What’s wrong with football? Compiling (and hiding) the complaints

 

 

 

• Thomas Tuchel declares war on Arsenal
• Arsenal finances are heading toward the edge, but we’re ok for another season of spending

By Tony Attwood

The chances are that if you ask ten people what’s wrong with football, you will get a dozen different answers.   Ask ten people what’s wrong with Arsenal, and the chances are that a lot of those you ask will give you the same answer: the need for a striker.  Although there could also be some comments about pricing.  And maybe even one or two about the risk of that player being injured, given the lack of protection Arsenal forwards sometimes seem to get from referees.

Considering this, and in a very unscientific experiment, I recently started asking a few of my Arsenal supporting friends where Arsenl stood in the goal scoring charts, and apart from the answer “not scoring enough” only one of my mates got near to what I have for sometime felt would be a good answer.  Which is that this season we are a fair way behind Liverpool but just about the same as Manchester City and Tottenham.

Last season in fact Arsenal scored five more than Liverpool, and the season before, 12 more than Liverpool.  In 2021/2 however Arsenal were 33 goals behind Liverpool.   So there is a bit of swings and roundabouts here.

But although the fact is that Liverpool, on goal scoring as on points, are pretty much out of reach, the other two clubs above Arsenal in the goal scoring chart are way behind in terms of points gained.   For Tottenham Hots and Manchester C have each scored two more goals than Arsenal this season.   But Manchester City have ten fewer points than Arsenal and Tottenham Hots have an utterly amazing 24 fewer points than Arsenal.

So let me repeat that.  Tottenham have scored more goals than Arsenal and are 24 points behind Arsenal.

Of course, what we would all like to have is all these: more points than Manchester City and Tottenham H while also scoring more goals than Liverpool.   And surely the reason we have not scored more goals is that our prime goal scorers have all been injured or gone totally off form this season.  And then so have the back up goal scorers.

And the simple fact is that Liverpool as a club are only able to turn on this level of goal scoring over a number of seasons because they have an exceptional striker who has stayed fit and kept up the scoring.   And maybe he will stay at Liverpool, and be able to keep scoring beyond his current age of 32.  What we do know for certain is that he is getting older and as a result getting slightly slower and as a result of that is more vulnerable to injuries.  Here are the details…

Liverpool	F	A	Pos	Top Scorer	Goals
2018–19	89	22	2nd	Salah	27
2019–20	85	33	1st	Salah	23
2020–21	68	42	3rd	Salah	31
2021–22	94	26	2nd	Salah	31
2022–23	75	47	5yh	Salah	30
2023–24	86	41	3rd	Salah	25

.

Now of course if Arsenal can find a player who knocks in this level of goals that could be attractive to Arsenal.  But just compare this… 

Last season our top ten scorers were the players below, and of course this season we still have nine games to go and that could add a few goals to several of these players, but you can see where the big differences are.  The figures include all competitions at senior level.

 

Player	2023/24	2024/25	Difference
Bukayo Saka	20	9	-11
Leandro Trossard	17	6	-11
Kai Havertz	14	15	+1
Martin Odegaard	11	5	-6
Gabriel Jesus	8	7	-1
Gabriel Martinelli	8	7	-1
Declan Rice	7	5	-2
Eddie Nketiah	6	—	-6
Gabriel	4	5	+1
Ben White	4	0	-4
Ethan Nwaneri		8	+8

 

The trouble for Trossard is that his goal-scoring feats in 2023/24 were exceptional for him – it was not something that he had achieved previously with other clubs    But the trouble overall, of course, is the problem of injuries.  It is harder to score goals when your goal scorers are injured.

And yet, and yet, only Liverpool has been able to take advantage of Arsenal’s scoring slippage this season.  Manchester City, Tottenham Hots, Chelsea and Brentford are all on either 53 or 55 goals this season.  If Arsenal without strikers can hold their own with the other top scoring teams except Liverpool, with their normal strikers back in the game, we ought to be able to catch them up.  And who knows maybe Liverpool will have an injury or two.

In other news (and I use the word “news” here in its vaguest sense) The Telegraph has decided to publish a list of gripes under the heading of the ten most irritating things in the modern game.

The problems it notes include silly socks, too many players on the bench, profit and sustainability rules (obviously the writers supports Mancesther City, Leicester City, Nottingham Forest and the likes), every changing kick off times (I’d perhaps go along with that – it gets very hard to plan other events and activities when you can’t really tell which day a match is going to be played, let alone the time it finishes), inane punditry (presumably like the article listing all the things that are wrong), stadium music, dubious injuries and VAR.

But that list leaves out two issues which I think are linked.  First, “Pedantic refereeing” and second, “Toxic fandom”.

And yet those last two important points exist because of the media’s utter refusal to consider the way in which PGMO is running the game with the same refs seeing the same teams over and over, and huge variations in the results profiles of different refs.

The fact is that the media’s support and approval of the utter secrecy of PGMO, and its refusal to investigate the statistics we are able to get hold of, ensures that fandom has become toxic.   What else would they expect?