By Tony Attwood
- For Arsenal, we might say that so far this is looking rather good
- Eze defaced before arrival; the Arsenal team against Leedss
One thing I have never seen analysed – and I certainly haven’t worked it out myself – is whether London clubs pick up more injuries than other clubs due to the additional intensity of London derbies. Last season Arsenal played 12 London derbies in the league (there was also one in the League Cup against Crystal Palace, which Arsenal won but I am only including the league games here. Certainly, last season Arsenal’s injury level was way above every other club – I just wonder if other London teams really decided to set about Arsenal because of local rivalry.
Seven of the 12 (that is 58.3%) were Arsenal victories, four were draws (33.3%) and one was a defeat (8.3%) – that was the home game against West Ham United.
| Date | Match | Result | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sep 2024 | Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal | W | 0-1 |
| 10 Nov 2024 | Chelsea v Arsenal | D | 1-1 |
| 30 Nov 2024 | West Ham United v Arsenal | W | 2-5 |
| 08 Dec 2024 | Fulham v Arsenal | D | 1-1 |
| 21 Dec 2024 | Crystal Palace v Arsenal | W | 1-5 |
| 01 Jan 2025 | Brentford v Arsenal | W | 1-3 |
| 15 Jan 2025 | Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur | W | 2-1 |
| 22 Feb 2025 | Arsenal v West Ham United | L | 0-1 |
| 16 Mar 2025 | Arsenal v Chelsea | W | 1-0 |
| 01 Apr 2025 | Arsenal v Fulham | W | 2-1 |
| 12 Apr 2025 | Arsenal v Brentford | D | 1-1 |
| 23 Apr 2025 | Arsenal v Crystal Palace | D | 2-2 |
This compares with 53% victories overall in the league, 37% draws and 10% defeats. And although that difference is not great, it is interesting in that it suggests that the old adage that London teams can’t win the league because they play so many London derbies that end up as draws, or with unexpected wins, is not true. In fact, given the smaller amount of travelling for a London match, if anything, this does indicate something of an advantage.
But looking at that table, there is something else that shouts out, which I had not realised before, and that is that Arsenal played their six away derbies first (15 September to 1 January) and then their home derby games thereafter. Worse the final three London derbies where the tension was higher, were squeezed into fractionally over three weeks at the end of the season.
This lack of balance in the fixture list seems very odd to me and hardly to Arsenal’s advantage, so I decided to take a look at how this season works out.
August and September no London derbies for Arsenal but then
Sat 4 October West Ham United (H)
Sat 18 October Fulham (A)
Sat 25 October Crystal Palace (H)
Sat 22 November Tottenham Hotspur (H)
Sat 29 November Chelsea (A)
Wed 3 December Brentford (H)
Wed 11 February Brentford (A)
Sat 21 February Tottenham Hotspur (A)
Sat 28 February Chelsea (H)
March and April – no London derbies for Arsenal!!!
Sat 2 May Fulham (H)
Sat 9 May West Ham United (A)
Sun 24 May Crystal Palace (A)
To me this again looks very unbalanced, and that is a concern.
Now of course, these dates are those provided before TV mucks around with the matches, but generally that only moves a match by a day or so and doesn’t change the sequence. So what we can see is that this coming season, just like last season, Arsenal’s London games are all bunched.
The problem with this is that if Arsenal do get a run of poor results in any other period of the season outside of the bunches of London matches, then they are trying to recover from a bad run while engaged in a lot of extra travelling.
What’s more, as we can see, Arsenal did well in the London games last season, winning seven, drawing four and losing one, which was better than the overall results gained through the season as a whole.
But this lack of any London matches next March and April could well mean that just as Arsenal are needing to pick up every single point in order to see off the opposition at the very top of the league, they are in a run of games with the maximum amount of travelling.
Of course, Newcastle United would claim this is typical London bleating, given the amount of travel they have to do. And yes Newcastle to Tottenham is 286 miles each way while he last time I drove Arsenal to Tottenham it was about four miles. Still at least Newcastle have Sunderland in the same division this season.
But although London clubs do have an advantage in terms of fewer long journeys, there is still no excuse for the fixture-setting agency bunching the London derbies together in this way. To do it once (last season) might just be dismissed as the “luck of the draw” but for it to happen two seasons running makes it look like a policy.
And this of course, is where it would be good to have an answer – but on questions like this, answers never seem to be provided. It is a bit like trying to get information out of PGMOL. Questions are plentiful, but I guess that organisation, and perhaps the fixture setting organisation, think those of us who pay the money to get into the grounds are of far too little importance to be bothered with in terms of discussion and explanations. Or indeed issues of balance.
It was ever thus.
