A Card-Happy Weekend
Was Matchday 6 the feistiest one yet of 2025-26? Fifty yellow cards were dished out by referees across the 10 games between Saturday and Monday, 12 more than in any of the previous five matchdays this season.
In fact, only five matchdays in 2024-25 saw more cautions handed out by referees in the Premier League, and four of those came within the first six matchdays of the campaign, with referees potentially keen to lay down the law early on in a season.
One of the cautions on MD6 of 2025-26 was (rather harshly) handed out to Everton’s Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall in their 1-1 draw with West Ham United on Monday night.
That was the creative midfielder’s fifth yellow card inside six appearances this campaign, and he is the first player to receive as many as five bookings inside his first six games of a Premier League season since Nicolas Jackson in 2023-24.
It isn’t enough to break a Premier League record, though, with James Perch (2010-11) and Marcos Rojo (2017-18) booked in each of their first five appearances of a Premier League season.
Foul Play or Getting Too Excited?
While MD6 saw the highest tally of cards handed out in the 2025-26 Premier League so far (50 yellows, 1 red) it was actually the matchday with the fewest fouls committed by players this season (204).
Nine of the 50 yellows were given for dissent (towards an official) or an argument (between players).
Some important late goals contributed towards the three cautions handed out for excessive celebration this weekend as Danny Welbeck, Eli Kroupi and João Palhinha were all booked for going a bit too wild after scoring. There had only been two cards given for excessive celebration across the first five matchdays of 2025-26 of the Premier League.
The last Premier League matchday to see as many cards given out for excessive celebration was MD34 of 2022-23.
Of course, this weekend’s shirt stripping came just days after Liverpool’s Hugo Ekitiké was given a second yellow card for taking his shirt off in celebration against Southampton in the EFL Cup, getting him subsequently suspended for Liverpool’s weekend trip to Crystal Palace, which they lost.
Treading a Fine Line
Antoine Semenyo didn’t receive a card this weekend, but the Ghanaian arguably should have. He committed five fouls in Bournemouth’s 2-2 draw at Leeds United on Saturday afternoon, but Michael Oliver kept his cards in his pocket.
Only two players have made more fouls in a Premier League game this season without receiving a card: Pape Matar Sarr (6 for Spurs vs Bournemouth) and Kaoru Mitoma (6 for Brighton vs Man City) – both on MD3.
Sarr is one of two players to have made as many as 11 fouls in the Premier League this season without receiving a single card, alongside Newcastle United’s William Osula, but their foul tallies are half that of Fulham’s midfield hard-man Sasa Lukic (22).
Since the start of last season, Lukic has been given 16 cautions in the Premier League, more than any other player, but not one red card. That means that he’s been booked in 44% of his league games since 2024-25.
The Man in the Middle
It was a busy weekend for Simon Hooper at Stamford Bridge. The 43-year-old referee handed out the only red card of MD6, dismissing Trevoh Chalobah early in the second half during Chelsea’s 3-1 home defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion.
Chalobah’s red, after fouling Diego Gómez as the last defender, was only awarded following VAR intervention, with Hooper originally giving out a yellow for the foul.
Chelsea vs Brighton was the first Premier League game to see as many as nine cards handed out (8 yellows, 1 red) this season, and that doesn’t even include the caution handed to Brighton manager Fabian Hürzeler in added time, either.
Hürzeler is now one of only two managers to have been booked more than once in the Premier League this season, alongside Fulham’s Marco Silva.
It was never going to be a quiet afternoon for Hooper in reality, as the Blues have become the most prolific team for collecting cards in recent years.
Their tally of 227 cards (219 yellows, 8 reds) since the start of 2023-24 is 29 more than any other team in the Premier League, while in the first season in this period, the Blues broke a competition record within a campaign (109 cards: 105 yellow, 4 red). They tried their best to replicate that in 2024-25, but their tally of 101 cards (99 yellow, 2 red) was only the fourth highest by a team in a Premier League season.
Hooper has given the most fouls per game (29.6) and cards per game (6.4) in 2025-26 so far, with Sam Barrott (5.8) the next most card-happy in the competition.
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Off the Charts: Busy Referees and Cards Aplenty on Premier League MD6 Opta Analyst.
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