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By Sir Hardly Anyone
Today in Arsenal’s history: When football was played on mud not grass (the video)
If anyone was unconvinced of the power of the City Football Group, the league table in Spain will have shown them once again that this is a relentless bulldozer charging its way through world football, and which will not stop until it has total control.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Madrid | 23 | 18 | 4 | 1 | 48 | 15 | 33 | 58 |
| 2 | Girona | 23 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 52 | 25 | 27 | 56 |
| 3 | Barcelona | 23 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 47 | 30 | 17 | 50 |
| 4 | Atletico Madrid | 23 | 15 | 3 | 5 | 45 | 25 | 20 | 48 |
It is of course an embarrsement to Uefa which totally screwed up its last attempt to reign in the Group by its hopelessly botched appeal to the Court of Arbitration and Sport.
This ruled in favour of multiple ownership deals, not because the multiple ownership, cross trading and cross financing of clubs was felt to be ok, but because Uefa put the appeal in too late! (Some suggest it was done deliberately, but I have no evidence of that).
City group own Girona who were promoted just a couple of years back and is now only in its fourth ever season in the top tier in Spain are second, above Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
And maybe that is a great fairy story and “good luck to them” and all that, but it shows the power of cross-ownership and cross trading between.the 13 clubs in the group. And who knows how many more there will be before every league is dominated exclusively by cross-trading clubs in the City Group?
But the Premier League does have rules on this sort of thing including a recent rule that limits how much two clubs from the same ownership group can trade with each other, in terms of player trading and product sponsorship.
Now it appears Manchester City are going to take on the Premier League in court to get that rule overturned. Nothing it seems must stand in the way of world domination.
Unfortunately, the dominance of the concern over this situation meant that the new arrangements for financial support by the Premier League of the Football League didn’t get sorted out, but discussions on this topic are said to be going on.
So against the background of even more Manchester City inspired expansion, we come to West Ham away tomorrow Sunday, at 2pm. Here is the form of West Ham at home in their last six games and Arsenal away in their last six games. Data from The Fishy
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | West Ham home | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 4 | +6 | 12 |
| 5 | Arsenal | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 8 | +1 | 10 |
So not such good news for Arsenal – West Ham United at home have been unbeaten, outscoring Arsenal by one goal and having twice as good a defence across their last six home games.
But of course, the form and psychology of the players and team is not just on home and away. and where we look at the overall form of Arsenal and West Ham, home and away, across their last six games each we find….
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Arsenal | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 7 | +5 | 10 |
| 9 | West Ham United | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 6 | +1 | 9 |
West Ham still have the better defence but they are scoring fewer goals overall, so combined with the elation of the victory over Liverpool, that should swing the balance back to Arsenal somewhat. And indeed across the whole season Arsenal away have a slight edge over West Ham.
West Ham are fairly mid-table when it comes to scoring goals (they have scored 13 fewer than Arsenal this season), Arsenal’s defence is the best in the league so far this campaign and West Ham have conceded 14 more.
So pulling this data together, with the boost that Arsenal will still have from the Liverpool match, this could well swing Arsenal’s way.
But now the really curious figures come from the recent comparative games between the clubs in all competitions (all the data above of course just relates to league matches.) Here is West Ham’s recent games run… (Data from 11v11)
| Date | Match | Re | Score | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jan 2024 | West Ham v Brighton and Hove | D | 0-0 | Premier League |
| 7 Jan 2024 | West Ham United v Bristol City | D | 1-1 | FA Cup |
| 16 Jan 2024 | Bristol City v West Ham United | L | 1-0 | FA Cup |
| 21 Jan 2024 | Sheffield United v West Ham United | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 1 Feb 2024 | West Ham United v Bournemouth | D | 1-1 | Premier League |
| 4 Feb 2024 | Manchester United v West Ham U | L | 3-0 | Premier League |
That is a run of seven games in the league and FA Cup. And you might recall the match that preceded this run – it was on 23 December and ended Arsenal 0 West Ham United 2 and there was some merriment around I think in the media at that moment.
I am not quite sure how West Ham supporters are feeling now about David Moyes and co, but the media looks elsewhere, until it can support WHAM again.
