By Sir Hardly Anyone
- West Ham v Arsenal. The home/away factor, plus shooting and cards
- Now everyone is following up our thoughts. For once, we’ve influenced the agenda. A bit.
The Guardian noticed a resurgence in the last West Ham match and yes it is true that they won, but surely the main point about their season is one of zigzagging between victory and defeat. In the last three games for example they have lost to Nottingham Forest who were seventh before the match, drawn with Everton who were 16th before the match and beaten Newcastle who were ninth before the game.
So these were not tough matches and indeed the Guardian mentioning these three games as a revival suggests that they haven’t really got the point that was made here initially and has been copied in all sorts of publications since that Arsenal actually had a very tough start to the league. For if we take these last three games of WHAM’s, the goals are two scored by WHAM and three scored by the other teams. All a bit dull I would imagine.
Arsenal in their last three games have scored nine and conceded two. These games were against Chelsea (who were fifth before the match), Nottingham Forest who then again were fifth before the game, and Sporting Club Portugal who were top of their league and hadn’t lost a game since last March. So not really a case of comparing like with like.
In fact only once has WHAM won two games in a row in this campaign – away in the league to Crystal Palace and at home in the League Cup to Bournemouth four days later. But then there was a sequence of three defeats and a draw followed by Draw – Win – Loss; Win – Loss – Draw, and then in the last game that unlikely 0-2 away win over Newcastle.
But then again, over the last eight league games Newcatle has won two, drawn two lost four, and if you want to play against a bigger team that isn’t doing very well, Newcastle is the team you might well pick.
But what sort of team are WHAM – aside from being one of the journalists’ favourites? This season’s figures show slightly more tackles than Arsenal but the same number of fouls per game. Here are the figures per game
| Team | Tackles | Fouls | Yellows from fouls | All yellows |
| Arsenal | 16.9 | 12.6 | 1.5 | 2.42 |
| West Ham | 17.6 | 12.6 | 1.83 | 2.25 |
And before anyone who hates Arsenal starts pointing it out, as per last season Arsenal are out there at the top with Chelsea for yellow cards for “other reasons” beyond fouls. We just can’t find a list of what these other things are.
So here we have a pattern we have seen before – more tackles committed, the same number of fouls, but those fouls more likely to result in a tackle. But Arsenal getting more yellows. And lots of others. 17 “others” for Chelsea, 15 for Arsenal, and after that it is Southampton and Brighton on 11. West Ham are on seven for “other” reasons.
| Team | Tackle per foul | Tackles per yellow | Fouls per yellow |
| Arsenal | 1.34 | 11.27 | 8.17 |
| West Ham | 1.40 | 9.61 | 6.89 |
The news from these figures is that it takes fewer West Ham tackles to get a yellow than Arsenal tackles. Arsenal can commit 17% more tackles than West Ham before getting a yellow.
What’s more, Arsenal can commit over 8% more fouls before the card is waved than is the case with West Ham.
So good news all round for Arsenal.
But there is one other interesting stat that comes from this area. West Ham pick up more yellow cards at home for fouls than they do away from home. 20% more at home in fact. Arsenal pick up 25% more yellow cards away than they do at home.
And overall the media’s image of West Ham as the lovely clean team always on the attack, and Arsenal as the dirty buggers who kick everyone and defend a lot just doesn’t stand up.
You’ll remember that long run of time when all the media could talk about was Arsenal having three red cards, the worst ever in the history of time. Well a closer look shows that Arsenal have 29 yellows and those three reds to West Ham’s 27 yellow and two red. Yes Arsenal still ahead, which is not surprising given that run of away games against the top clubs that the “computer” (code name “Fixer”) gave Arsenal thus far, but I would be very surprised if it didn’t balance out soon.
Last season the figures were 62 yellows and 2 reds for Arsenal and 76 yellow and 3 reds for West Ham. And yet curiously none of the media commented on Arsenal being the clean team. Only ManC got fewer yellows and although I would not like to impune anyone for not mentioning this, we can probably take a guess why.
