Arsenal going backwards, but are we alone in this?

By Walter Broeckx

Today I saw an Arsenal supporter saying this:

“Arsenal after 28 games this season – 51pts Arsenal after 28 games last season – 54pts Arsenal after 28 games two seasons ago – 59pts..even with a better team..thats how we do..thats the progress we made..”

Now this supporter will still have been full of disappointment after yesterday’s result. Of course we all are disappointed. Only those with an agenda will feel great as it gives them some more time to shout abuse and ask for all and everyone to be sacked immediately. The told you so that we all like to use from time to time.

Now of course the numbers this supporter quoted are correct. No argument from my part. But and this is where Untold comes in to it… it is all well and good to compare our numbers over different seasons but even without looking at things I know that the PL this season is completely different from to other seasons.

So I thought it would be nice not just to compare the points for Arsenal but let us throw in the points of all the teams that were in the PL this and last season. And if we do this we get the following table. The order is based on the final table of last season.

 

2014 – 2015 2015 – 2016  + / –
1 Chelsea 64 39 -25
2 Man C 58 47 -11
3 Arsenal 54 51 -3
4 MU 53 47 -6
5 Liverpool 51 41 -10
6 Tottenham 50 54 4
7 Southampton 49 40 -9
8 Stoke 42 42 0
9 Swansea 40 30 -10
10 West Ham 39 46 7
11 Newcastle 35 24 -11
12 Crystal Palace 30 33 3
13 WBA 30 36 6
14 Everton 28 38 10
15
16 Sunderland 26 24 -2
17 Aston Villa 25 16 -9
18
19
20 Leicester 19 57 38

 

And the first observation I want to make that all the teams who finished in the top 5 last season have fewer points after 28 matches compared to last season.

The biggest losers are the team that won it last season. Chelsea has 25 points less than last season. They didn’t really go forward despite having the best coach in the world (according to himself anyway) and despite having kept their team and added some more players.

Manchester City. Spending money as always and like never before… but the numbers say that they have 11 points fewer than at this stage last season.

Manchester United also spend lots of money once again. But in the end… they now have 6 points less than last season.

Liverpool sold a big player but also spent money like they do each year. And the result… 10 points less. Despite having changed manager during the season.

So in fact Arsenal only losing 3 points compared to last season… looks rather fine if you compare this with the big spenders.

The only team that finished in the top 6 last season that has done better is Tottenham. They have 4 points more this season.

I come to Leicester now. Last season they only had 19 points and now they have 57 points. That is 38 points better! But it is also a fact that Leicester now after 28 matches have 7 points less than Chelsea had last season.

The conclusion is simple I think. The smaller teams have improved a lot this season. Certainly the newly promoted teams have done much better than expected.  Bournemouth is the lowest placed promoted team and they are in 15th place and look reasonably save to stay in the PL this season.

But by this improvement of the smaller teams we see that each match is more difficult to win. And this results in less points for the top teams.

I don’t know which team will win it in May but I do think that it will be with the lowest number of points for a very long time. Is this because football in the PL is dropping in level? I think it might be the opposite. The level of the lower teams is rising and the top teams are more or less standing still. Or going backwards even.

Now one might argue that Arsenal and Wenger would have done better to spend the war chest last summer but then again….the teams that did spend loads of money have gone back more than us. And the team that kept their team more or less intact and only added a few more or less unknown players is the team that has improved beyond everyone’s expectation.

So maybe the answer could be for Wenger to buy more young and unknown players again? As that seems to be a better solution than the one offered by the money spenders.

————-

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63 Replies to “Arsenal going backwards, but are we alone in this?”

  1. Thanks for that article Walter.

    Don’t you think it is a trifle funny that everyone who is screaming for change is doing so without looking at any evidence like this.

    Oh, but I forgot “you can prove anything with statistics”. But I do like the idea of buying more Coquelines and Bellerins.

  2. This weekend’s derby will be the biggest NLD in years! Last night was never really THAT crucial- but i’d argue that this weekend’s game against the tiny tots is actually huge. I’m looking forward to EVERY Arsenal fan to get behind the team for that game!

  3. so we’re getting worse then? are those what the facts, sorry FACTS, are telling us?

  4. The analysis is all well and good but the major difference between Arsenal and the other big clubs that have accrued fewer points than in previous seasons is that they have all made/or are about to make management changes in an attempt to arrest the decline. Arsenal, however, continue to trundle along with the same manager and methods that have failed to deliver the progress towards major trophies a club of our status deserves.

  5. Interesting that for the last 11 matches, Arsenal have won 15 pts.
    If you look at the exact same corresponding 11 fixtures last year (replacing promoted top placed Bournemouth with relegated best placed Hull) Arsenal won 16pts.
    If you have the same players, you get the same resultsInsanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
    Albert Einstein.

  6. @davethegooner and how’s that going? (bare in mind we’re 3rd and current FA cup holders before you answer)

  7. Tony you keep harping on about evidence but its plainly obvious to a blind man that we have gone backwards and that season after season after season we are making the same mistakes with a manager at the helm who runs the club top to bottom.He is paid a kings ransom to get things right but cannot.
    You mention chelsea,man utd and city also going backwards but they should be cut a little slack because since our last league championship all those years ago city have won it 2 times,chelsea 4 times and man u 5 times.Also 3 english teams have won the champions league.We havent finished in the top 2 in over a decade so can you understand why most fans want change and it is the few on here that are now in a minority.I hope Wenger walks at the end of the season but if god forbid the spurs win the league he might be pushed.Sad

  8. Interesting Walter…….but you are letting cold hard facts get in the way of today’s agenda. Cannot have that, might upset Messrs Souness Wright Robson and Durham.Might have to find an article from another blog to paste on here to counter such sensible viewpoints!
    Still think our biggest problem has been injuries…to our ball playing type MFs…just about all of them , at once, losing Coq and Caz in succession didn’t help either.
    But it has been a strange season.
    As for Arsenal, one win, a lucky goal, a dubious penalty, a lucky ref decision….ok maybe forget about the last two….could change this slump quite rapidly.

  9. Tony you keep harping on about evidence but its plainly obvious to a blind man that we have gone backwards and that season after season after season we are making the same mistakes with a manager at the helm who runs the club top to bottom.He is paid a kings ransom to get things right but cannot.
    You mention chelsea,man utd and city also going backwards but they should be cut a little slack because since our last league championship all those years ago city have won the title twice,chelsea 4 times and man u 5 times.Also 3 english teams have won the champions league.We havent finished in the top 2 in over a decade so can you understand why most fans want change and it is the few on here that are now in a minority.I hope Wenger walks at the end of the season but if god forbid the spurs win the league he might be pushed.Sad really but as the saying goes “every dog has its day” and i think Wenger has had his!!

  10. Some sanity here. All teams are more difficult to beat. People can’t deal with it, but as Walter shows, it has to be dealt with.

    Some lunatics come on here with the mentality of landowners. They buy tickets, they own Arsenal, they own the players, they own Wenger. They’ve been short changed, they haven’t been getting the trophys their money promised them.

    They call themselves football fans. 98% of football fans support clubs that never win a trophy. Sometimes a club gets a result like this

    Chelsea 2 Bradford City 4

    These so-called fans do not ask – what does that tell me about football in 2015? 2016?

    Any team can be beaten.

    The EPL is tough this season. Next season it will be tougher still. This summer sees the Euro tournament with 24 national teams, the EPL clubs with the TV money. Defenders who can park the bus in international games will be bought for good money to park the bus in the EPL.

    Every decent attacker can be analysed a thousand times, and then analysed again.

    Scoring goals might be the loneliest pursuit in sport.

  11. Walter Nice Article….
    Somehow every team and Goal Keeper seems to give their Best against us.Funny enough we can score against Neuer but not against other one.

    What hurt most is the way our Midfield playing, making it difficult for me to watch our team. We miss our ball playing MF. But still we need to be better with Quality which we have.

    2016 has not been gud for us, we r just not winning.

  12. I see moving the goal posts is also still very popular by some.

    Mmmm, moving the goalposts… could we check the goals in the Emirates before our next home match? I feel they are a bit too small…

  13. Davethe gooner posts

    ”Arsenal, however, continue to trundle along with the same manager and methods that have failed to deliver the progress towards major trophies a club of our status deserves.”

    What precisely does that mean? A club of our status ”deserves?”

  14. I also noticed that for some reason that remains unclear finishing second is now a real trophy…

  15. I think not finishing second will be a crime against humanity anytime soon now….

  16. I often wonder if there is any strategic planning going on behind the scenes at board level for Mr Wenger’s eventual departure. We all know how secretive the club is rightly perceived but there’s never a shred of insight as to the what lies beyond. Things are written and talked about endlessly but are we any closer to seeing the future? In the short term, like it or not, Wenger will continue even if we lose to Spurs on Saturday. In the medium term I can see him seeing out his current contract but in the long term I just don’t know. Don’t rule out another contract to take him into the next three seasons. It suits the board on the basis of ‘don’t do today what you can possibly put off until tomorrow’. The only thing I can see that would provoke serious change is falling out of top four in the league. Yes, we’re back into the unofficial trophy scenario that has been the glue to hold everything in place for Wenger. This has made him untouchable. So for all of us who want to see change just look below where we are in the league and see the shoots of change potentially on the horizon. Finish fifth and he’s gone. The problem is we want our team to win and to this end the irony is apparent; we will finish in the top four and much of the same awaits next season and beyond

  17. Walter made a good point about looking at points collected in the context of the whole season.

    If a comparison is possible… Arsenal 1998-99 vs Arsenal 2013-14 – which one is better? A team of Seaman, Adams, Petit, Vieira, Anelka, Bergkamp, Overmars…that conceded 17 league goals throughout whole league season or Arsenal of Szczesny, Per, Arteta, Rambo, Giroud, Ozil, Podolski that conceded 17 goals in games against City, Liverpool and Chavs?

    Well, one of those two teams collected 78 points, was knocked out in FA Cup semifinals and didn’t make it out of CL group stage. The other one managed to collect 79 points, win the cup and made it to Round of 16 despite of Group of Death.

    Which team was better?

  18. Walter, thank you. I didn’t know that. It’s very interesting and clearly demonstrates the bigger teams are not doing as well and the smaller teams are doing better. Not sure it explains which is the chicken or the egg though. Would you agree it doesn’t reveal what is the cause and what is the effect? Are the bigger teams worse than they were and as a result losing more points or are the smaller teams better, gaining more points as a result? Or maybe both. Clearly Leicester are better than they were but with the others its a little less clear. Anyway, as you know, the anger many of us feel comes from a deeper place than this. It comes from a persistant sorry fact. And that fact is that the same frailties that have contributed to lost points and games over the last 10-12 years are the same ones that have contributed to lost points and games this season. And Mr Wenger doesn’t resolve them. You may ask, is that a fact exactly? Isn’t it an unsubstantiated opinion? I think the evidence is self evident: in similar results and in similar and numerous performances over many seasons. Clearly each season is made up of good results and good performances too. Many of them. But evidently, not enough of them to win the League. The league around us may have changed this season with different teams doing either better and or worse than before but from where I’m sitting, in the case of Arsenal, everything’s the same. And that’s the problem. No change, no progress and no league trophy. Having said all of that, beating Spurs and going on a stonking run might, even now, put me in my place.

  19. Obviously wuinning the FA Cup is no sort of achievement, it’s a nothing trophy. It only means something to old people. Likewise qualifying for the Champions League season after season means nothing. As for getting a spanking huge stadium that introduces the visitor from the north to London, that’s the least of things.

  20. After the north london derby, Tottenham will have a hectic run of fixtures which includes playing Dortmund twice within 10 days. Although our upcoming fixture list isn’t very light either, it is much lighter than torts’ if you rule out the barca game. So I have a feeling we might actually win the derby. And considering what Wenger said about going back to basics, I think we might see a repeat of last season’s etihad game on this Saturday

  21. Another interesting fact is that Arsenal has won 50% of the winnable domestic trophies in the last 2 years.

    Of course we do know that by moving the goalposts each year some trophies are no more trophies for some. But as they are counted and published on the website of each team that won them over the years…they do look like trophies to me. Unless you move the goalposts with a certain purpose of course they aren’t.

  22. @Walter

    No English club has won more trophies than Arsenal since Ozil’s arrival (4). Chelsea have won 2, City 3, United 1 (even if they technically won CS before Ozil signed).

  23. Tony
    It’s a good news/ bad news then.
    The good news is, we can afford 50 Coquelin and Bellerins, if the £75 m war chest conveniently leaked by Arsenal PR department( and you thought they were bad at their job. Well, think again my good sir) is anything to go by.

    The bad news is of course, that, unless our Bellerin and Coquelins start scoring in a crazy and unusual for defensive position players sort of way, we will still have to address the fact that this season is right on track to become the third consecutive ,almost all time ,lowest scoring season under Wenger.
    2013-14 ( 68 goals), 2014-15 (63 goals) and 2015-16( projected 61 goals)
    With conversion rates below league’s average, at under 12% and declining.

  24. People are within their rights to compare teams in the same league, in different leagues, across different years of the same club and many other ways. The problem comes from expecting this comparison to actually mean something.

    A problem which comes from the medja, is the use of correlation. Two variables can be positively or negatively correlated across small or large expanses of range of time (distance, or similar). And it says nothing about whether one affects the other, that is a matter for causation.

    Back when I was in university, some correlation in the medja was between intelligence and diet. We think we know what intelligence is, and many learned people doubt that that an IQ test measures IQ. But, someone decided to correlate test scores of various kinds, with whether the person had had orange juice for breakfast the morning of the test. And their was a positive correlation. And the wrong conclusion is to assume that drinking orange juice before taking a test will improve their score in tests.

    What happens in general before a test, can affect test results. Experience road rage on the way to the test site? That can affect test scores. Or, it can affect tests involving brain function and the nervous system. But if the test in question is about the thickness of callous on the outside edge of the ball of the foot, it is kind of hard to see how road rage is going to influence that.

    More than any other sport; football is ruled by chance, by random factors. The problem is that it is so difficult to score. You could get a concensus between learned populations as to which of two teams was better than the other, and in a single game either can win. And this is with fair officials, not this crap from 😈 Mike Riley, PGMO the PremierLeague and TheFA.

  25. Ok Walter you like your stats do you. Right,We have played 9 games in 2016 in the league : W3 .D3. L3. P.12. Chelsea: W.5.D.4.L.0 P.19. The spuds are second best with .W6.D.1.L.2.P.19. Leicester are third best W.5.D.3.L.1 P.18 Our current form is not title winning class and our remaining games away look even tougher now than they did two weeks ago. Also home ones against West Brum ( Pullis loves annoying Wenger ) and Watford also look tricky. Wenger had better start getting things sorted because City and United ate not far behind us and both are looking for a top 4 spot. The game om Saturday at the lane of shame ,well the spuds going 50 years without winning a league title is a shame, could not have come at a worse time for us – or at a better one for Tottenham .If we can’t win then we need to ensure that we don’t lose . The omens on that not occurring however look bleak to say the least. Wenger looks like a cornered rat these days blustering away about speerit and confidence,leaders all over the pitch… you have to laugh … the usual suspects such as Ramsey and Wally have gone rather quiet though and it looks like those wild celebs following on the rather fortuitous win over Leicester with a lap of honor and changing room mad cap antics posted on the social media signaled -job done.And there was still 12 games left to play! You couldn’t make it up

  26. We’re in our usual position of 3rd/4th.That’s my point!! There is no progress towards the top and year after year we do nothing to address that. The other big clubs have! The FA Cup is a great trophy and day out but it’s a cup competition and it helps that we have more home draws against lower league opposition than most. We should be seriously challenging for the league and champions league.
    We have become a club that lacks ambition and supporters expectations have been managed downwards for such a long time that we accept the status quo as success. We are a huge club with financial resources to match most in world football who is stuck in “elite purgatory” with a complacent culture that no longer seriously tries to challenge for the major trophies.

  27. Walter
    FA cup is a third tier trophy. An important one and very much worth celebrating and talking about, but still behind the league and CL in the pecking order.

    When Pellegrini gave the FA and the TV companies the one finger salute by fielding five unknown youth players against Chelsea, he also kind a gave the same one finger salute to the FA cup and its importance to a top club.

  28. It means we have financial resources to match most in world football and charge the highest ticket prices. That means to me that we should have a board and manager that are taking every possible action to give us every opportunity to challenge for major honours. Are you able to, with a straight face, say that we are doing everything including utilising every available resource to challenge?

  29. In professional Football everything is relative, meaning that time is a major factor in determining whether a team has met,exceeded or fallen below expectations. Whose expectations, you ask…..well the supporters, the media and the pundits usually, but in reality, the manager’s, the players and the Board, and the owner perhaps. In our case, Kroenke is totally indifferent, but Wenger and the Board clearly want to win, as do the players.

    1)We hit three goalposts last night!
    2)A clear foul on Ozil was ignored,
    3)We dominated most of the match,
    4)Sanchez and Giroud missed at least 5 goals between them,
    5)Our defense (including Cech) went to sleep for 2 minutes, and Swansea scored two goals!

    The media, the pundits, the WOB’s and the aaa are now in full voice, demanding whatever knee-jerk reaction suits their agenda, BUT the fact remains that there are 10 games to go and WHEN we return to winning ways, they will disappear into their sewers, eagerly anticipating our next defeat. That’s what fickle plastic fanboys do…..real supporters cheer on their Gunners regardless of their previous results because they know that Arsenal are as good as their best game, not their worst!

  30. Can Arsenal still win the title? And if they don’t what happens next? The real question should be do they want to win it? I mean as a club. As a business?

    Succesfull businesses set up strategic objectives and everyone is measured according to how well they execute towards these objectives. So what are Arsenal strategic objectives as a business? How are Wenger, Gazidis and the players are measured. And if you think it is winning EPL and UCL titles on a regular basis what makes think so?

  31. http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10190058/ref-watch-dermot-gallagher-analyses-premier-league-decisions

    despite what we saw on TV, and despite what we see in the articles photo, apparently Ozil was not fouled last night and the ref was correct.
    so it is now permissable to grab a player round the neck, I am sure we will see Coq and Flam regularly doing this, and getting away with it.
    Good job there is no media agenda over Arsenals refereeing then

  32. “knee-jerk” reactions? hardly. wenger’s short comings have been discussed ad nauseam for 7 or 8 years. the outcome of his failings has been accurately predicted by even the most witless pundit and jouralist ever since. wenger just keeps proving his critics right.

  33. Dear me some on here could make a turd look like the queens jewels.Talk about desperately trying to put a positive spin on things .Walter have you ever thought of going into politics you’d give alistair campbell a run for his money..

  34. Walter,

    I was just looking back at the match vs Swansesa. As everyone knows that their first goal illegal due to a foul in the build up. Their second goal was also illegal. Firstly Ayew dived on the tackle from Gabriel. Gabriel made no contact at all. Secondly on the free kick Ashley Williams had his head and shoulders in an offside position. 🙁

    Reviews might take time this week due to large no. of consecutive EPL games happening within a week.

  35. Thanks Mandy for that info. I could not watch skysports and all the crowing anti Arsenal pundits, but I was interested if Gallagher would make a comment on the not given foul and the illegal goal.

    What Gallagher has shown, assuming he is not a complete dork, is that he has no compunction sacrificing his own reputation and integrity for……some form of expediency.

    Typical of those who protect the select few who ruin the sport which would otherwise be enjoyed by so many.

  36. Chelsea 2 Bradford City 4

    Iceland playing in the Euro 2016 this summer.

    How big is Iceland? How many leagues does it support? How many players does it have?

    DavetheGooner posts

    ”It means we have financial resources to match most in world football and charge the highest ticket prices. That means to me that we should have a board and manager that are taking every possible action to give us every opportunity to challenge for major honours. Are you able to, with a straight face, say that we are doing everything including utilising every available resource to challenge?”

    This is a mission statement, landowner speak.

    The reality of football is that any team, within the boundaries imposed by the tournament, can beat anyother team. That’s where football starts.

    Next – every game is recorded and analysed.

    Third – people use their intelligence to play football.

    Fourth – FIFA has shown that the administration of football is corrupt.

    Fifth – every person watching football has every right to ask where that level of corruption visible throughout the upper echelons of FIFA is made visible in front of them.

  37. Its not that we are getting worse really, but that we have stood still for the past 3-5 seasons. This is of course better than getting worse at first glance. We stayed in the top 4 and CL for so long it’s becoming a standard that everyone expects, even the players.

    On the other hand, getting worse brings change, a change that is forced in order to improve. Arsenal missed this change either voluntarily or forced and this is the situation we are in now.

    Arsenal it seems are at the stage of a kung fu pupil, still learning the basic moves, getting them burned into their subconscious. These moves can beat an opponent who does not know these moves, but others, even non-adepts can analyse these moves and create counter moves.

    Against adepts, we can sometimes manage to gain some points because of the moves they play are similar to our moves, but in the end, until we start to do those moves without having to think of them first, we will not progress.

    On top of that, to become a Master, one has to be creating variations of those moves now firmly in the subconscious, and apply them. This brings spontaneity and unpredictability into the game.

    Alas Arsenal has not yet reached that stage(i saw signs of it this season though), and no other Master can teach them that, only time, that is, time spent by the individuals themselves wanting and working to achieve that Mastery.

    AW has taught them the skills, now it is time for them to become Masters, or to forever stay a pupil.

  38. Good analogy Para. Wenger is a highly intelligent man, aiming for a game that is very hard to achieve, especially in this league where opponents are permitted…even encouraged to kick our players at will. A league not suited to technical finesse, and a media which uses all they have to rally against such concepts.
    The problem has been keeping players long enough to become masters, some fall by the wayside, some may lose confidence, need help or will not fully understand their role…think we have a couple of them right now… others have been tempted elsewhere…on that note, I would feel a lot better if there was a bit more urgency in getting extensions sorted for Ozil…and Alexis.
    Mastery….a worthy aim, but at the moment, I would politely suggest he needs to put this project temporarily on hold, and rely more on the basics to rebuild confidence though I suspect Wenger is lothe to allow them the chance to rely on such low forms of the game….but, ultimately,they are not 8th dans yet, although with Grandmaster Cazorla in the team, some are very close

  39. No .1 priority The Premier league …………………..Please again soon
    No .2 ………The champions league ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,My one day pipe dream
    No3 The F.A.Cup ……………………….. Nice day out with kudos
    No 4 ………..The League Cup ………………………Nice day out with the kids

    Charity / community shield …………………Nowhere. day in the sunshine.

    As far as I am concerned that’s all.

  40. Note** this is a copied comment from the past 4 seasons.”No surprises here.We are merely going through the seasonal routine.Fall out of all competitions, win nothing except the 4th place trophy, fail to strengthen the team, Give Wenger a new contract and press replay.” been saying this same thing for 4 years. All I had to do was copy and paste.Roll on next season!Lets do this again

  41. Walter my old friend,those figures that you quote are all well and good but as the ones I posted earlier show Chelsea are doing better since GH took over and as we can see the Mourinho factor had impacted on their results and performances.City have always been inconsistent whoever managed them and Liverpool have not been a proper top 4 side for donkey’s years .United suffered from Ferguson retiring but are now closing the gap on us again ,despite being nothing special. Leicster are having a probably one off freak puching above their weight and it remains to be seen how much improvement the spuds have made. Wenger however continues to just tread water and failed to grasp the opportunity in the way that Ferguson and Mourinho did in recent times to seize the imitative in the league .And as your figures show in fact we have gone backwards under him

  42. Milan posts

    ”Wenger however continues to just tread water and failed to grasp the opportunity in the way that Ferguson and Mourinho did in recent times to seize the imitative in the league ”

    Such as Fergie creating a geological phenomenon in North West England called ‘Fergie Time”and Mourinho acquiring access to a source of unlimited Russian roubles.

    Your actual language is pure gibberish. It is meaningless. A season is 38 matches long. It starts in August of a year and ends in the May of the next year. A season is a long hard slog. Players gain form, lose form, gain form again. Each of the single 38 games is a massive event. Each massive single event – 38 of them – runs over ninety minutes. Each of the 90 minutes event is filled with phases, interludes, swinging periods of momentum. A goal takes 30 seconds.

    To create ‘Fergie Time,’ when the ninety minutes at a ground is already the longest, most filled, most stretched, tautest, ninety minutes of the week, to create extra minutes for the specific purpose of making certain ManU get an equalizer, or a winner, the referee absolutely following Ferguson, every person around the country knowing what is happening, knowing it to the point that anyone could say, ”Fergie Time” and nobody had to ask what it was, you could crack jokes about the game playing on to Christmas, this is the manipulation of the game Ferguson had, and you wish it for Wenger.

    If you have to make a critique of Wenger then it has to be done in the realm of his actions. His actions are there for each of us to see from August of one year to May of the next. Thirty-eight games. Ninety minutes a game.

    Each game is distinctly different from the game preceeding it and the game following it. Each moment of the game is different from the moment before it and the moment after it. To make your argument you have to cite evidence – games, moments in games, actions in games, from this season, from that season.

    You still haven’t explained your reference to ”durex” in in an earlier post.

  43. The thing withnstasticsciscthatbyou can skew most things to suit your argument. Select certain time prriods that magnify some facts, chose a scale that emphasis a certain change,. A more reliable method is to look for correlations and a mathematical. R squared value. Say a company doubles its advertising budget, is sales double the you have a 100% correlation. Look for a common correlation and measure the effect.

  44. Milan

    You seem very much like a person who posts on another Arsenal site with your “you couldn’t make it up” comment. That person is probably the one who made me give up on that site altogether. An absolute disgrace of an Arsenal fan (you couldn’t possibly call him a supporter) whose criticism is vicious and personal. I’m glad I found Untold as this is the site for true Arsenal supporters who despite disappointments get behind their club. Please stick to that other site where you will be in the company of your own ilk. I have far more respect for fair minded supporters of other clubs than the so called Arsenal fans like you. With the competition so difficult it is no easy matter to stay in contact with the top of the league and you do not appreciate what Arsenal have achieved at all in staying up there all these years. I remember far more grim years so beware of what you wish for.

  45. @ Milan ‘Note** this is a copied comment from the past 4 seasons.”No surprises here.We are merely going through the seasonal routine.Fall out of all competitions, win nothing except the 4th place trophy, fail to strengthen the team, Give Wenger a new contract and press replay.” been saying this same thing for 4 years. All I had to do was copy and paste.Roll on next season!Lets do this again’.

    Win nothing in the past 4 seasons? When the team wasn’t winning anything ,The FA Cup was something when other team won it, but when we won it, it become a Nothing Cup. If we win the league this year, these WOBs will say only because the league is weak and Arsenal was lucky blah blah blah. These people really should go support Chelsea, ManU or ManC as these teams seem to fit their profile.

    This season so far we are 3rd in Goal Against only slightly behind Spurs and ManU so defensively we are ok. We are currently 5th in Goal For. If we can improve our scoring then we should be able to win the title. Lately, the finishing has been awful, but at least we are creating a lot chances, if we didn’t then it will be a big worry.

    There are 10 games to go and we are 6 points adrift so let support the team until end of season instead of all these negative comments. If we fail to win at end of season, then definitely all the fans should write to Arsenal Board and demand an explaination.

  46. Having extensively compared the improvement or decline of Arsenal and other clubs over the last few seasons and for the most part not in any position to contribute or change their respective status quo , I would like to know how did your life and relationships do in the same period.

    Did you give the same extensive and proper considerations to your career , the general well being of your self , your family and your friends ?

    Are you in a better place career and financial wise ; happier in love and life ; have a great blissful home life and a great circle of friends ?

    If yes in all counts , congratulations . And great work .

    Or have things been going downhill ? Why ? Not sure ? And you are on here to teach Arsenal , AW and Arsenal the way forward ?

    Thanks , but no thanks !

  47. Milan,
    So we won nothing the last seasons….. I am baffled Milan… You are not an Arsenal supporter. By saying what you did about winning nothing the last seasons… LOL…. or should I say….sad…

    As I said: shifting the goal posts… when we win the league you still will say : we won nothing and move the goal posts to the CL….

    I think you should go and visit Dr. Bill on the North Circular Road one of these days and ask for help because your hate against Wenger and our club is becoming a bit unhealthy as you start losing grip with reality it seems.

  48. I don’t get these people posting all the WOB stuff on here. Go post on LeGrove where everyone will big you up and agree with you. I wouldn’t waste my time postint on LeGrove why do you bother posting here WUM trolls.

  49. FALSE – When things change I will be happy .
    TRUE – When I am happy , things will change .
    Kyle Cease .

  50. Please go and read arse blog. He’sbeen pro wenger for many years and he’s starting to turn. Which is fantastic as people read that blog the most so the more fans are made aware of the criminal management we have In place the better.

  51. I am not AKA Milan,or Aka Bilk either … Aka Milan sounds like some hip hop singer or an American Basketball one… also I have never been rumbled . I have no idea what that entails but it sounds nasty … obviously the pain of Arsene’s embarrassing demise is getting to you but cheer up things might improve on Saturday at high noon down the lane of shame… if not then as the parachutist said on finding that both his parachutes had failed to open,so much for sky-diving then … on another note I have learned that we are the team with the less shots on goal from out-side the area of any side in the league… it’s all down to Arsene’s brilliant training ground coaching …all that swerving around traffic cones by our players exchanging short passes with one another like they were playing a game of pass the parcel before walking the ball into the net malarkey much to old Arsene’s delight … have you noticed how shirty he gets when one of our lot lets loose with a shot from distance that ends up in the crowd ..sacre bleu! Wenger screams at his nodding dog ( Bouldy ) ve could have made 24 more passes from that position ! The problem is that opposition sides have football players in defence and not plastic cones… also would you Adam and Eve it we are the side who are top of the charts for hitting the woodwork the most times! I think a trophy should be awarded at season’s end for the team who hits the woodwork the most times …I suggest calling the trophy,made of wood natch,’The Woodwork Shield’… And the top team that wins it would be named The Wooden Tops. Good old Arsene.

  52. The fact that jellyfish have survived for more than 500 million years , despite having no brains gives hope to many people .

    That thought frightens the shit out of me ! What if Darwin were wrong , and the stupidest of the lot managed to evolve ?

    I’m sure you have had the same thoughts too !

  53. ‘Criminal Management’ that’s a first I have read. You better call the police Milan, are those management people are stealing ‘money’?

  54. Menace we should sign John and Milan the two jelly fish what are your thoughts brickfields?

  55. Great article Walter and agree completely, and have been trying to tell this to anyone that would listen (not many)…

    I would add that our tally would be considerably better if only the ref had spotted the fouls for Swanseas 1st, the assistant had seen the offside when all he had to do was look along a line… The ref had correctly awarded a penalty and sent off Rashford against Utd… The 1st 3 goals against Southampton were correctly disallowed… Any semblance of a refereeing performance had happened away to Chelsea.. The wrongly disallowed goal for offside was given against Liverpool… And add to this any number of penalties that should have been given were given…

  56. Is Milan a little kid? I’m baffled by his dribble rant. Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m sure some of the best teams like Barca, Real Madrid, Brazil, Argentina games rely on dribble the ball into the penalty area. Oh I see they all must have won the World Cup and Champions League by playing long balls and shoot outside the box. This person is becoming more absurd with each post made.

    If you’re on here to troll then I feel sorry for you. Life is to short, go outside and enjoy life. Don’t let the negative feelings take over your life as there are plenty of good in this world.

  57. @ Va Cong – March 4, 2016 at 10:50 am – Pot calling…..

    A couple arrived at town hall seconds before closing time, and caught a judge just as he was about to leave, and asked him to marry them.

    He asked if they had a license and, when they said they didn’t, He sent them off to get one.

    They caught the town clerk just as he was locking up, and got the license from him.

    When they got back to the judge, he pointed out they had filled the names in wrong — with his where hers belonged and vice versa.

    They rushed back to the clerk’s office, caught him again, and got another license.

    This time, the judge noticed that the clerk had filled in the date in the wrong format. Again they caught the clerk… and after five reissued licenses, the judge was finally satisfied.

    Judge: “I hope you appreciate why I made you keep going back. If there are irregularities in the license, your marriage would not be legal, and any children you might have would be technical bastards.”

    Groom: “That’s funny – that’s just what the clerk called you.”

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