- Arsenal are bottlers and referees have no idea what they are doing
- Are Sun journalists encouraged to laugh at each others work, as the rest of us do?
By Tony Attwood
After last night’s victory, the draw for the next round of the league cup has been made with games being played in the week starting 27 October – so just a month to wait. Here’s the full list
- Arsenal v Brighton
- Grimsby Town v Brentford
- Liverpool v Crystal Palace
- Newcastle United v Tottenham Hots
- Swansea City v Manchester City
- Wrexham v Cardiff City
- Wolverhampton Wands v Chelsea
- Wycombe Wanderers v Fulham
But next up it is Newcastle away on Sunday 28th September – and that one shojuld be winnable with Newcastle currently 13th in the league. We’ll obviously take a deeper look at that in the coming days, but just as a starter it is worth noting their list of home games this season so far. They have lost to Liverpool 2-3, beaten Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 and lost to Barcelona 1-2.
And while mentioning Wolverhampton, we might note in passing that although they have lost all five of their league games this season, scoring three and conceding 12, they did actually beat Everton in the League Cup last night. Everton have won two and drawn one in their new stadium so far.
Arsenal, currently second in the league, are the second-highest scoring team in the league, the best defensive team in the league, and the team with the best goal difference in the league. I thought I’d mention that, since for some reason much of the media seem to have missed those points.
In terms of injuries, however, things don’t look so good, and sadly this looks like being another season like the last one in terms of crocked players, although thankfully this season the squad looks better in depth, and so possibly more likely to survive the onslaught unprotected by referees.
Arsenal have five players out according to the EPL injury table, In terms of returns, Martin Odegaard is down for a possible return on 28th for Arsenal’s next game, but none of the others have even possible return dates listed. They are Gabriel Jesus, Kai Havertyz, Chukwunonso Madueke, and Piero Hincapie Reyna.
The worst affected clubs are Chelsea (9 players out), Tottenham Hots (8), Manchester City (7), Sunderland (7). Liverpool, we might note (as they had so few injuries last season) are sitting on just two players out. Is this all random, or does it have something to do with the way referees protect certain clubs, or the way some clubs play, or…..??
One other little interesting snippet that we have been playing around with compares how clubs are doing now with how they were doing a year ago. I am not sure it proves too much, but it does show quite a bit of variance can happen from one season to the next.
What we have done here is taken the top six from last season after they had all played five games, and then in the final column compared that place with where they are now after five games.
Thus we have: a year ago, the top six read as below, with this season’s place in the final column on the right….
| Team | Pld | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | NOW | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 9 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 12 | 1 |
| 3 | Aston Villa | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 7 | 3 | 12 | 18 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 2 |
| 5 | Chelsea | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 10 | 6 |
| 6 | Newcastle United | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 10 | 13 |
Now what is particularly interesting (to me if no one else) is that although the league table after five games doesn’t tell us what the end of the season looks like, we have found out in previous reviews of this type that it is not far off in that regard. So this could be quite a bleak season for Aston Villa, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wands. And the memories of Villa being third in the league after five games a year ago must seem awfully distant. Maybe it’s just their manager….
