And thus it ends at home… to Burnley, the low score speciality team.

By Bulldog Drummond

And so to the final game at home for Mr Wenger with his side in an unfamiliar position.

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	35	30	3	2	102	26	76	93
2	Manchester United	36	24	5	7	67	28	39	77
3	Liverpool	36	20	12	4	80	37	43	72
4	Tottenham Hotspur	35	21	8	6	68	31	37	71
5	Chelsea	35	20	6	9	60	34	26	66
6	Arsenal	35	17	6	12	67	48	19	57
7	Burnley	36	14	12	10	35	32	3	54

The table does make it clear that in attacking terms we are not doing too badly being on a level with Manchester United and the much heralded sparkling whizzo Tottenham attack. It is of course the defence that has gone wrong this year.  Indeed if you wrote the league table in the order of defences, with the meanest defence at the top, we’d be ninth in the League.

Three games to go – and Untold will be at two of them – this weekend obviously and Leicester away (which is actually the nearest match to our East Midlands base).   Couldn’t get to Huddersfield unfortunately.

This season we have been following the home and away antics of each club in the previews and I think it has proven to be a very solid guide to how things will go.  So no need to change it now.   Here’s Arsenal at home.

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	17	15	1	1	58	13	45	46
2	Arsenal	18	14	2	2	49	20	29	44
3	Manchester United	18	14	2	2	37	9	28	44
4	Liverpool	18	11	7	0	41	10	31	40
5	Tottenham Hotspur	17	11	4	2	34	12	22	37

This is what the new manager needs to maintain with determination, because having got to this level of success and entertainment at the Ems, it gives us such a solid base.  A smaller number of goals against, at home, would be the icing.

Away from home we are not the worst in the league (as I saw someone write the other day) – we are 13th out of 20.  Not good enough but not the worst.  Burnley are sixth, showing a similarity between their home and away form.

Here’s the away table…

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	18	15	2	1	44	13	31	47
2	Tottenham Hotspur	18	10	4	4	34	19	15	34
3	Chelsea	18	10	3	5	32	19	13	33
4	Manchester United	18	10	3	5	30	19	11	33
5	Liverpool	18	9	5	4	39	27	12	32
6	Burnley	18	7	7	4	20	17	3	28
7	Leicester City	18	5	5	8	27	33	-6	20
8	Newcastle United	17	4	4	9	17	27	-10	16
9	AFC Bournemouth	18	3	6	9	17	30	-13	15
10	Crystal Palace	18	3	6	9	14	27	-13	15
11	Everton	18	3	6	9	15	33	-18	15
12	Watford	18	4	2	12	17	32	-15	14
13	Arsenal	17	3	4	10	18	28	-10	13

But for our purposes we don’t need to consider Arsenal away, merely Arsenal and home v Burnley away.

Burnley score fractionally over one goal a game and concede a smidgen under one goal a game away, while Arsenal score 2.7 goals a game at home conceding fractionally over one.   Burnley will go for the 0-0 draw, and if they concede will look to nick an equaliser by pulling back everything into defence even more, and then looking for a break.  Arsenal will go for 3-0 or maybe slip to 3-1.

As for the end of the season Burnley have no serious concerns about losing their seventh (and thus European) place to Everton as they have a six point cushion and a much better goal difference than Everton, with just two games to go.  For them not to make the preliminary rounds of the Europa they would have to lose both by four clear goals and Everton win both by four clear goals.  Talk about unlikely!

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
6	Arsenal	35	17	6	12	67	48	19	57
7	Burnley	36	14	12	10	35	32	3	54
8	Everton	36	13	9	14	42	54	-12	48

In fact only four Burnley games (excluding a league cup match that went to extra time) have had one of the sides scoring three goals this season – twice Burnley have got three (against Chelsea and West Ham) and twice the opposition have got three plus (Tottenham, and Man City who got four).

Here are their last ten games

Date	Game	Res	Score	Competition
0 Feb 2018	Swansea City v Burnley	L	1-0	Premier League
24 Feb 2018	Burnley v Southampton	D	1-1	Premier League
03 Mar 2018	Burnley v Everton	W	2-1	Premier League
10 Mar 2018	West Ham United v Burnley	W	0-3	Premier League
31 Mar 2018	West Bromwich  v Burnley	W	1-2	Premier League
07 Apr 2018	Watford v Burnley	W	1-2	Premier League
14 Apr 2018	Burnley v Leicester City	W	2-1	Premier League
19 Apr 2018	Burnley v Chelsea	L	1-2	Premier League
22 Apr 2018	Stoke City v Burnley	D	1-1	Premier League
28 Apr 2018	Burnley v Brighton and Hove	D	0-0	Premier League

Five wins (all in a sequence), three draws and two defeats.  The last three games have been without a win.

As for Arsenal in the last ten…

Date	Game	Res	Score	Competition
15 Mar 2018	Arsenal v AC Milan	W	3-1	Europa League
01 Apr 2018	Arsenal v Stoke City	W	3-0	Premier League
05 Apr 2018	Arsenal v CSKA Moscow	W	4-1	Europa League
08 Apr 2018	Arsenal v Southampton	W	3-2	Premier League
12 Apr 2018	CSKA Moscow v Arsenal	D	2-2	Europa League
15 Apr 2018	Newcastle United v Arsenal	L	2-1	Premier League
22 Apr 2018	Arsenal v West Ham United	W	4-1	Premier League
26 Apr 2018	Arsenal v Atlético Madrid	D	1-1	Europa League
29 Apr 2018	Manchester United v Arsenal	L	2-1	Premier League
03 May 2018	Atlético Madrid v Arsenal	L	1-0	Europa League

The last three for us have also been without a win and in the last ten we have five wins two draws and three defeats – so worse than Burnley.  But when we factor in the home/away effect you can see we won five and drew just the one at home.

More anon…

• How the Arsenal imagined by the media and the anti-Wenger fans compares to the club’s history
• Insult of the day, and a consideration of the minds of Keown and Souness
• EL : Atletico Madrid – Arsenal 1-0

From the Arsenal History Society

Norris breaks free, transfer fees spiral, terrorism returns, fixtures look awful. Arsenal – Summer of 1922.

Today’s anniversaries will appear on the site shortly, and we hope to have another episode from the “Norris at the Arsenal”) series later today as well.