Arsenal beat the away barrier, but it is still not enough

Posted on by Tony Attwood

by Tony Attwood

Arsenal have now finally improved on last season’s awful away record.   Here’s the current table for away games only

Pos Team P W D L F GA GD Pts
1 Tottenham Hotspur 13 11 0 2 30 13 17 33
2 Liverpool 13 9 3 1 24 8 16 30
3 Manchester City 13 8 2 3 25 9 16 26
4 Manchester United 14 8 2 4 27 19 8 26
5 Chelsea 12 7 1 4 19 14 5 22
6 Wolverhampton Wanderers 12 5 3 4 14 14 0 18
7 Arsenal 13 5 3 5 25 26 -1 18

Five wins and three draws, which compares with the final tally for last season away from home when we ended up at the level of Newcastle.

Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Manchester City 19 16 2 1 45 13 32 50
2 Tottenham Hotspur 19 10 4 5 34 20 14 34
3 Manchester United 19 10 4 5 30 19 11 34
4 Chelsea 19 10 3 6 32 22 10 33
5 Liverpool 19 9 5 5 39 28 11 32
6 Burnley 19 7 7 5 20 22 -2 28
7 Leicester City 19 5 5 9 31 38 -7 20
8 AFC Bournemouth 19 4 6 9 19 31 -12 18
9 Crystal Palace 19 4 6 9 16 28 -12 18
10 Southampton 19 3 8 8 17 30 -13 17
11 Arsenal 19 4 4 11 20 31 -11 16
12 Newcastle United 19 4 4 11 18 30 -12 16

Four wins four draws in the 19 away games last season.

However this improvement is not at the level that Untold proposed could be used to get us back to the top four.  The idea we put forward was that a return to the away form of earlier years while maintaining the current home form, was all that was needed to secure that top four finish.  That of course would not be enough to win the league, but it would take us back to the Champions League and thus earn extra money that might be given back  to the club by the owner, to buy more players.

And since the home form last season, and indeed this season, showed that we could actually play football and win matches, there was surely no reason why we couldn’t do it at home and away at levels previously achieved.

But it seems not.  2017 was not the best of away forms, but it was certainly a lot better than what we have now.

Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Chelsea 19 13 3 3 30 16 14 42
2 Manchester City 19 12 2 5 43 22 21 38
3 Manchester United 19 10 5 4 28 17 11 35
4 Liverpool 19 10 5 4 33 24 9 35
5 Tottenham Hotspur 19 9 6 4 39 17 22 33
6 Arsenal 19 9 3 7 38 28 10 30

And indeed we have to go back to 2016 to find a decent away form.  Not good enough for the title of course but good enough to secure top four.

Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Leicester City 19 11 6 2 33 18 15 39
2 Tottenham Hotspur 19 9 7 3 34 20 14 34
3 Arsenal 19 8 7 4 34 25 9 31
4 West Ham United 19 7 7 5 31 25 6 28
5 Manchester City 19 7 7 5 24 20 4 28
6 Liverpool 19 8 4 7 30 28 2 28

So why is it we have maintained our home form, but not the away form that we had in2015/16 which took us to the second place in the league?

I don’t know, but I don’t think the answer is bad defenders – if that were the case we would have poor home and away form, not good home form and poor away.

You tell me.

Recent Posts

19 Replies to “Arsenal beat the away barrier, but it is still not enough”

  1. OT – in the spuds match the commentators adda new bit of drivel after spuds score from an offside position – ‘it’s within the error tolerance of the officials judgement’.

  2. Now they’ve scored a goal following a handball.

    Leicester City have been the better team. Created the most chances, good ones at that. They have just missed one of the easiest chances of the season.

    They have missed a penalty.

    And guess what the commentators say:

    Spurs keep ‘grinding’ out results.

    Funny how we are always ‘lucky’ when we win under such circumstances.

    If ever a team has been ‘lucky’it is Spurs today but I doubt we’ll hear that said once.

  3. Finally Leicester get the goal their play has deserved. Vardy making up for his missed penalty. 2-1.

  4. Good news for our Women as helsea have just drawn away at Man City effectively removing two points from each team.

    The top of the table now looks like this

    Man City – P15, 35 points and +32 goals
    Arsenal – P13, 33 points and +39 goals
    Chelsea – P 15, 29 points and +13 goals
    Birmingham – P14, 28 points and +7 goals

    Barring calamity it looks like the League winners will either be City or ourselves and we must now be favourites. We still have to play City but if we win our two games in hand we could still be champions even if we lose that game.

    With the top two clubs qualifying for the Women’s Champions League we could well be enjoying Continental football again after too long a break

  5. Spurs seal it with a last minute breakaway. Final scor 3-1

    Shots: Spurs 12 (5) Leicester 20 (12)

    Corners: Spurs 2 Leicester 9

    In my opinion Spurs were outfought and out played. The statistics tend to support this.

    But they won. It happens. We’ve won under similar circumstances. You take it and move on.

    But this isn’t about that it’s about the polar opposite ways the media interpret wins like this when it’s Arsenal against how they interpret wins like this when it’s just about everybody else.

    As the players walked off it started:

    Resilience

    Focus

    Eye on the prize

    …..So not ‘lucky’ at all. Not even a tad fortunate.

    From the BBC:

    Tottenham ensured they remain in contention in the Premier League title race as Mauricio Pochettino’s side earned victory over Leicester at Wembley.

    …..Again no luck or fortune at all, they ‘earned’ their victory.

    From the Mail:

    That’s four wins on the bounce now, and they still have Harry Kane and Dele Alli to come back! A phenomenal effort from them to even still be in contention quite frankly.

    …During Arsenals austerity years (nil net spend on players) we were in this position at the top of the table on many occasions and I never once recall it being called a ‘Phenomenal effort’.

    Maybe Spurs being so shite (Kieth: any thoughts) for so long makes you think like this?

    Don’t get me wrong, it is not spurs or their fans I have an issue with, I have on numerous occasions said that given their transfer budget Spurs are indeed doing very well.

    It is, as is my want, my discust at the double standards employed by the media when talking about us as against when they are discusing the Likes of Liverpool who like Spurs lets face it have been shite (Kieth: any thoughts) for years now.

    Even our own Alan Smith who seems to take great pleasure in knocking everything we do fawns over them like a love sick child.

  6. Chelsea are 4 nil down at City and should be 5 yet now we’ve got Gary Neville making excuses for them.

    Apparently:

    Chelsea have been TOO brave.

    If it was Arsenal I’m sure it would of been naive.

    Because Chelsea have been so brave they’ve brought the best out of City, were as City often get bored and don’t play like this.

    Half time and now we have we have Jammie Carragher sticking hia anti Arsenal oar in:

    He starts well with “Chelsea have been disgraceful” but immediately turns it into a dig at Arsenal by adding “Sari has turned Chelsea in to Arsenal”.

    Not Spurs of course who haven’t won a thing for 12 years.

    And not his beloved Liverpool of course who over the last few years have capitulated for fun (and have a manager that’s lost his last 6 finals I think it is) and also not won a thing for 12 years.

    No, he’s turned them in to Arsenal, the Team that has won 3 FA Cups and have a net league finishing position superior to Liverpools over the last 5 years.

    If anyone thinks knocking Arsenal is a national sport for the media then they must be deaf, blind or both.

    Unfortunately after getting the fourth City have took their foot of the gas, which is a shame because if they can win by a 6 goal margin, which obviously isn’t out of the question given how it’s gone so far, we would stay in the non trophy 4th spot, which is such a magnificent achievement when it’s anyone bar us.

    And just for good measure apparently according to Martin Tyler, the commentator for this match, Spurs were in no way ‘lucky’ or even ‘fortunate’, earlier today, no, Spurs were ‘pragmatic’.

    And the first thing Tyler says as they kick off the second half is “at least Chelsea haven’t been over run”. They are 4 and should be 5 nil down for fucks sake.

    You couldn’t make this shit up.

    Sorry, I know I’m rambling on but it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m bored.

  7. Typo:

    If anyone thinks knocking Arsenal is NOT a national sport for the media then they must be deaf, blind or both.

  9. 6-0

    Haven’t heard the word embarrasing yet.

    Maybe it’sonly Arsenal who are ever embarrasing?

    Neville still keeps having little digs at Arsenal infering that City were half asleep last week.

  11. Well done City. 6-0 against the chavs. Arsenal move to 5th on goal difference. Still hope for the top 4 trophy!!

  13. City still have to play the spuds & united so there are some good points to be had, besides we have have to play both spuds & city.

  15. United at the Emirates on 10 March and Spurs 2 March at Wembley, or wherever their “home” is that week.

  17. I had a great and very enjoyable time watching the Man. City vs Chelsea game, especially as my Chelski loving son was back home . And was in much discomfort from the off!

    Of course like the commentators , he too had to proportion blame on Arsenal and AW ! No logical argument required , just blame the bogey man !
    Well , I suppose that the Arsenal game had whetted Man City ‘s appetite for more , and they carried on where they left off .

    The other clubs must now be quaking in fear to play City in this form ! The same score in the League Cup ?

  18. NEW AGE MATHEMATICS –

    Officer : “Madam , I need you to complete this form. What is your husband’s and your ages ?”

    Wife : ” When we got married , my husband was 25 , and I was only 18. Now he is 50 years old , which is double…so, accordingly , I am 36 .

    The officer is still calculating !

  19. Brickfields

    I often run across people who don’t understand speedometer errors. There are lots of them, who think if the error is 5mph (or 8 kph) at 60mph, it is also 5mph at 100mph or 5 mph when they are going very slow (or even stopped). Imagine, your speedometer says you are stopped (and you have put the transmission in park), and yet the vehicle is still moving at 5mph (doesn’t matter what direction). We could harvest this “zero point energy” for other purposes. There would be no more energy crisis! All we would have to do is put errors in every speedometer, and we would have a near infinite population of vehicles that are still moving when they are parked.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *