yes this is true. Thanks for pointing this out. Player X may not foul much, and then everybody else in the team gets better, and so he becomes the weak link, and as such, his fouls increase.
I dont think i can really factor this into any stats. But how much would it increase?
There are lots of variables at play here. Whether the players play with out good defenders, the style of defense, the quality of the opposition..., whether or not they played out of position because they were getting training.
But if there is a large enough data pool, these factors would be smoothed out.
I could always just take players from the transfer market. ...
it may be, that, foul frequency may be a simple factor, which people have not realised yet.
it could be a simple ratio of Expereience, ID, and Handling. If there was a statistical link between these three stats and fouls, for say, 10 players, and then i applied the same for 20 players, 30 players and still find a link, then we could make some assumptions that those things are a factor, as well as the hidden 'agression' stat.
Sorry! Just thinking out loud here. Im thinking it could be something simple, a simple weighted ratio or something like that.
But maybe its not. i really dont know. I will have a look into it and see what comes out.