By Tony Attwood
- How to predict the score of a game between Arsenal and Bayern Munich
- Arsenal’s record against Bayern is poor, but who wants ceaseless success?
And so today at 8pm Arsenal are at home to Bayern Munich; the club is currently top of the German league after 11 games, as I suspect it probably laid down in German law, given the regularity of the event. They have won 10 and drawn one of their league games. Perhaps even more alarmingly, they have scored 41 goals and conceded 8, giving them an insane goal difference of +33 after just 11 games
They are six points clear of second-place Leizpiz and they are averaging just under four goals scored a game. Compare that with Arsenal, who have played one more game, got four points fewer, a much lower goal difference…
And so the things we hang on to are that first, Arsenal have home benefit and the Arsenal crowd will be full-on for this game, and second there are more teaams in the Premier League than the German league playing at a high quality than in the the Bundesliga (which literally translates into “The Federal League,” given that it is played for within the Federal Republic of Germany.)
What we can also do today, however, is update the top eight of the Champions League (remembering the top eight clubs, miss out the play-off round and go straight into the main competition) as it has changed just a fraction from the last time we looked.
Arsenal and Bayern are tied together on 12 points and a +11 goal difference, separated only by the fact that Bayern have scored three more than Arsenal. Arsenal are, however, the only team in the competition against whom no club has scored a goal.
|
|
Club
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
4
|
|
4
|
0
|
0
|
14
|
3
|
11
|
12
|
|
4
|
|
4
|
0
|
0
|
11
|
0
|
11
|
12
|
|
4
|
|
4
|
0
|
0
|
11
|
1
|
10
|
12
|
|
5
|
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
17
|
11
|
6
|
10
|
|
5
|
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
12
|
6
|
6
|
10
|
|
5
|
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
10
|
5
|
5
|
10
|
|
4
|
|
3
|
0
|
1
|
14
|
5
|
9
|
9
|
|
5
|
|
3
|
0
|
2
|
11
|
4
|
7
|
9
|
And we should remember that while of course, we want to win each game and of course come top of the mini league of eight games that starts this competition, the actual place in the league doesn’t make too much difference as long as it is in the top eight.
As you may recall from last season, those top eight clubs go straight into the round of 16 while the clubs finishing between ninth and 24th inclusively get to play in an extra two-legged knockout round. The winners go through to join the top eight and the bottom 12 drop out – which seems a bit harsh. They don’t even get a chance of another few games in the Conference League with Crystal Palace and the like.
It is also worth noting that the bottom 12 from the Champions League don’t go into the Europa League and this has brought about a bit of mumbling from some clubs of this type who have suggested they might get more out of going into the Europa from the start.
The German league is always very supportive of its own clubs in a way that the Premier League is not, or at least not with Arsenal, and this season has made sure that Bayern for example, has not had a game to play since 8 November. This is because of the number of players they lose into the international hotch-potch that has just concluded.
But we might note that their last game was a 1-1 draw with Union Berlin, who are eighth in the German league with a goal difference of minus 3, so that can have the odd off-game. But their players will be much fresher than Arsenal’s having not had to play a league match of late. Arsenal on the other hand, have been playing two games a week, and the administrators of the club have been trying to find an agreeable date for the next round of the League Cup, as well.
And here again, we might compare Arsenal with its German counterparts. The German League Cup (The Ligapokal) was not held in 2008 due to the Euroo 2008 games.
Then, having not played it, the German FA realised that no one had really missed it, and so they abolished it totally. Which is an interesting and different approach from that in England, where I get the feeling that we might well soon have a Friday Cup introduced because “there’s not much football on Fridays”.
Maybe not, but my point is that while Arsenal players will have been playing two games a week up to the internationals, and then two games in four days for their countries, and then play again three days later a league match, many German players are playing far fewer games.
It is, as they say, a funny old game.
