I know I shouldn't rise to the bait, but one thing that really gets on my nerves is hearing whichever numptie is commentating on or writing about an Arsenal game say something like "And that's Arsenal's 3,076th red card since Arsène Wenger became their manager. Disgraceful." I know it's been a while since there was reason to use that old tat but the absence of any recent Arsenal red card action is precisely what prompted me to do my geek thing and check the facts. Yes, the facts, you remember them, the data representing the truth that our country's sloppy and lazy sports journalists usually ignore, preferring the nearest cliché or myth instead.

And when you check the facts, you see that Arsenal's disciplinary record under Wenger (at least in the Premier League) is pretty unspectacular when set against other teams' records. Since the beginning of the 1996 season, Arsenal have had a player sent off once every 11.39 games, a rate which puts them in 11th place out of the 39 sides who've played Premier League football in that period. And of the current Premier League sides, we are the 8th worst offenders, behind the likes of Fulham, Everton and Man City.

On yellow cards, Arsenal have a still better record. We average 1.46 yellows per match, which puts us in 22nd place out of 39 in the bad boys' league, and in 13th place out of the current 20 teams. Amongst those with worse records than ours are West Ham, Chelsea and Everton.

Our record, while certainly not the best, is a long way from the litany of evil often portrayed. On both red and yellow cards, the truly dirty teams are Stoke, Wigan, Sunderland and Blackburn. But do the morons who somehow get jobs on Sky or the BBC, or on the rags, refer to the total number of reds those teams have got in the last 12 seasons? Does anyone mention that, in the time since Wenger took over, Everton have had 52 Premier League red cards and (despite having been relegated in that time) and Blackburn 53, as compared with our 46? No. But as is often said of our esteemed friends in the media, why let the truth get in the way of a good story? Or in this case, a pretty boring story.