Want to find Lee Cattermole during a Premier League match? Look for the referee reaching into his pocket. Sunderland's midfield enforcer piled up bookings as if they were going out of fashion. He lived on the edge, and fairly often he fell right off it.
The defensive midfielder played from 2004 to 2019 for Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Wigan Athletic and Venlo.
The numbers make grim reading. Few players in Premier League history have collected more yellow and red cards. He was sent off 8 times in the league, one of the worst records there is, and once saw red after just 4 minutes against Everton.
Did Cattermole's bans really hurt his teams?
They did. His disciplinary record was bad enough that managers had to allow for his suspensions when they planned a season.
At Sunderland they called him the Terminator. That had nothing to do with his passing. It was about what he did to everything in front of him.
Cattermole never played for a top-six club and never won a trophy. Everyone in the Premier League still knew his name, mostly because he spent half his career being booked and the other half suspended.
Tomorrow: villain number 23.
