Diego Costa has a reputation for being a bad boy - but he doesn’t even make the top 10 fouling forwards in the Premier League!
When the fiery Spaniard’s performances make the headlines it’s usually for the wrong kind of reason.
Take Chelsea’s 2-1 win over West Ham in the first game of the season, for example.
It wasn’t the Spaniard’s match winning goal that people were talking about after the game, it was his challenge on the Hammers keeper Adrian.
At times it seems as though Costa rarely scores a goal without a commentator declaring that “he shouldn’t even be on the pitch” to put that one in.
However, the stats seem to suggest that either Costa is getting a bit of a bum rap or he really does get away with a lot.
Since joining Chelsea, Costa has had 79 fouls awarded against him in league games - that’s the joint seventh highest total for a forward over that time along with Olivier Giroud.
Graziano Pelle has been pulled up for the most fouls. 110, followed by Connor Wickham (92), Leonardo Ulloa (88), Marko Arnautovic (87), Mame Biram Diouf (85) and Jamie Vardy (83).
However, those figures don’t account for the number of games played.
Costa has made 56 Premier League appearances for Chelsea, at the time of writing, giving him a fouls per game ratio of 1.4.
That’s only the joint 12th highest ratio of any forward to have made at least 10 appearances in the division since Costa joined in 2014. It’s the same ratio as Glenn Murray, Yaya Sanogo, Mame Biram Diouf, Sammy Ameobi and Troy Deeney.
Top of the pile is Ashley Barnes. The Burnley forward has committed 74 fouls in 35 Premier League appearances, an average of 2.1 a game.
Dame N’Doye has the next worst record with 2.0 fouls per game.
Mario Balotelli averaged 1.8 per game, while Alberto Paloschi and Marouane Chamakh averaged 1.7 per game, and Graziano Pelle, Jordan Ayew and Connor Wickham averaged 1.6 per game.
However, none of these figures tell us how serious the fouls were. They could range from a small shove in a challenge to a leg breaking lunge. One thing they also don’t show are the number committed that weren’t given by the referee.
