Four players were sent off across the nine Premier League matches played on October 17 and 18, with Brentford losing two against Liverpool, according to ESPN’s match events. Yehor Yarmoliuk was sent off for Brentford in the 45+8 minute and Vitaly Janelt in the 90+2, while Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon was dismissed in the 90+4 against Hull and Sunderland’s Kevin Danso was sent off in the 17th minute at Bournemouth. Liverpool beat Brentford 2-1, Fulham beat Hull 1-0 and Bournemouth beat Sunderland 2-0. The other six matches of the weekend produced no red cards, so all four dismissals came in three of the nine games.
The case that the red cards decided matches is strongest in two games. Keane Lewis-Potter had headed Brentford into a 1-0 lead in the 44th minute, but after Yarmoliuk’s dismissal in first-half stoppage time Liverpool scored twice, through Víctor Muñoz in the 62nd and Alexander Isak in the 70th, to win 2-1. At Bournemouth, Marcus Tavernier had headed the home side in front in the sixth minute, and Evanilson added a second in the 48th minute after Danso’s red card in the 17th, so Sunderland lost 2-0 after playing most of the match with ten men. In both matches the team with the extra player scored after the sending-off, and in both the scoring came in the second half, between the 48th and 70th minutes, which suggests the effect of the red cards grew as the games wore on.
The case that the cards had less impact is in the other half of the evidence. Two of the four, Janelt’s in the 90+2 and Sessegnon’s in the 90+4, came in stoppage time at the very end of their matches, and Fulham’s Alex Iwobi had already scored the only goal in the 33rd minute. Liverpool did not equalise until the 62nd minute, long after Yarmoliuk’s red card, so the extra player was not an immediate advantage. Bournemouth were already 1-0 up when Danso was dismissed, so the red card confirmed a lead rather than created one, and the second goal still took 31 minutes more. Sunderland, 19th in the table, were already struggling, so the red card is not the only reason for the result.
The cards matter for the Premier League because Sunderland, who are 19th with four points and 14 goals conceded in seven games, can ill afford to start matches with ten men, and Brentford, sixth on ten points, finished a home defeat with nine men. Liverpool, fifth on 12 points, took three points from the game. Fulham, 17th with five points from seven games and only seven goals scored, also won with ten men, and Bournemouth, 15th with six points, took three points. For English football, a weekend with four reds in nine matches is a reminder of how much a sending-off can shape a result and the standings.
Red cards changed the course of two matches and decorated the end of two others. The numbers show the extra man mattered most when the dismissal came early or before the break, and less when it came at the end.
