- Sunderland v Arsenal and the issue of seeing games in context
- Sunderland v Arsenal: ambition, injuries and form
- Sunderland v Arsenal and the curious behaviour of the referee
- Let us not fool ourselves – the next four games are tough
By Tony Attwood
I was surprised to see that the difference between the two clubs involved in today’s game are far less than I thought. In fact the clubs are very close to each other in terms of head-to-head reckonings. Arsenal have beaten Sunderland 63 times, they have beaten us 50 times and there have been 41 draws.
But this of course, takes into account the early games between the two sides, which date back to 1893 when Sunderland beat Arsenal in the FA Cup 6-0. Indeed, Arsenal won only four of the first 16 games played between the two sides.
Of late, however, matters have changed, for of the last 32 games between the two teams (a run which started on 30 December 2000), Sunderland have won just three. Nine games have been drawn, and Arsenal have won 20. It seems Sunderland has thrown away their heritage and has a fair amount of catching up to do.
What’s more, from my perspective, whenever we see such improvements as those we have seen recently, behind them to some degree is Nicolas Jover and those set pieces. For example, although we see the Arsenal players run forward before the ball is kicked at every corner kick, the fact is that most opposition teams still don’t know how to cope with that. The ball is out of play, there is a solid group of Arsenal players running across the area – where are the defenders supposed to be looking? At the ball? At the onrushing players? At each other? No one seems to know.
There is also the case of injuries. We are used to this by now – Arsenal get many more injuries to first-team players than most clubs and this happens year after year after year. The difference is that this season it is not taking the club by surprise. We have backup players who can take over, which is why the club is top of the league, points clear of the nearest rivals.
What’s more, attention is given to set pieces, particularly, whereas go back a few years and it looked far less as if everyone knew exactly what was going to happen and the defenders were drilled in how to deal with it. Now they know what is going to happen, but they still don’t know what to do about it. So now if we get a free kick in the opposition half, there is hope and expectation in Arsenal’s eyes, and fear and uncertainty in the opposition.
As a result, it looks as if the management is working on the basis that for much of the season, we will have half a dozen top players out. But because of this, we now have a backup squad there ready to be used – and used they certainly are.
And so we look at the team for today. Yahoo gives us
Raya,
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori,
Eze, Zubimendi, Rice,
Saka, Merino, Trossard.
Sports Mole gives us exactly the same line-up, and so as ever, once we see two publications coming out with the same details, we think that is probably as close as we can get to a prediction that works.
So there we have it – Sunderland v Arsenal. All that is left to offer is the score. 1-2 to the Arsenal is my prediction. But then, what do I know?
Sp*rs -Manure.
Fouls : 10 – 8
Yellows : 5 – 1
I’m no Sp*rs fan…. still…. that does look very strange
Chris
Strange indeed. But not surprising.
I believe, but without searching back through years of stats on Untold to find it, that we have shown not only an extraordinary bias against Arsenal when it comes to Yellow/Red cards, but a similar, if not quite so harsh, bias against all London clubs when compared to their Northern counterparts.
Hardly surprising when you see the disproportionate ratio of ‘Northern’ referees as compared to ‘Southern’.
But of course, far be it for me to suggest any form of bias, or Heaven forbid, cheating, is going on!!!
Still, no matter how it happens, it’s always nice to see Spurs go all ‘Spursy’ yet again.
@Nitram,
I fully agree and it is always good to see 2 potential rivals each losing 2 points.
Let’s hope this modus operandi works tomorrow evening as well !
Arsenal ladies made to suffer at the hands of a cheating referee with two goals ruled out in their match against Chelsea earlier today. It finished 1-1 but the correct score should have been 3-1 to our girls. That has virtually handed the title to Chelsea even at this early stage of the season.