The latest episdoe in our series commemorating 100 years since Herbert Chapman arrived at Arsenal is now published:
You can read the whole series from the start with Taking over from failure
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Meanwhile on Untold Arsenal
- Arsenal in decline… or is this not just a re-run of recent seasons?
- Arsenal’s tactics working well; Chelsea go yellow bonkers
By Tony Attwood
How do we explain the sudden rise of Nottingham Forest now two places ahead of Arsenal in the League? Probably the easiest way to do that is to look at their fixture list this season and compare it with last season.
Last season in their first ten games Nottingham Forest played (among others) Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Liverpool. Five clubs (ie half their games) against the teams most of us would consider to be part of the group of biggest clubs in the league.
As a result, after ten games they were 16th in the league having won just two of their matches.
This season they are sitting third in the league after ten games, above Arsenal. They have played, Liverpool and Chelsea, but no other big clubs of the type they were seeing last season.
In their first eight games this season, only once did they score more than one goal, and that was a 2-2 draw with Brighton and Hove Albion. Although to be fair in their last two games against West Ham United and Leicester City they have scored three goals each time. Those clubs sit 14th and 15th in the league. Only Ipswich and Wolverhampton Wanderers have conceded more goals than West Ham United.
Compare all the above with Arsenal’s fixtures so far this season which has included in the league games against Aston Villa, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, and Newcastle United. Half the games against clubs expected by the pundits to be near the top by the end of the season.
So yes, as some are pointing out, we have sunk below Nottingham Forest. But then the question arises how did Nottingham Forest do it? Is it all down to the fixture list?
Well, no, injuries have something to say about this as well. Last season the clubs with the most days lost to injuries (Manchester United 45, Chelsea 43) lost just on double the number of days that the bottom two clubs lost to injuries (Fulham 22, Arsenal 23).
Indeed the range of days lost to injury is enormous in the league. At the moment the EPL injuries table shows, in terms of the number of players out at this moment, a range from one for Aston Villa, through to eight for Crystal Palace and Manchester United. Arsenal have been right at the top end for part of this season but have now dropped back to four: Tomiyasu, Calafiori, Tierney and Odegaard. Thankfully all four are getting close to a return.
As a result of these injuries Arsenal have used 18 players as starters this season and five more who have only come on as subs, in league games – a total of 23 players with just a fraction over a quarter of the league season gone.
Last season it was 22 and three as subs by the end of the season: 25 players in all. At this rate the number of Arsenal players used this season will greatly exceed last season. The season before it was 21 players and five players who only came on as subs Again it looks very likely that Arsenal will exceed the number of players previously used.
So yes, all clubs get injuries – Manchester City are on five at the moment which is astonishingly high for them – largely (it seems to me) because of the fearsome way in which referees treat the opposition when playing ManC. For according to one report circulating ManC when losing, have now had 24 mins of added time given in four games. It’s 7 mins above the PL average. Now I can’t verify this – my source is here – but watching ManC gets it is certainly the feeling I get that the games are extended in this way.
Speaking of statistics, we might as well consider another stat thas is circulating again, but without a source for the information – and this is “big decisions that go in favour of different teams since VAR was introduced.” That report says Manchester City are on +18, while Arsenal are on -8.
This of course is where we run into huge difficulty because PGMO is organised in a way that favours Manchester City, in that they don’t make their own statistics readily available, in a form that can be checked. The only people who benefit from this lack of transparency are of course PGMO since we can’t verify if referees are always acting in favour of one club, and seemingly helping ManC.
But here’s the point: if there is nothing to hide – why go around hiding all your statistics? What does PGMO have to gain from not being open?
Well, we do know that some of their referees are very prone to supporting the home club while others seem to oversee an inordinate number of away ways – so maybe there is something to hide after all…
Tony
As I said yesterday, context is everything. If an alien came down and saw the weekends matches in isolation, what would he make of them?
Man City are not all that?
Liverpool look pretty good.
Notts Forest are very good.
Chelsea and Man Utd are pretty poor.
Arsenal and Newcastle are not all that either.
Aston Villa are very average.
Tottenham are going to win the league, obviously
And on you could go, but it means very little, if anything at all.
But an analysis over 10 matches, taking into account opponents, injuries, suspensions, decisions, even luck, gives a much much more accurate indicator as to how good or bad a team is, and over all, and putting things into context, we are, as I said yesterday, doing okay. And this is some of that context:
NOTTINGHAM FOREST
This season they are sitting third in the league after ten games, above Arsenal. They have played, Liverpool and Chelsea, but no other big clubs of the type they were seeing last season.
LIVERPOOL
Liverpool have only played 5 top half teams where as we have played 7.
Liverpool have played 3 of the bottom 4, we have played 2.
And of course the mighty Spurs who even with the following ‘cake walk’ still languish 2 points and 2 places bellow Arsenal:
SPURS
Home and Away Spurs have only played 4 of the top 10 teams and have lost 3 and won just the 1. They’ve visited none of the top 6 and just 2 of the top 10, and they lost both of them
On the other hand:
ARSENAL
Have played 7 top 10 sides, 5 away and just 2 at home for 2 wins, 3 draws and 2 defeats, and one of those defeats was with 10 men for over an hour and 1 of those draws was at Man City with 10 men for an entire half.
And as you allude to, take in to account injuries, suspensions and reds, and all in all we are doing okay. Not great, okay. But as I suggested yesterday, just without those ridiculous reds we would still be top 3.
These are not excuses they are facts. Facts that contextualise why we are where we are.
This doesn’t mean some players are not at their best. It happens, and it’s called ‘form’. But form is temporary and class is permanent, and these players are class, so they will comeback.
Let the naysayers nay. I will remain hopeful, despite the obvious bias of the PGMOL