Bookings: Tame tussle expected in Sunday's Emirates encounter

CARD king Gavin Murphy (@GamePlanGavin) has spotted some bookings value at the Emirates on Sunday.

Arsenal v Burnley | Sunday 14:15 | Sky Sports 1

Arsenal welcome Burnley to the Emirates on Sunday in a must-win game for the hosts. Arsene Wenger's troops occupy fourth at time of writing and host a Clarets outfit who are in the heady position of 10th.

Burnley are in good form with three victories in four league matches. However, this might be a game that they see as a free swing rather than a dogfight sort of match.

Card history

There is very little by way of card history between these two clubs. The past four meetings between these two teams have seen total card figures of 0-2-2-1 at an average of 1.25 per-game.

Indeed over the past six meetings the Gunners have collected just one card. Quite amazing.

That's the good news. The relative bad news is that card-happy Jon Moss gets the whistle.

Moss averages 4.3 cards per-game in the league this season. However, he gave zero cards last week, albeit in an FA Cup game between Southampton and Norwich.

Moss has the whistle

Arsenal fans will be encouraged to see that their record when Moss covers them is W13-D1-L1.

In career games officiating the hosts he typically gives them just 1.00 card per-game and 2.07 to Burnley. That implies around 3.00 cards based on the career average. This season Arsenal average 1.71 cards per-game and Burnley 1.81. That suggests that the line this week of 3.5 looks about right.

With any other referee though given the historical stats I think this line would be 2.5.

Go low on cards

I know Burnley have been great at home but on the road they have been poor. They are the worst team in the division on their travels with just three goals scored and one point achieved from nine away games.

This strikes me as the sort of match Arsenal could score early and it peters out into a routine 2-0 or 3-0 home win.

With a strong record of low cards in this I want to go under. 11/1 on No Card with Bet365 is big but cannot be recommended as referee Moss has given at least one card in every league game so far this term.

However, Under 3.5 cards looks good given the recent average of 1.25 in head-to-head meetings and is worth backing at 4/5 with Bet365.