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- Why referees love to make instant decisions and hate VAR
By Bulldog Drummond
Liverpool are one of a handful of teams that have beaten Arsenal more than we have beaten them with 95 wins to Liverpool and 83 to Arsenal.
In the last 20 league games between the two clubs Arsenal have won just four, seven have been draws and Liverpool have won nine. So yes there is a ‘pudlian dominance. However the results have been changeable. In the last four games Arsenal have won two and two have been draws. However in the four league games before that Liverpool won all four knocking in 12 goals to Arsenal’s 1.
If we move on to take a look at our current league situation, considering as usual the home and away games we find that each team is top of the league for the venue, but with Liverpool winning all four of their away games thus far, they’ve gained two more away points than Arsenal have home points. Their goal difference is also one better than Arsenal’s.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal home | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 4 | 6 | 10 |
| 1 | Liverpool away | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 7 | 12 |
But we are of course only looking at four games there, so to get a broader perspective we can look at the whole of last season in the league.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Arsenal home | 19 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 48 | 16 | 32 | 47 |
| 3 | Liverpool away | 19 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 37 | 24 | 13 | 34 |
So looking at last season we have a far better home record for Arsenal than Liverpool have an away record. But of course, this season we have injuries and cards by the multitude and in this regard you might care to have a look at our piece on just why Arsenal are getting so many yellow cards this season.
Yet you might imagine from all the publicity around that Arsenal are the yellow card champions, what with their having a whopping great three red cards already but actually that would not be quite right, as we have already noticed (but it is worth repeating since the media will never admit this).
| Team | Yellow | Red cards |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Chelsea | 30 | 0 |
| 2. Southampton | 26 | 2 |
| 3. Manchester United | 26 | 1 |
| 4. Wolverhamton Wand | 26 | 0 |
| 5. Fulham | 24 | 1 |
| 6. Leicester C | 22 | 0 |
| 7. Ipswich T | 21 | 0 |
| 8. Nottingham Forest | 21 | 2 |
| 9. AFC Bournemouth | 20 | 0 |
| 10. Newcastle U | 19 | 1 |
| 11. West Ham Un | 19 | 1 |
| 12. Tottenham Ho | 19 | 0 |
| 13. Arsenal | 18 | 3 |
| 14. Liverpool | 18 | 0 |
| 15. Crystal Palace | 18 | 0 |
| 16. Manchester C | 18 | 0 |
In the above table, it is perhaps thoroughly shocking to notice that although Arsenal are labelled by all the media as a thoroughly dirty team who just go out to cripple the opposition, in fact, Arsenal and Liverpool, and indeed ManC., each have the same number of yellow cards – 18.
Chelsea on the other hand have 66% more yellow cards than Arsenal. But of course it is best that the media don’t talk about Chelsea, because, well, I’m not sure why. Maybe it is just best that we don’t mention them in case anything underhand is going on (although of course, I have no evidence of such matters).
And while we are looking at such figures we might also note that Arsenal have an average home possession rate of 56.5%. Liverpool have an average away possession rate of 58.1%. That means something has to give.
But we have already noted that Arsenal have scored 10 home goals to Liverpool’s eight away goals which suggests that Arsenal might be better able to hold onto the possession advantage than Liverpool can.
One particularly interesting statistic however which I have not seen mentioned in the media, presumably because it shows Arsenal in a positive light, is the fact that Arsenal are this season getting more shots on target than any other team when at home. For Arsenal that is 8.8. (Liverpool when at home get 7.8). But of course Liverpool are away, unless they claim that their imperial status allows them to play away as well as home games at Anfield.)
In fact away from home they average 4.5 shots on target per game, just fractionally over half Arsenal’s home total.
Yet as we saw above although their shots on target total away from home is so much lower than Arsenal’s total at home, they are only a couple of goals behind Arsenal on this metric.
It means their shooting is particularly effective so if Arsenal’s defence can stop them shooting then things should begin to look quite bright for Arsenal. And with those last four league matches giving us nine goals for Arsenal and six for Liverpool this looks hopeful. In fact if we actually count just Arsenal at home and Liverpool away that goal total is six for Arsenal and three for Liverpool.
More anon.
