Bruce, Blanc or Derek Mountfield? Who's the daddy?

Also this week: most Premiership red cards, biggest low-league attendances, and the statistical significance of a first win of the season (2)
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Derek Mountfield
Derek Mountfield, goalscoring machine

"Is Laurent Blanc the most-scoring defender ever?" asks Jeremy Williams. "I think he scored more than 10 goals in a season more than once in his career."

While the translucent-skinned Frenchman has indeed dragged his body into the opposing penalty area often enough to score 13 goals for St. Etienne in 1994/95, 11 for Marseille in 1997/98 and 16 for France in 96 internationals, he is by no means the best scoring defender ever (at least defined by number of goals scored in one season).

In fairness, Blanc might have been higher in the rankings had we counted his goalscoring tallies while wearing a Montpellier shirt - where he scored 76 league goals in 243 appearances - but as Aeneas O'Hara sniffs: "At the time he was a central midfielder who took penalties."

Several people suggest, with proud, bulldog-bearing chests puffed out, that Stuart Pearce should claim the title. But, for all his graft in those short trunks, Pyscho is in fact one of the weakest contenders, with only an 11-goal season in 1990-91 to his name.

And so we move on to bigger and better things. Tied for the prestigious accolade of 'third best scoring defender ever unless anyone else finds someone better' are Steve Bruce and Everton legend Derek Mountfield.

Despite playing in central defence, Bruce managed 52 goals in 414 appearances for United, including a healthy 19 goals in 1990/91 - a figure matched by Mountfield in the 1984-85 season when Everton were crowned First Division champions. "Derek modestly reminisces that he scored 'some great goals, and none of his goals that season were penalties', which surely makes him better," insists Aled "no, not that one" Jones.

First place is also a tie, between continental defenders present and past. In 1992 Fernando Hierro, ex-Real defender and Spain's record-breaking goalscorer, scored 21 goals and followed it up with 13, 10 and 10 in the next three seasons. What's more, Hierro holds the Spanish international record, with 29 goals in 89 international appearances. Still - as many of you point out - he was a defensive-midfielder for the early part of his career. Which means the winner is (cue drum roll)....

Ronald Koeman (Dutch, blond, played for PSV) who scored a phenomenal 193 goals in 533 games and literally had the opposition shaking in their boots as he stepped up to fire in free-kicks at 70mph-plus. In 1987/88 with PSV, he scored 21 goals in the second of three successive title-winning seasons, despite playing as a sweeper.

Watch and learn, Emile.


"Since the start of the Premiership, how many yellow and red cards have Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal received?" asks Laura Parkes. "Just to settle an argument between some friends."

Consider it settled, Laura. Since the Premiership began in 1992, Arsenal have picked up a bone-crunching 40 red cards, while Manchester United and Liverpool limp in behind them with 26 and 25 respectively.

Expanding the net wider, in all competitions since Wenger's arrival in September 1996, Arsenal have received 51 red cards, compared to the 21 picked up by Manchester United.

Whether they are the victims of a malicious disciplinary vendetta or their dirty, elbow-flinging tactics is open to debate. What isn't, however, is that in terms of yellow cards, Arsenal aren't the dirtiest. They have picked up 627 Premiership yellow cards - 122 more than United and 144 more than Liverpool, but behind Leeds United who lead with a super-impressive 692.


Remember in the summer when Arturo John asked about teams in lower divisions with high fan bases? Eh? Oh.

Well, the debate rages on, with many a cry of "Wolves? Pah!" and general my-club's-bigger-than-your-club' posturing. It's a tough one to measure as average attendances are pitched against cup finals and the like. We can but try.

Ian Chapman thinks Manchester City deserve some recognition for attracting an average 28,300 in 1998/99 when still languishing in the Second Division.

Indeed they do, Ian. But that figure is nothing compared to the then-record 48,110 people that turned up at Villa Park for the Third Division promotion clash with Bournemouth in 1972. Aston Villa went on to be crowned champions while Bournemouth slipped to third and were eventually confined to another season on the brink of English football's hinterland.

A few years' later, however, the Third Division record attendance was snatched from the claret and blues on a freezing Yorkshire Boxing Day in 1979. 49,309 souls squeezed into Hillsborough to witness Wednesday trounce United 4-0, in what Sheffielders fondly remember as the Boxing Day Massacre.

Meanwhile, despite the emails of protest, the wails of disbelief, and generally wrong alternative suggestions, Wolves also have a case. In 1988, in the Sherpa Van Trophy, the Fourth Division side met Burnley at Wembley in front of 80,841 people - the majority of which were their supporters.


In last week's Knowledge, Haydon Banbury argued - using 2002/03 statistics - that a first win of the season was statistically significant in determining where a side would end up. Not so, says Malcolm Rich.

"Being vaguely familiar with statistics, the answer given by Haydon is misleading since it totally ignores the question as to whether those first-day winners were simply better than the teams they beat," he says. 

"I can't remember all of the games but I seem to recall that Manchester United v West Brom and Aston Villa v Liverpool were two of them so I can't see too many surprises there.

"If the figures wanted to vaguely consistent, you'd probably need to take the results for each individual team and compare them with other seasons for the same team. Instead, the answer given was a simple case of stating the obvious."


"As a Scotsman now living in the United States I am sick of the Yanks prattling on about how baseball is the ultimate sport," says Neil McIntosh. "In particular, my boss claims that the total number of people who attend Major League Baseball games (regular season) in a year is greater than the total number of people who attend all regular season games in each top league in Europe and South America combined. Can you resolve this argument?"

"In the recent round of internationals, Southampton had a player playing for each of the home nations on the same night (Beattie/England, McCann/Scotland, Jones/Wales, Baird/N.Ireland) - how unusual is this for a club?" asks Steven Rajam. "I'm imagining that Man Utd have probably managed it before, but are there any other recent examples?

"Also," Steven adds, "when was the last time a club (GB or abroad) had two keepers square up for opposite sides in an international (as with Southampton's Jones and Niemi for Wales v Finland recently in both legs)?"

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