By Bulldog Drummond
The media, having now been tipped off that Arsenal are unlikely to buy anyone in January because of the Financial Fair Play regulations, has now started talking about summer transfers instead. And of course once again the media’s incessant demand is for Arsenal to buy a new centre forward.
What seems to have by-passed most journalists (probably because they spend too much time in the pub) is the fact that league position is not directly related to goals scored. If it were the league would look like this…
| Lge Pos | Goals pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Liverpool | 20 | 14 | 5 | 1 | 48 | 20 | 28 | 47 |
| 14 | 2 | Tottenham Hotspur | 21 | 7 | 3 | 11 | 43 | 32 | 11 | 24 |
| 2 | 3 | Arsenal | 21 | 12 | 7 | 2 | 41 | 19 | 22 | 43 |
| 5 | 4 | Chelsea | 21 | 10 | 7 | 4 | 41 | 26 | 15 | 37 |
| 11 | 5 | Brentford | 21 | 8 | 4 | 9 | 40 | 37 | 3 | 28 |
| 6 | 6 | Manchester City | 21 | 10 | 5 | 6 | 38 | 29 | 9 | 35 |
| 7 | 11 | Aston Villa | 21 | 10 | 5 | 6 | 31 | 32 | -1 | 35 |
.
The mighty Totts currently 14th in the league shoot up to second on this basis, which gives you quite an idea of the vision of journalists and bloggers who go on and on about Arsenal needing to score more goals. They are, instead of seeing Tottenham Hots as a warning of how absolutely not to run a football club, holding the Hots up as a model. “Look at the number of goals they have scored,” they shout – “two more than Arsenal.” And tragically some people take notice of this.
Thus the Guardian proclaims that Arsenal would have beaten the Totts by more if the club had had “Ollie Watkins or Jhon Durán” in the team. And as ever they undertake no consideration of how the rest of the team would be changed by this development.
And because the next game is against Villa the contrast is made, noting that Villa has “Donyell Malen coming in from Dortmund,” while Jaden Philogene has been sold to Ipswich, as if Aston Villa, seventh in the league, and having scored ten goals fewer than Arsenal are a model that should be copied.
Meanwhile, in the big news, there is some wondering going on as to what the League is doing about Chelsea’s past use of secret payments. It seems the League are STILL investigating the club in relation to the source of money used to buy Samuel Eto’o, Willian and Eden Hazard. But being Chelsea it is suggested they might be let off with a warning on the grounds that the club declared the irregularities to the League before the League itself found them. Since then I suspect every club has sent the League a letter saying “We might have made a mistake,” – just in case.
Moving on we have Aston Villa tomorrow at 5.30pm, so we can do our usual comparison chart…
And we do it for although the media have been very careful indeed not to mention this, Arsenal are top of the home league with a better record even that the almight media-beloved Liverpool. In fact it is worth pondering Arsenal’s home form for a moment, given the raging and rampant criticism Arsenal have had levelled against them by the turnips of Fleet Street. Below is the top five table for clubs in terms of home points, and then for fuun we’ve added Tottenham Ho.
We may note that Villa, Brentford and the Hots have played an extra game at home. And indeed one sometimes wonders just how the Hot season ticket holders feel about this record – although I suppose because it is such a wonderful stadium they really don’t mind the results at all.
Home Form
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | G | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 10 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 20 | 7 | 13 | 24 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 20 | 8 | 12 | 23 |
| 3 | Brentford | 11 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 29 | 21 | 8 | 23 |
| 4 | Aston Villa | 11 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 19 | 13 | 6 | 22 |
| 5 | Newcastle United | 10 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 18 | 8 | 10 | 20 |
| 13 | Tottenham Hotspur | 11 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 26 | 21 | 5 | 14 |
That is obviously quite a profound difference between the clubs, and Villa will most certainly have to improve on their form to overcome that.
Villa were being talked up by the basically bonkers media as serious challengers to Liverpool, the media having noticed that on 21 October Villa were fourth in the league on the same points as Arsenal, whom the media were certain were in a bubble that was bursting.
But is hasn’t quite worked out the way the media wanted. So next we will look at Arsenal’s home form vs Villa’s away form.
Having a 20 plus goal a season striker is no guarantee of success, as much as not having one is a guarantee of failure, and for proof of that you have to look no further than Manchester City
2nd in season 14/15 Their top scorer netted 26 times.
4th in season 15/16 Their top scorer netted 24 times.
1st in season 20/21 Their top scorer netted 13 times.
1st in season 21/22 Their top scorer netted 15 times.
When you look at Man City’s 8 titles over the last 13 seasons their success has much more to do with how many goals they score in total and very little to do with who scores them.
For goodness sake, please don’t read the article on the BBc website that appeared today entitled ‘Why Arsenal look like a Mourinho team – but must change to win like one’ One very simple statistic that no one in the press is mentioning, is that over the last 6 games home and away, Arsenal’s form is better than Liverpool. If you read this article you could easily persuade yourself that Arsenal deserve to be in the relegation zone.
Another simple statistic. Liverpool have won 1 Premier League title in 32 years and they have had some amazing strikers in that period.
Don Ricardo
I had already read it. Please excuse my French, but I pissed myself laughing.
Now apparently because we score from set pieces we don’t really score.
Mourinho ‘s Chelsea never got close to scoring as many as we have the last 2 seasons.
As I have pointed out several times, points wise, we are the best team over the last Calendar year and over the last 2 and a half years.
Currently at the same stage we have as many points this year as last. Scored 3 less but let in 1 less. So hardly any difference, despite the fact:
We have had our most creative player and our top scorer out, as well as several other high profile injuries.
We have probably had the toughest fixtures of everybody.
We have played three games for over 45 minutes with 10 men.
As I say, laughable.