If Arsenal go on like this, what will the final table look like?

Posted on by Tony Attwood

 

 

By Bulldog Drummond

The question was recently asked of Untold, if Arsenal continue for the last ten games of the season, as they have been doing thus far, what would the final table look like?   With our trusty calculator we have taken the current situation at the top of the league and extrapolated the final reckonings based on current form, and compared this with the best ever performance by  team in the League.

 

Pos Extrapolation P W D L F A GD Pts
Today Arsenal 28 22 3 3 66 26 40 69
Possible Current form 38 30 4 4 90 35 55 94
2017/18 Best ever (Man C) 38 32 4 2 106 27 79 100

 

Arsenal will thus not be the best ever team in the premier league, but if Arsenal do finish on 94 points would be the fourth-best side ever, beaten only by Manchester City (2017/18 and 2018/19) and Liverpool (2019/20).

 

Season Club P W D L F A GD Pts
2017-18 Manchester City 38 32 4 2 106 27 79 100
2018-19 Manchester City 38 32 2 4 95 23 72 98
2019-20 Liverpool 38 32 3 3 85 33 52 99
2022/23 Arsenal?? 38 30 4 4 90 35 55 94

 

The only teams to have finished above this number in the past are shown below

 

Season Winner Played Won Drawn Lost GF GA GD Points PPG
2004-05 Chelsea 38 29 8 1 72 15 57 95 2.50
2017-18 Manchester City 38 32 4 2 106 27 79 100 2.63
2018-19 Manchester City 38 32 2 4 95 23 72 98 2.58
2019-20 Liverpool 38 32 3 3 85 33 52 99 2.61

 

Arsenal’s previous best points total was 90 in 2003/04.

What is also of interest is that in the three title victories in the Wenger era there was an individual goal scorer of great note: Thierry Henry with 39 in 2003/4, and with 32 in 2001/2.  In 1997/98 the leading scorer was Dennis Bergkamp with 22.

But just considering league goals we see an interesting story, for this season although Arsenal are the second highest scoring team in the league, just one goal behind Manchester City, the situation with goal scorers is quite different with Odegaard on 10, Saka on 12 and Martinelli on 13.  In 1997/98 just considering league goals, the club had Wright on 10, Overmars on 12 and Bergkamp on 16 – a very similar approach.

In 2003/4 it was Henry on 30 goals in the league and Pires on 13.   In 2001/2 the top scorers in league games were

  • Robert Pires: 9
  • Dennis Bergkamp: 9
  • Sylvain Wiltord: 10
  • Freddie Ljungberg 12
  • Thierry Henry: 24

By way of contrast, we can also look at the worst ever Premier League champions, and that very clearly is Leicester City.  And we can compare their figures at the end of their title winning season with Arsenal’s position today.

 

Club P W D L F A GD Pts
2015-16 Leicester City 38 23 12 3 68 36 32 81
Today Arsenal 28 22 3 3 66 26 40 69

 

Four wins from Arsenal’s last ten games will take Arsenal above Leicester’s points total and thus thankfully avoid being known as the team to win the league with the worst-ever record.  For although that opprobrium was avoided by Leicester, in that none of the newspapers or broadcasters would ever mention the fact, if it happened to Arsenal we can be sure it would be bigger news than this being Arsenal’s fourth Premier League title.

One thing is also certain is that Arsenal will finish the season with more goals scored than Leicester got in their title winning season, so the negative journalists will be forced to look elsewhere for taunts.

In the six years since Leicester’s title the lowest number of wins was 27 (Manchester City), the highest number of defeats was six (ditto) the lowest number of goals scored 83 (ditto).

The most conceded was Liverpool with 33.  It would be particularly handy as a way of making the journalists search harder for finding a way of saying that this wasn’t really a league win, and that under normal circumstances Arsenal would not have won the league.

But I think what most of us want, rather than this being the fourth Premier League title, if that is what it turns out to be, is for the journalists not have to find anything to detract from Arsenal’s performance this season.

As we have noted before, the media universally had Arsenal down to finish fifth or sixth in the league.  Untold Arsenal, using its projection of the last 35 games of last season went for third.  It is looking very much as if we are not going to be right in that prediction, but at least we will probably be less wrong.

Indeed it is interesting to look at the form table that we used at that time, taken from TransferMarkt

 

# Club  P W D L Goals GD Pts
1  Man City 35 27 6 2 89:25 64 87
2  Liverpool 35 26 7 2 88:25 63 85
3  Arsenal 35 22 3 10 61:39 22 69
4  Chelsea 35 19 10 6 70:32 38 67
5  Tottenham 35 19 5 11 66:40 26 62

 

It does suggest that although form tables are not 100% accurate predictors, they are by and large better than journalists.

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11 Replies to “If Arsenal go on like this, what will the final table look like?”

  2. On my way up to the Emirates to join 20,000 others watching our Women look to overturn a 1-0 first leg defeat by Bayern Munich. We were unlucky last week in many ways, should have had at least one and probably two penalties amid a string of strange refereeing decisions. Hopefully tonight’s officials will be better.

    Kickoff is 20:00 and the match is live on DAZN youtube channel. It’s alse free!

  4. More dodgy refereeing in the Champions’ League match tonight. Kim Little was brought down whilst breaking from defence close to the halfway line. The defender made no contact with the ball. Kim had to go off injured. The referee didn’t even give the foul. I can’t understand why VAR wasn’t used.

  6. Final score Arsenal 2 – 0 Bayern Munich. The referee continued in the strange manner of the first half and we had Katie McCabe hobble off with about 5 minutes of normal time left. Two important players for our final games.

    Still we are in the semi final for the first time in a while.

  7. By far the better team

    Could of been 4 or 5 at least

    Ref would of made the PiGmob proud. One of the worst refereeing performances I have ever seen, and that takes some doing.

    Still, the girls did themselves proud. Bring on the next ref. Sorry team.

  8. The injury list for Arsenal Ladies is now quite worrying – Mead, Miedema, Catley, Queiroz, Little, McCabe. All at the business end of the season.

  9. Paratici’s ban has been extended worldwide by FIFA. This seemed to take Spurs by surprise.

    Barcelona and Chelsea’s FFP compliance problems appear to be deepening.

    I saw a story in the Guardian about Abramovich “loaning” money to Vitesse Arnhem. It’s’ interesting that it has resurfaced now. Chelsea’s lawyers’ position is that it is a problem that Abramovich should address.

    Josimar has a story on Man. City’s Asian betting partner where the pay is great, the work is safe, and there is no human trafficking

  10. I had real fun watching the ladies’ game – apart from a ref that must have been trained and made incompetent by an internship at PGMOL. I watched it on german DAZN, and the one foul on Kim Little was explained away that she did not mean it….. seriously ?!?!

    I must say, to me watching, there was Arsenal DNA in the way they played. And the way they could just play with the ball withing 4 square meters and 2 Bayern players involved was just great to watch.

  11. Chris

    I listened to the English commentary and it’s pathetic. It’s pathetic because you can tell they know what’s going on with regards to the diabolical, biased, refereeing. How could you not? But they are either unwilling to actually criticise the refs, for reasons only known to themselves, or are as we suspect, banned/discouraged from criticising them?

    I say you can tell the commentators know what’s happening because they keep saying things like ‘The Arsenal fans wont be happy with that ‘rather than ‘I am not happy with that’. Or the Arsenal manger wont like that’, rather than ‘I don’t like that’.

    In other words THEY can see it’s a bad tackle the ref missed but aren’t prepared to say it themselves so simply suggest someone else wont be happy with it.

    All a bit pathetic really. A bit like the ref herself.

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