While media complain about ref Arsenal learn the lesson about African players

 

 

• How the football media is conning us day after day
• In terms of squads, English clubs have a much tougher time than those in Germany and France

By Tony Attwood

We have regularly noted the difficulties caused by the African Cup of Nation,s which is played every odd-numbered year (the only exception being in COVID times).   And the problem is that it is played during the European football season.

There are alternatives of course: June and July in South Africa would be perfectly ok- the average daytime highs around 18 degrees centigrade, dropping to maybe just under 10 degrees at night; that sounds ok for football.   

But for many African countries, the answer is to disrupt all of northern hemisphere football and play the games in December and January.   To be precise, for this outing the matches take place between 21 December to 18 January.  Then add in acclimatisation and practice match time before and after the event, and for some players, a huge chunk of time working for the people who pay their salaries has vanished.   

In fact, players going to the games will most probably miss gameweek 16 onwards at least to gameweek 21.  They could miss two more weeks depending on how well their country does, and will then need at least a week acclimatisation before being ready to play again for the people who pay their wages.

Now of course, I don’t know how it came about that Arsenal (along with Chelsea and Leeds United) have no players going to Africa.   But that is rather interesting for Arsenal, since in the days of Wenger, we could be quite severely hampered by this bi-annual problem.

But back with the present, Arsenal’s zero compares with Sunderland who amazingly have allowed themselves to have no less than nine players who are likely to be going to the games.   Wolverhampton, who already looked doomed in the Premier League have five players leaving.

Of course, Arsenal are not the only team to have managed the matter in the best way for the club, and it might well have been knowledge that Thomas Partey could be called up, which was a factor in allowing him to leave – although if that was the case, it would be ironic since Morocco didn’t qualify in the end.

So if we take our usual post-match look at the Premier League table and add an extra column showing how many players that club loses to Afcom, we see that this time around the effect of Afcom is limited…

 

Pos	Afcom	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	0	Arsenal	13	9	3	1	25	7	18	30
2	2	Manchester City	13	8	1	4	27	12	15	25
3	0	Chelsea	13	7	3	3	24	12	12	24
4	1	Aston Villa	13	7	3	3	16	11	5	24
5	1	Brighton and Hove Albion	13	6	4	3	21	16	5	22

 

As you can see, none of the top teams are being affected much, and ManC of course, can always borrow players from other clubs in the City Group if they need them.

Indeed, it looks like a lot of clubs have started to turn away from African players as leaving aside the aforementioned Sunderland and Wolverhampton, the most affected clubs are Crystal Palace (four players), Burnley (three), Fulham (three) and Manchester United (also three).

Now what is interesting this year is that (I think for the first time) Manchester United are asking Cameroon if they can have players held back until 21 December, just three days ahead of their first African game.   Certainly, if they get away with that one, other clubs will be doing it in future.    Although of course, it is always possible for a player to recognise who pays his salary and just say “no.”  

Meanwhile, on the Arsenal injury front, the latest news from Premier League injuries is that Gabriel Magalhaes “is doing really well”, and Havertz and Trossard are getting closer and closer to a return.  Which means the only long-term injury we now have is Saliba.

Meanwhile I must mention the Lucas Paquetá affair.   He complained after being shown a yellow card for dissent, and as a result, got a second yellow card for showing dissent against the first yellow card.   Mind you, he does play for West Ham, and it does seem to me sometimes that around that club there is a feeling that normal rules don’t apply.   As with their demand that they be given the so-called “London” stadium for free, and now their fans want to give it back.

Elsewhere, Chelsea are complaining about the referee in yesterday’s game, and for all the talk about Tottenham rushing on and challenging at the top of the league this season, they are now 12th, 12 points behind Arsenal.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	13	9	3	1	25	7	18	30
12	Tottenham Hotspur	13	5	3	5	21	16	5	18

 

Tottenham are scoring on average 1.62 goals per league game.  Which is lower than the 1.68 goals per league game last season when they finished 17th.   Just thought you might like to know.