By Bulldog Drummond
Not much news on the injury front
| Player | What’s up | When he retuns | This weekend? |
| G Xhaka | Illness | April 15, 2018 | Slight Doubt |
| H Mkhitaryan | MCL Knee Ligament Injury | April 29, 2018 | No |
| D Ospina | Ankle Injury | April 29, 2018 | No |
| A Maitland-Niles | Muscular Injury | April 15, 2018 | Major Doubt |
| S Cazorla | Plantaris Injury | Unknown | No |
Newcastle are bottom of the injury league with no injuries recorded at all.
I suspect that with Elneny playing well, he’ll be given another game this weekend, to allow Xhaka fully to recover. He is reported to have had influenza. If that is true he certainly won’t be ready by now. If it was a heavy cold then he could recover better by having a few more days off.
Otherwise it looks to me like the date for Mkhitaryan ‘s return has been brought forward so that he might get some games in May.
In the last piece I noted the infamous 4-4 game simply because it is what the media often talk about. But since then interesting things have happened in this match…
| Date | Game | Res | Score | Competition |
| 05 Feb 2011 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | D | 4-4 | Premier League |
| 13 Aug 2011 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | D | 0-0 | Premier League |
| 12 Mar 2012 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 29 Dec 2012 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 7-3 | Premier League |
| 19 May 2013 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 29 Dec 2013 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 28 Apr 2014 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 3-0 | Premier League |
| 13 Dec 2014 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 4-1 | Premier League |
| 21 Mar 2015 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 1-2 | Premier League |
| 29 Aug 2015 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 02 Jan 2016 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 1-0 | Premier League |
| 16 Dec 2017 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 1-0 | Premier League |
That is 12 games listed above of which we have won the last ten. Now of course all runs come to an end sometimes but I would sooner go into a game on a winning run rather than a losing run.
Across the years Newcastle have nearly equalled us in terms of the matches between us – they have won 66 to our 75 wins, and it is an interesting comparison because these two clubs entered the league in 1893 at the same time.
But it was in the mid-90s that these things changed around and although through 1994 to 1976 Newcastle won four in a row, since January 1996 Newcastle have won just four.
And here’s an interesting little point that brings up an old favourite. A couple of years ago the Guardian tried that old trick that journalists everywhere love – giving a statistic without any background evidence or context in order to try and make it look important.
They reported that Arsenal had in one particular season, only had two players who were in double figures for the season in terms of scoring, forgetting to say that only a couple of teams had three players in this category.
This year Arsenal have three players in double figures: Lacazette, Ramsey and Welbeck with 12, 10 and 10 goals respectively. However you may have noted my little trick there – the sort of trick that the Guardian played. They were talking about League goals, and I moved across to count all goals in major competitions. This season thus far we only have one player in double goalscoring figures in the League (Lacazette with ten).
Now that sounds awful – except that when we look at the table we see that Arsenal are the fifth highest goalscorers in the League. Not as high as I would like it to be, but not the utter disaster that only have one player with double figures (and he only on ten) might suggest.
Trying to resolve this is difficult because Arsenal.com in its goalscoring and appearance list for 2017/18 does not list Aubameyang at all! In fact Aubameyang has actually got six according to Sports Mole. But they only give Lacazette 11 not 12 in total. And anyway there’s the fact that we lost two of our goalscorers in the transfer window: Giroud and Alexis. It is all rather confusing this who scored business.
Who Scored, the web site, has Lacazette on 10, with Ramsey and Aub both on six, and I suspect that is the right answer.
- Newcastle v Arsenal. Arsenal are crumbling… or maybe they are not.
- Bias figures beyond belief. Newcastle v Arsenal Sunday 15 April 2018 – The Match Officials
- Fifa are considering banning loans as they target Chelsea and Juventus
OT – another special Yellow card instead of a Red for a Spud attempted leg braek on Kompany.
You mean the goalkeeper, Loris?
No Gord – it was Ben Davies’ studs on Kompany’s shin with no attempt to play the ball. In fact it was so far from play that it was a deliberate attempt to break Kompany’s leg.
World Football only shows one yellow to the spuds. More accurate media I guess then.
Loris went sliding into Sterling just outside the box studs first & got a yellow. That was probably correct but the penalty was incorrect as the foul was outside the box.
LiveScore shows the yellow you are talking about. Silly thing is, their commentary describes it as a yellow for violent conduct. There is no yellow for violent conduct. Violent conduct is only a red.
WorldFootball is not the only medja site which missed Davies “yellow” for violent conduct.
With that Raheem Sterling’s 72nd minutes goal, the 3rd for City in the game. I think it’ll not be wrong to say this PL game is lost by Tottenham Hotspur tonight. This Spurs lose and the Chelsea win at Southampton early in the day will leave Arsenal 1 point behind Chelsea on 5th and 10 points behind Spurs on 4th to Arsenal who are on 6th in the table but if they beat Newcastle United tomorrow to still keep their 4th place finish this season alive with 5 games for 15 points left for the trio clubs to play.. Therefore, let Le Boss field a very strong Arsenal team against Newcastle that will win the match tomorrow.
COYG.
Sorry, it’ll be 3 points behind Chelsea if we beat Newcastle tomorrow.
Typical Spurs…shocking tackle by Davies. Dark yellow? Dark Red.
The Loris studs first, completely out of control and dangerous challenge was at least a genuine attempt to get the ball was a red card all day long. The disgraceful Davies challenge on Kompany was not an attempt to get the ball which was long gone but a calculated attempt to inflict damage on his leg. That made it particularly nasty. Most red cards for dangerous foul play are not intentional, this one most certainly was deliberate and should therefore mean a ban of several weeks which is what would happen in rugby. As it is the idiot Moss gave only a yellow card I believe and so that is the end of the matter. Disgraceful and shame on Spurs who get away with this sort of behaviour all too frequently with hardly a word said by the media.
OT
Wenger says Mkhitayran should be back within two weeks.
Great news.
Man City a very cynical side every player willing to take a yellow for team!!
They don’t go through a game without a booking
Liverpool put in a few late tackles yesterday Henderson got away with one then the Ox got booked , we Arsenal IMO have players booked for rather silly infringements what are not going to lead to goals against situations