Right. So our resident spreadsheet enthusiast Sarah Boffin has had a go at Harry Maguire's disciplinary record. Pokémon, she said. Collecting cards like Pokémon. Very clever. Very funny. I sat down this morning with a cup of tea and a biscuit fully intending to write a proper rebuttal. Defend the lad. Say something about how stats don't tell the whole story.

Then I actually looked at the numbers myself. And I need to lie down.

She's right. Annoyingly, insufferably, smugly right. I hate it when that happens.

Since Maguire rocked up at Old Trafford for eighty million quid in 2019, his disciplinary record reads like a rap sheet from a particularly rowdy pub league in Doncaster. The FA charge after that Bournemouth red card is just the latest entry in what is becoming less a disciplinary record and more a bloody autobiography. Volume six.

I went through the numbers myself because I don't trust anyone under forty with a calculator. Here is what I found. In his time at United, Maguire has averaged a booking roughly every three and a half Premier League appearances. Three and a half. There are lads playing in the Championship who commit fewer fouls in an entire season than Harry manages before Christmas.

Now look. I played in an era when you could leave a bit on someone and the ref would just tell you to calm down. Those were proper times. No cameras. No replays. No bloke in Stockley Park eating a sandwich while he decides whether your studs were showing. Football was better then. But even by those standards, Maguire would have been a walking disaster. Roy Keane used to at least wait until the second half before he started collecting cards.

What really stings is this. Boffin compared Maguire's card accumulation rate to other centre backs who have played 100 or more Premier League games since 2019. He is not just at the top of the list. He is so far ahead of the rest that the list looks like it has got a typographical error. It is like comparing Usain Bolt to the rest of the field except instead of sprinting he is getting booked.

And before anyone says "oh but he's passionate" or "he wears his heart on his sleeve," no. Passion is Roy of the Rovers stuff. This is just a man who cannot stop lunging at people. There is a difference between being brave and being a liability, and Maguire crossed that line somewhere around his fourteenth yellow card.

The worst part? VAR should theoretically be helping him. All these cameras. All these angles. All these chances for someone to say "actually ref, that wasn't a foul." But no. VAR has looked at Maguire's challenges and essentially gone "yeah, that's a booking mate." When even the technology I despise agrees you have gone too far, you have a serious problem.

So well done Sarah. Your numbers check out. Your Pokémon line was decent. I am officially agreeing with a data analyst and I feel physically unwell about it.

Maguire needs to sort himself out. Or at the very least stop giving our stats department easy content.