Arsenal v Ipswich Town. There have been times when Ipswich has consistenly outplayed Arsenal.

 

 

By Bulldog Drummond

Look at the current league table and the difference between Arsenal and Ipswich before the game to be played on 27th Deember is quite stark…

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
3	Arsenal	17	9	6	2	34	16	18	33
19	Ipswich Town	17	2	6	9	16	32	-16	12
16	Difference		7	0	7	18	16	34	21

 

We don’t normally run the “difference” line but it is quite revealing in this case.  Arsenal scoring 18 more con ceding 16 fewer, and having 21 points more.

So what about home v away?

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
3	Arsenal home	8	5	3	0	17	6	11	18
16	Ipswich Town away	8	2	2	4	10	16	-6	8

 

Interestingly Ispwich’s away form contains the club’s only two wins of the season and the gap between Arsenal and Ipswich when taking into account the home and away situation, shows that although Arsenal are still way ahead, it is not as much as one might expect.

So what two games have Ipswich won?  Well, the first was a 1-2 win against the not so almighty Tottenham Hots, which gave us quite a bit of amusement at the time.   The second victory came just over a month later with a v win another club in difficulty.  Again it was 1-2.

In between there were three defeats and a draw –  but all of these defeats were lost only by one goal.  Indeed looking at the most recent games,  away we can only see one that has been lost by more than one goal.  The fixtures include Premier Legaue games only

Date	Match	Res	Score
21 Sep 2024	Southampton v Ipswich Town	D	1-1
05 Oct 2024	West Ham United v Ipswich Town	L	4-1
26 Oct 2024	Brentford v Ipswich Town	L	4-3
10 Nov 2024	Tottenham Hotspur v Ipswich Town	W	1-2
30 Nov 2024	Nottingham Forest v Ipswich Town	L	1-0
14 Dec 2024	Wolverhampton Wan v Ipswich Town	W	1-2

 

But we should also note that because of the eccentric not to say bonkers and bizarre way in which the fixtures have been assigned this season only two of the last six league games for Ipswich have been away from home, and only one of the teams played in this run has been in the top half of the table.

Moving on to the last six games played including both home and away matches what we find is enough of interest to warrant running the table all the way from the top to Ipswich.

Arsenal are second only the Chelsea, and have the best goal difference of any club in the league over the last six games.  And you might like to go searching for Manchester City specifically (the table was drawn up before today’s game which is ongoing as I write) – which is one reason why I have run almost all of the table instead of the usual approach of Arsenal and the team Arsenal is playing…

Premier League Form (Last 6)

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Chelsea	6	5	1	0	16	6	+10	16
2	Arsenal	6	4	2	0	16	4	+12	14
3	Liverpool	6	4	2	0	18	10	+8	14
4	Bournemouth	6	4	1	1	12	6	+6	13
5	Nottingham Fo	6	4	0	2	8	9	-1	12
6	Aston Villa	6	3	1	2	9	9	0	10
7	Crystal Palace	6	2	3	1	10	11	-1	9
8	Newcastle	6	2	2	2	14	10	+4	8
9	West Ham	6	2	2	2	9	11	-2	8
10	Tottenham Ho	6	2	1	3	16	12	+4	7
11	Brentford	6	2	1	3	10	10	0	7
12	Everton	6	1	4	1	4	4	0	7
13	ManU	6	2	1	3	9	10	-1	7
14	Fulham	6	1	4	1	8	9	-1	7
15	Wolverhampton	6	2	0	4	11	13	-2	6
16	Brighton & H	6	1	3	2	8	11	-3	6
17	ManC	6	1	1	4	7	12	-5	4
18	Ipswich Town	6	1	1	4	4	10	-6	4

 

So putting this data together it would be one of the biggest upsets of all time if Ipwich were to win.  But let us not forget that Ipswich did go to Tottenham and win. That win came after a run of five draws and five defeats.  In short from Ipwich’s point of view it came out of nothing.

In the last six league games, Ipswich have had one win, one draw and four defeats.   Their goals scored have been four, and the goals against ten as the table above shows.

So is there anything that suggests that Ipswich can pull off the shock of the season?

In the games between the clubs Arsenal have won 30, and lost 18, with 11 drawn.  So yes Ipswich can beat Arsenal, but the bulk of their success came between 1973 and 1979   In this period there were 14 games between the two clubs, 13 in the league and one in the FA Cup.  Arsenal won just two of them and the run included seven consecutive defeats for Arsenal

But recently things have brightened a bit and of the last nine league games between the two clubs eight have been Arsenal wins and one was a draw.

So by and large a prediction of an Arsenal win looks fairly safe both in terms of the current league table, and the most recent historical data.   Not to mention the current league table.