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Arsenal Has a Discipline Issue and it Could Cost the Team the Premier League Title

Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta reacts during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Arsenal and Shakhtar Donetsk, at the Emirates Stadium in London, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)
Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta reacts during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Arsenal and Shakhtar Donetsk, at the Emirates Stadium in London, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)
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Arsenal Has a Discipline Issue and it Could Cost the Team the Premier League Title

Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta reacts during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Arsenal and Shakhtar Donetsk, at the Emirates Stadium in London, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)
Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta reacts during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Arsenal and Shakhtar Donetsk, at the Emirates Stadium in London, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)

Mikel Arteta felt he had no choice.
The Arsenal manager saw his right back Ben White receive a yellow card in the first half of the Champions League game against Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday, and quickly came to a decision.
White needed to be removed at halftime.
“We have played enough with 10 men in the recent period,” Arteta said with a smirk.
It is becoming abundantly clear: Arsenal has a discipline problem — and it might yet cost Arteta’s team a shot at the English Premier League title, The Associated Press said.
Arsenal has had three players sent off in the opening eight rounds of a league campaign that is seeing yellow cards being dished out at an unprecedented rate.
It continues something of a running theme under Arteta. Since he arrived as its manager in late 2019, Arsenal has collected 18 red cards in the Premier League — five more than the next team.
Tellingly for Arteta, the only games where Arsenal dropped points this season — the 1-1 home draw with Brighton, the 2-2 away draw at Manchester City and the 2-0 loss at Bournemouth on Saturday — came when the team had a player dismissed.
“We cannot continue to play with 10 men, especially at this level. You see how we struggled,” Arteta said this week. “We need to eradicate it, it’s clear. Why, the reason, how — it doesn’t matter. We have to focus that it has to happen.”
It particularly has to be happen on Sunday, when Liverpool visits Emirates Stadium in the headline match of the league’s ninth round.
Liverpool is in first place, one point ahead of second-placed City and four clear of third-placed Arsenal. A win would put Liverpool seven points clear of Arsenal already — hardly an insurmountable deficit at this stage but one which would leave Arteta’s players with little wiggle room. Perhaps more importantly, it would likely leave Arsenal six points behind defending champion City, which is expected to swat aside winless Southampton on Saturday.
Arsenal’s disciplinary issues come at the start of a season that has seen an average of 5.1 yellow cards awarded per game so far, according to league statistics supplier Opta.
That is far more than any previous Premier League, says Opta, which points out that last season’s 4.2 yellows per game was a new record — surpassing 3.7 per game in the 1998-99 season.
Two of Arsenal’s dismissals — Declan Rice against Brighton and Leandro Trossard against City — saw the players in question each collect two yellow cards, the second for time-wasting by kicking the ball away.
William Saliba was handed a straight red against Bournemouth for bringing down Evanilson near the halfway line and denying what was adjudged to be a goal-scoring opportunity.
Saliba, perhaps Arteta’s most important defender, will miss the Liverpool match as a result, at a time when Arsenal is already without captain Martin Odegaard (ankle) and might also be missing star winger Bukayo Saka (hamstring) and summer signing Riccardo Calafiori, who came off against Shakhtar with a twisted knee.
Liverpool will arrive on the back of 11 wins from its first 12 games in all competitions under new manager Arne Slot. That run contains six straight away victories, which is a club record for the start of a single campaign.
“Arteta has done an amazing job in the last few years,” Slot said after Liverpool’s 1-0 win at Leipzig on Wednesday, “and we have to be on top of our game to get a result.”

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Move over Messi and Ronaldo. A New Generation of Soccer Stars Is Lining up to Win the Ballon d'Or

Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior looks on during the UEFA Champions League soccer match between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, in Madrid, Spain, 22 October 2024. (EPA)
Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior looks on during the UEFA Champions League soccer match between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, in Madrid, Spain, 22 October 2024. (EPA)
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Move over Messi and Ronaldo. A New Generation of Soccer Stars Is Lining up to Win the Ballon d'Or

Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior looks on during the UEFA Champions League soccer match between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, in Madrid, Spain, 22 October 2024. (EPA)
Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior looks on during the UEFA Champions League soccer match between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, in Madrid, Spain, 22 October 2024. (EPA)

No Lionel Messi. No Cristiano Ronaldo.

When the Ballon d'Or is presented at a gala ceremony in Paris on Monday, it will feel like the start of a new era in football. There is also a sense of void now that one of sport's most engrossing rivalries is likely over.

"It's interesting that as it starts to come to an end, we are sort of saying, what's the next equivalent rivalry going to be," soccer author Jonathan Wilson told The Associated Press. "As if that kind of rivalry was a natural state. But there's never been a rivalry like that before."

Messi and Ronaldo won football's most prestigious individual award a combined 13 times over a 16-year period of unprecedented dominance. Neither has been nominated this year.

Instead, Real Madrid winger Vinicius Junior is the favorite to be crowned the world's best player and become the first winner born this century.

He underlined his credentials this week with a stunning Champions League hat-trick against Borussia Dortmund.

"Vinicius had an incredible season where he was a key player... he proved he's the best player in the world," Madrid teammate Lucas Vazquez said.

But rather than Vinicius spearheading a new era of dominance, it seems likely the award will revert to a time before Messi and Ronaldo when multiple winners were relatively rare.

France great Zinedine Zidane, for instance, only won it once. The same goes for Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Luis Figo and George Best. Originally limited to European players, it was never won by Pele or Diego Maradona.

Before Messi, the last player to win back-to-back awards was Dutch striker Marco van Basten in 1988 and '89.

Messi won a record-extending eighth Ballon d'Or last year after leading Argentina to triumph at the World Cup in 2022. Wilson, who wrote about the history of Argentinian football in his book "Angels With Dirty Faces," sees no obvious successor to the Barcelona great, now at Inter Miami.

"Messi's been phenomenal for 17, 18 years," he said. "It's not a pure tallying process, but in terms of greatness over a protracted period, Messi is the greatest there has ever been by quite some margin.

"I don't think there's anybody in the world now who has anything remotely close to that talent."

Such was the dominance of Messi and Ronaldo, not only would Vinicius Junior become the first winner born this century, but there has never even been a recipient born in the '90s.

Vinicius Junior, whose goals helped Madrid to a record-extending 15th European Cup last season, is part of a new generation of stars that are flourishing as Messi and Ronaldo reach the final stages of their careers.

Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham and Lamine Yamal make up a field of contenders who could challenge for years to come.

Manchester City midfielder Rodri is second favorite to win this year and would become the first player born in the '90s to take the award.

Mbappe, who has long-been seen as the heir to Messi and Ronaldo as the world's best player, was born in 1998, meaning it's likely there will eventually be a winner from that decade even if Rodri misses out.

The only other winners since Ronaldo won his first Ballon d'Or in 2008 were Luka Modric in 2018 and Karim Benzema in 2022. Both were born in the 1980s.

The award was cancelled in 2020, when Robert Lewandowski was widely regarded the best player that year. He was also born in the '80s.

Neymar, born in 1992, came third on two occasions.

The Ballon d'Or was created by France Football magazine and has been awarded since 1956. It is voted for by journalists from the top 100 countries in the FIFA rankings.

Each journalist, one per country, selects 10 players in ranked order, with points attributed to each position. The winner is the player who receives the most points.

The dominance of Messi and Ronaldo in the age of social media has heightened the profile of the award.

Players talk of their dream to win it in a manner they may have spoken about the Champions League and World Cup in the past.

The potential to win it is used during transfer negotiations, with clauses added to contracts stipulating a buying club will pay extra costs if a player goes on to be crowned the best player in the world.

While Vinicius appears to be in pole position this year, Mbappe vs. Haaland has the potential to develop into a new rivalry for the award — particularly given they are strikers for Madrid and Manchester City, respectively, the two best teams in Europe in recent years.

"That whole idea of rivalries and sort of head-to-head, one-v-ones is just such a big part of football now," soccer author Matt Oldfield told The Associated Press. "People want to be able to simplify it to one-v-one, and I think the Mbappe-Haaland debate will be the leading one."

Oldfield writes children's books about football and on visits to schools he gauges the popularity of players among young fans.

His latest series is called "The Football GOAT (greatest of all time)."

The first book in the series centered around Messi and Ronaldo. The next is about Mbappe and Haaland: "We're kind of moving beyond Messi and Ronaldo now," he said.