Arsenal team and match projections: Fulham v Arsenal

 

 

As you may have seen Untold went down again this morning.  We are trying to deal with this situation and I can only apologise.

In keeping with our arrangements, this morning’s article was published on www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk and this will always happen when we have these incidents, until we find a way of defending against them.

Here’s the article.  Obviously the team is now already announced, but you can still see what we said.

Tony

 

And so as a result of the matches played yesterday, Arsenal with Chelsea remain in 2^nd/3^rd place while Fulham are in ninth.

Of the clubs we’ve called the “big seven” of late Tottenham Hots, Newcastle U and ManU all sit peacefully in 11^th, 12^th and 13^th position – which is not quite where they expected to be.  Interestingly Tottenham do have a goal difference that looks like that of a top three club – they just happen to have lost six out of 14 games (which is to say 43%).

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	14	11	2	1	29	11	18	35
2	Chelsea	14	8	4	2	31	15	16	28
3	Arsenal	14	8	4	2	28	14	14	28
4	Manchester City	15	8	3	4	27	21	6	27
5	Nottingham Forest	15	7	4	4	19	18	1	25
6	Aston Villa	15	7	4	4	23	23	0	25
7	Brentford	15	7	2	6	31	28	3	23
8	Brighton and Hove Albion	14	6	5	3	23	20	3	23
9	Fulham	14	6	4	4	21	19	2	22
10	AFC Bournemouth	14	6	3	5	21	19	2	21
11	Tottenham Hotspur	14	6	2	6	28	15	13	20
12	Newcastle United	15	5	5	5	19	21	-2	20
13	Manchester United	15	5	4	6	19	18	1	19

 

There is also a fair amount of annoyance at the moment among some of the media with Fifa pressing ahead with telling the world how wonderful and democratic Saudi Arabia is and what a suitable place it is for holding the World Cup.  Meanwhile Manchester United supporters being angry over a hike in ticket prices.

And of course we have quite a bit of chatter around about the ex-Arsenal men who have ended up in Fulahm such as Leno, Iwobi and Smith Rowe now in the side, plus Reiss Nelson on loan.  What would these clubs do without the Arsenal academy?

Although as ever these journalist chappies do get carried away as with the notion that S”mith Rowe’s performance in the 2020 Boxing Day win over Chelsea that may well have salvaged the entire Mikel Arteta project.” (the Guardian)

Arsenal were indeed 15^th in the league at that point, and this was the start of a run of five wins and two draws which took Arsenal up to ninth (although having played more games than any of the teams above them).   But the problem was Arsenal then only won three of the next nine league games, which rather dented the revival and raises the question if Smith Rowe was the heart and soul of the revival what happened for the next downturn.

This season Fulham have won six out of 14 league games, beating Leicester City, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Brentford, Crystal Palace and most recently Brighton & Hove.   But they have lost to Manchesters United and City, Aston Villa and most extraordinarily 1-4 at home to Wolverhampton.

In their two seasons since returning to the Premier League they have come 10^th and 13^th   But then we might also recall that in six of the last ten seasons they have been playing in the Championship, so their current position of ninth is very much a high spot.

As for the Arsenal team today 90 Min give us

Raya;

Partey, Saliba, Kiwior, Timber;

Rice, Merino, Odegaard;

Saka, Havertz, Trossard.

 

Pain in the Arsenal have exactly the same.

One Football appears to have an Untold-like problem and after the heading suggesting we will then see the line up there is a big blank.   As for the Metro they come up with a most curious arrangement…

Raya;

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori

Odegaard Partey, Rice

Saka, Havertz, Martinelli

I do wonder if the problems facing Untold are spreading.