West Ham vs Arsenal
- West Ham at home, Arsenal away, referee bias. How the figures compare
- West Ham v Arsenal: Why do West Ham get so few yellow cards?
- West Ham v Arsenal: 2pm sunday. Fewer goals v More goals.
Life can be difficult at the fringes.
Take Tottenham (and indeed as many north Londoners have said over the years, “I wish you would”… although I find that a little tough on the part of the country where I was born…
A certain lack of manager, current performances so bad that in a league table of the last six games Tottenham are below West Ham, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth, a defeat at their wonderful new (but still unnamed and unsponsored) stadium to the chief relegation candidates, the fans in revolt against the minority shareholder, and a feeling among supporters that it is important to show hatred of the owners that is greater than that shown at Old Trafford and Anfield…. such is a the state of the mighty Tottenham Hots.
The Guardian even has a name for it: the “White Heat of Failure”. Perhaps, in that case, recalling that Tottenham have a defence worse than such luminaries of the Premier League as Wolverhampton, Brentford, Fulham, Crystal Palace and West Ham is indeed worth noticing.
And so, like some turnips before them at Arsenal, the supporters are calling for the manager and the board and the owners (and quite possibly the team that clean up the toilets, although that would be rather unfair) to be sacked.
But it’s not just Tottenham. What about Liverpool (second last season now 8th), Chelsea (third last season, now 11th), West Ham (7th last season now 15th), Leicester (8th last season, now 19th)… Yes descent can happen when you don’t have a plan.
But really, has Premie League football ever seen such a move from the relative success of clubs in one season, to feeble collapse the next?
Across the last six games Tottenham are closer to the foot of the table than they are to the top. And there, as in other locales, the owners are blamed – just as they were at Arsenal on 25 December 2020, when Arsenal were 15th in the league and the demands were for the manager to be sacked. (Where are they now those brave souls proclaiming that they knew best?)
The media of course don’t have a clue – universally predicting that Arsenal would finish outside the top four this season, with Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham moving ever further ahead of our team. How can they constantly get it all so wrong and never once offer an apology?
Of course the supporters are helping Arsenal a lot. By which I mean the supporters of Tottenham Hotspur are helping Arsenal a lot. Mind you, even then I sometimes think their hearts are not in it. Last week, as LondonWorld reported, Tottenham fans “staged a protest calling for the end of the ENIC ownership and demanding the board appoint former boss Mauricio Pochettino”. before the game. Unfortunately, only 40 people turned up.
On the pitch Davinson Sánchez was substituted after 22 minutes having been booed throughout his appearance by so-called Tottenham supporters.
But I suppose the Tottenham situation shows that even when you have the VAR officials in your pocket, it is still possible to screw everything up.
So here’s a thought from last summer… and the results now…
| Club | Money Spent | Money Received | Net Spend | Spend Pos | Lge pos | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chelsea | £540.53m | £59.96m | £480.57m | 1 | 11 | -10 |
| Manchester United | £215.05m | £11.71m | £203.34m | 2 | 4 | -2 |
| Newcastle United | £163.84m | £2.03m | £161.81m | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Nottingham Forest | £162.87m | £6.19m | £156.68m | 4 | 18 | -14 |
| West Ham | £171.49m | £19.05m | £152.44m | 5 | 15 | -10 |
| Arsenal | £170.04m | £21.04m | £149.00m | 6 | 1 | +5 |
| Tottenham | £157.25m | £34.25m | £123.00m | 7 | 5 | +2 |
The average effect of spending money across the top seven spenders last summer is to go down the league by four or more places. The more the club spend the worse it is likely to get,
Moving on, for this game, West Ham have Gianluca Scamacca injured while Arsenal are without William Saliba, Mohamed Elneny and Takehiro Tomiyasu.
Arsenal’s record against West Ham is rather good, winning 24 of the last 31, and drawing five. Or if you want a bit more in-depth analysis, in the last 53 Premier League games between the two West Ham have won eight. But Arsenal haven’t scored five or more since 2016 and we haven’t got six since 1976, so clearly some improvement is needed.
Meanwhile, the highest number of points a team has ever had in the Premier League after 30 games and then NOT won the title is 73. Which is where Arsenal are this morning. One more away game without the pesky opposition scoring will equal Arsenal’s PL away record – that was from 1993/4. And assuming Oleksandr Zinchenko plays he will be the first Ukrainian to play 100 times in the Premier League. Thanks to the BBC for that one.
Always tempting to enjoy Spurs mishaps, but let’s not get too cocky before we play West Ham
The in depth analysis reflecting the results of the last 53 meetings between Arsenal and West Ham ,maybe a better perspective if you included the £Millions spent by the respective teams.
For example, (According to Transfermarkt) Arsenal net spend 21/22 Euro 136mil.Vs West Ham 70mil. or in 20/21 Arsenal 67mil. Vs West Ham 9mil.
Still, great to see Spurs in such chaos 😀
“But it’s not just Tottenham. What about Liverpool (second last season now 8th), Chelsea (third last season, now 11th), West Ham (7th last season now 15th), Leicester (8th last season, now 19th)… Yes descent can happen when you don’t have a plan. But really, has Premier League football ever seen such a move from the relative success of clubs in one season, to feeble collapse the next?”
To be fair to your good self, Untold in general, and many of our regulars, we could see this coming as far back as May 2021. Here’s a few comments from an article titled:
IT’S NOT THE VIRUS THAT IS SHAKING FOOTBALL, IT IS THE ASTRONOMIC DEBTS.
It’s that old thing about the pack of cards. All of which makes the Kroenke ownership of Arsenal look quite a good deal at least compared to some clubs.
Position Club Net Debt
1 Chelsea £1.3 billion
2 Tottenham Hotspur £534 million
3 Newcastle United £384 million
4 Brighton and Hove Albion £279 million
5 Manchester United £204 million
6 Liverpool £157 million
7 Wolverhampton Wanderers £103 million
8 Watford £97 million
9 Bournemouth £90 million
10 Leicester City £80 million
Arsenal do have factors that could stop their return to trophy winning, as the articles below show, but debts are not one of them. (Oh and Man C have no debt… I am sure you understand how and why)”.
And as I said at the time:
“Regarding our owners. As you and others may of read, I have no problems with them.
They obviously haven’t got everything right or, given the money they have made available for transfers, we would be top 4. We obviously are not. But even then, as shown recently in the Sun of all places, without the intervention of VAR we would actually be in the top 4, but that’s another story.
Personally I think, like you do I believe Tony, we are in a pretty good place.”
And so it has proved.
And it has to be remembered that Arsenals league position at this time wasn’t good. We faced endless criticism from the media. And as you can see for yourself if you go back and look at some of the ‘fans’ comments, we were getting similar abuse from our own ‘supporters’.
I have put up a link to one of the Untold articles around that time of May 2021, but there are a few others that show just how well untold did in it’s analysis of where we actually were, as opposed to where the usual naysayers were suggesting we were at.
https://untold-arsenal.com/archives/87360
Thank you Nitram, I appreciate that.
How was that not a handball?
Pathetic…any foul against West Ham is a yellow
Half time and Arsenal 2 VAR 1
I just we hope we regain our composure at the start of the second half and not start like we did at Anfield
Curious, is this association football or rugby football? Arsenal trying to break out of their last third and getting hauled down repeatedly…
Nope, Anfield over again. Two points dropped. Now have to win the rest. Saka needs to have apenalty session with Kim Little who really knows how to take penalties.
I had a bad feeling when Saka stepped up for his penalty. Just had a feeling he wouldn’t score. One of those days. Fact is when 0-2 up and with West Ham in the ropes and the crowd turning against them we should have pushed our foot on the throttle but for some reason we dropped the tempo and let them back in the match. Should have been looking for the 3rd goal but didn’t for some reason. Why VAR didn’t overturn the dive from the WHU player is beyond me. He was clearly throwing himself to the ground without any contact and only when almost on the floor he managed to make some contact with Gabriel. Now as far as I know the laws of the game there has to be a foul before you give a penalty. There was not a foul at all in this.
Disappointing