BELOW ARE THE PREMIER LEAGUE WHO HAVE RECEIVED THE MOST RED CARDS
8 red cards: Richard Dunne, Duncan Ferguson, and Patrick Vieira.
7 yellow cards: Lee Cattermole, Roy Keane, Vinnie Jones, and Alan Smith.
6 red cards: Luis Boa Morte, Gareth Barry, John Terry, John Hartson, Andrew Cole, Nicky Butt, Younes Kaboul, Nemanja Vidic, Steven Gerrard, Martin Keown, Franck Queudrue, Joey Barton
On August 19, 1992, the Premier League’s era of harsh punishment started. Referees Ray Bigger and Stephen Lodge both sent off Southampton’s Micky Adams and Manchester City’s Niall Quinn on that steamy evening. They were the first of almost 1,700 red cards shown in a Premier League game this season, 114 of them by the unstoppable Mike Dean.
While referees collect dismissals with pride and a sense of duty, for the players, it may be a source of embarrassment, especially if the ensuing ban prevents them from playing in one or more crucial matches. On the other hand, many of them would claim that the judgments they took in the heat of combat were correct.
But who are the players from the Premier League who have been sent off the most? Who are Our League’s nasty boys? Keep on reading to learn more.
Duncan Ferguson: 8 Red Cards
In a pub quiz, you’re asked to name one of three Premier League players who have received a record eight red cards. Panicky and hesitant, you get to your feet and make the safest decision you can. “um…Duncan Ferguson?” Of course, this is right.
Rarely has a footballer radiated such danger as the former Everton and Newcastle United midfielder, a player whose career was cut short by injury but who nevertheless managed eight red cards in 11 years of Premier League playing.
Everyone has a favorite, but arguably the last red was the ultimate example, away at Wigan, ordered off by Mike Dean and establishing Jimmy Bullard’s comedy career in the process.
Patrick Vieira: 8 Red Cards
Referee Stephen Lodge (shown above) was still in charge in 1998, and he was accountable for the first of Patrick Vieira’s eight red cards in the Premier League. Vieira, unquestionably one of the greatest midfielders the English Premier League has ever seen, led Arsenal throughout their golden age with an exceptionally wide range of footballing talent. Vieira could do it all: goals, assists, passes, tackles, and pressuring.
He also played with a passion that occasionally got him in trouble with the refereeing community, the high priests of bureaucracy. Vieira ruffled the feathers of some of the most powerful officials of the time, including Uriah Rennie, Mike Reed, Graham Poll, Steve Bennett, and Andy D’Urso twice.
Vieira’s big-game mindset eventually led to him picking up a number of red cards in major games, such as the Monday night encounter against Arsenal and Liverpool in 2000, which saw Poll dismiss Vieira as well as Gary McAllister and Dietmar Hamann.
Indeed, the early 2000s were the pinnacle of the red card period in English football, with large guys going in studs up and occasionally escaping with the ball. Few soldiers on the field were braver than Vieira, and he had the combat stories and red card count to prove it.
Alan Smith: 7 Red Cards
Alan Smith made his debut for Leeds United at the turn of the century as a blond, fresh-faced striker. His hair and features stayed the same throughout his Premier League career, but his job as a footballer altered. Smith slid back into midfield, where his cherubic appearance belied a ferocity that many referees, notably Rob Styles, found appealing.
During January 2001 and December 2004, no Premier League player received more red cards than Smith (who shares the honor with aggressive vowel legend Franck Queudrue). Unfortunately, Smith’s career was eventually determined by the dedication with which he pursued it; a fractured leg suffered when stopping a John Arne Riise free-kick against Liverpool in a 2006 FA Cup fixture, from which he never fully healed and which continues to impair him to this day.
Lee Cattermole: 7 Red Cards
Lee Cattermole was never far from a disciplinary situation. Combative midfielders are adored by certain managers and despised by others, but it should never be forgotten that if all you have to give is aggression, it’s extremely doubtful you’ll be able to function and prosper as a Premier League player. Cattermole and violence, however, went hand in hand, so much so that one of his Sunderland managers, Gus Poyet, said: “With Lee, we know when he is frustrated, he will make this type of tackle.”
I know many managers have tried and spoken about him in the past, and I will attempt to handle him my way, internally, and see if we can repair his reputation in England, where he couldn’t make a tackle.”
It found out that you could make a tackle if you won the ball fairly according to the rules of the game. Who’d have guessed?
Roy Keane: 7 Red Cards
Roy Keane is the fourth Premier League player to get seven red cards. Two of Keane’s seven red cards came against Newcastle United, as his apparently unending animosity with Alan Shearer erupted into outright violence.
Keane’s dismissal at St James’ Park in September 2001 is one of the most famous in league history, with the two men completely dedicated to one other’s downfall. “If you’re going to be expelled, the worst thing is that I pushed him.” If you’re going to get sent off, strike him correctly because you’re going to get the same punishment,” Keane pondered decades later.
That red occurred only five months after Keane’s infamous retaliation attack on Alfie Inge Haaland in the Manchester derby at Old Trafford. Haaland’s nine-month-old son Erling moved furiously in his crib somewhere in the north of England and, in 2022-23, finally had the chance to play Manchester United and turned the tables once more, scoring a hat-trick in a 6-3 triumph in October.
Vinnie Jones: 7 Red Cards
When it comes to aggressiveness, has there ever been a player more reliant on it than Vinnie Jones? A Guy Ritchie scripted pantomime villain and defensive midfielder. Jones’ career encompassed the end of the First Division era and the beginning of the Premier League era, thus it was no surprise that he was prominently featured in advertisements for the reconstructed top division in 1992.
Jones, like every other player on this list, could play; it’s just that he preferred his position as a menace-fueled free radical, as seen by his yellow card after three seconds (THREE SECONDS) in a Chelsea against Sheffield United FA Cup game in 1992.
Jones received seven red cards in the Premier League and was the first player to be sent off three times in a single season for Wimbledon in 1995-96, a feat that has since been matched by six other players. However, none of them have the Hollywood-approved reach of Vinnie Jones. Is that a screen icon? Maybe not. Is there such a thing as a football discipline icon? Absolutely.
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