Arsenal v Bournemouth: home and away prognostications, and injuries

By Bulldog Drummond.

And now back to the real thing, and the first point to look at must be Bournemouth’s activity as an away team.   Here’s their performance away from home last season

Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
10 Everton 19 4 6 9 20 28 -8 18
11 Stoke City 19 4 5 10 17 32 -15 17
12 West Bromwich Albion 19 3 7 9 16 29 -13 16
13 AFC Bournemouth 19 3 6 10 20 38 -18 15
14 Swansea City 19 4 2 13 18 36 -18 14
15 Watford 19 3 3 13 15 39 -24 12
16 Middlesbrough 19 1 7 11 10 30 -20 10
17 Leicester City 19 2 4 13 17 38 -21 10
18 Sunderland 19 3 1 15 13 35 -22 10
19 Burnley 19 1 4 14 13 35 -22 7
20 Hull City 19 1 3 15 9 45 -36 6

Just the three wins, which is encouraging for us and an average of two goals conceded for each game with only one scored.   As for Arsenal at home…

Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
1 Tottenham Hotspur 19 17 2 0 47 9 38 53
2 Chelsea 19 17 0 2 55 17 38 51
3 Arsenal 19 14 3 2 39 16 23 45
4 Everton 19 13 4 2 42 16 26 43

Two goals scored and one conceded which gives us from both counts a 2-1 win.

Towards the end of last season Bournemouth were quite strong, the last ten games showing just two defeats, but away from home there was just won win, but still only one defeat.  Both of these results however were very much by the form book – beating relegated Sunderland, losing the Tottenham.

Date Match Res Score Comp
01 Apr 2017 Southampton v Bournemouth D 0-0 PL
05 Apr 2017 Liverpool v Bournemouth D 2-2 PL
15 Apr 2017 Tottenham v Bournemouth L 4-0 PL
29 Apr 2017 Sunderland v Bournemouth W 0-1 PL
21 May 2017 Leicester City v Bournemouth D 1-1 PL

This season they have had two away games – one of which was won, against Championship Birmingham.

Date Match Res Score Comp
12 Aug 2017 WBA  v Bournemouth L 1-0 PL
22 Aug 2017 B’ham v Bournemouth W 1-2 Lge Cup

We might compare this with Arsenal’s home record from within the last ten games last season and the match so far this season…

Date Match Res Score Comp
26 Apr 2017 Arsenal v Leicester City W 1-0 PL
07 May 2017 Arsenal v Manchester United W 2-0 PL
16 May 2017 Arsenal v Sunderland W 2-0 PL
21 May 2017 Arsenal v Everton W 3-1 PL

And this season there has been just the one game

Date Match Res Score Comp
11 Aug 2017 Arsenal v Leicester City W 4-3 PL

All told taking in the last ten games (home and away) of last season and all the games this season, and then just counting away games for Bournemouth and home games for Arsenal we have

Bournemouth: won 2, drawn 3, lost two, thus showing a certain resilience, which is what we have seen in playing them.

Arsenal have played fewer games – just five, and won the lot.  2-1 still looks like the form score.

On the injury front…

If you were reading during the week you’ll know we had a look at an alternative approach to injuries which showed Arsenal with something like seven players out for each game, and tried to work out ways of finding a consistency.

One of the problems is the question of which players you include in the list:  we have several youngsters injured (Krystian Bielik for example will be out until December), but then he is unlikely to have played in any league games before then – he would have been expecting to be part of the League Cup squad and play for the under 23s.   So should we count him?

The problem with a “yes” answer to that question is that if we do count him I am going to be struggling to get all the data on all the young players who are out for a week or two, so on purely practical terms I don’t think it can be done.

More reliably we should go with players in the “25” and youngsters regularly playing for the first team (which at the moment would include Iwobi for Arsenal, but not Santi).

This is pretty much what Physioroom gives (that is the source of the stats we have used for the last two years), except they do include Santi, but even so, I’m staying put on them as a source:

Here’s their table

# TEAM No. out Last man down What happened
1 Everton 8 M Holgate Ankle Injury
2 Brighton and Hove 8 G Bong Muscle Strain
3 Stoke City 7 K Zouma Ankle Injury
4 Crystal Palace 7 P Souare Fitness
5 Watford 7 S Prodl Hamstring Injury
6 Tottenham Hotspur 5 K Trippier Ankle Injury
7 Swansea City 5 J Ayew Illness
8 West Ham United 5 E Fernandes Ankle Injury
9 Newcastle United 5 K Darlow Ankle Injury
10 Bournemouth 4 N Ake Ankle Injury
11 Manchester United 4 L Shaw Fitness
12 Huddersfield Town 4 C Quaner Knee Injury
13 Liverpool 3 A Lallana Thigh Strain
14 Arsenal 2 C Chambers Groin Strain

That puts us in 14th place as you can see from the chart, with just two men out.  One is Chambers and the other is Santi, who if we took the notion of him not being counted because he is not in the 25, would be 1 player out.  One or two, we are once again not, as the media would have it, the club with all the injuries.

Here’s the Bournemouth list

PLAYER What’s wrong Return date Available?
N Ake Ankle Injury September 9, 2017 Slight Doubt
S Francis Hamstring Injury September 9, 2017 Major Doubt
J Stanislas Groin Injury September 9, 2017 No
C Wilson ACL Knee Injury October 21, 2017 No

Now we have a problem again because we have three players with a return date tomorrow, but one is classified as a slight doubt, one a major doubt, and one so much of a doubt that he is just a “no”.   We’ve still got a way to go to resolve this.

More anon.

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3 Replies to “Arsenal v Bournemouth: home and away prognostications, and injuries”

  1. I think you have to count Santi as injured, as the only reason he’s not in the 25 is his injury.

  2. Alexis istagram, pointing skywards, “back home (after return from Chile fixtures), ‘focus'”

    I think he just called London home and said he aimed to focus on Arsenal and Mesut opened the score ling for Germany l, notched an assist and notched several key chance creations on duty and with Giroud and Lacazette playing fortune Same spot not unlike Theo and Danny.

    Slump should be about to end, Alexis is our talisman, heand Mesut must get even better.

    COYG 3 scored and a clean sheet. We need our swagger back!

  3. Dwain Kaye – Thanks for that post. Always get a chuckle when Ozil plays like that for the World Cup Winners. But, of course, not good enough for the EPL. It’s the body language you see. I’ll take 25 with his ‘body language’.

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