By Bulldog Drummond
It’s over 12 years since Untold Arsenal started noting the number of injuries each Premier League club had each week, and I have never seen a table of the number of players out injured before that looks at all this before.
- Crystal Palace: 9 players
- Liverpool: 7 players
- Burnley: 6 players
- Leeds United: 6 players
- Leicester City: 6 players
- Southampton: 6 players
- West Ham United: 6 players
- Brighton and Hove Albion: 5 players
- Manchester United: 5 players
- Newcastle United: 5 players
- Sheffield United: 5 players
- Chelsea: 4 players
- Wolverhampton Wanderers: 4 players
- Aston Villa: 3 players
- Tottenham Hots: 3 players
- Everton: 2 players
- Fulham: 2 players
- Manchester City: 2 players
- West Bromwich Albion: 2 players
- Arsenal: 1 player
Yep we are bottom (or top if you want to turn it upside down) of the league of injuries with just one player out.
And who is this man who is stopping us from having a clean sheet? I hear you cry. And the answer is it is Thomas Partey whose scan was giving some concern before Thursday’s match, so we don’t really know where he is on the road to recovery.
But still with everyone else fit, we ought to be able to put out a decent squad.
As for Manchester City they have Nathan Ake who is back to training on his own but not yet ready, and Iklay Gundogan who has started training again with the rest of the team but will be tested before the match. Physioroom.com rate him as 75% possible.
I don’t keep count of injuries through the season, but I am starting to wonder if we are seeing a record low number of injuries this season since the Premier League began, and if so why. Could it be the lack of the crowd – for just as home crowds influence referees, maybe they influence players to be more reckless in their tackles? I would most certainly be interested if anyone has added up the days missed through injuries during the no-crowd era and compared it with the number of players out before the no crowd era began.
Despite the success of Manchester City since it became part of the Sheikh Mansour (total personal wealth estimated at around £19,000,000,000) fun and games empire, Arsenal have still beaten Manchester Money more often than they have beaten us.
We have won 98, they have won 59 and 45 have been drawn. Oh and one thing I am reminded of in mentioning the wealth of the owner, I have had several Manchester C supporters (for such people do, I regret to say, exist) telling me that I shouldn’t complain about the money behind the club since Arsenal were in the 1930s known as the Bank of England club.
That is certainly true, but Arsenal were known by such a name because they had the highest income of any club in the country – and that income came totally from their crowds. Soon after moving to Highbury, Arsenal were, year after year, the team that played in front of more spectators than any other.
But of course, earning one’s money through football, or through being gifted it by a young man who has inherited a fortune, well, what’s the difference?
In fact a look at the records shown that, the last time we beat them in the league was in December 2015, 2-1 at home. But since then we have beaten them twice in the FA Cup and beaten them each time, in 2017 and 2020. So if our guys can pretend it is an FA Cup match, we’ll be ok.
More later…
For the History of Arsenal and the daily Arsenal video of a great historic match you might enjoy the daily blog of the Arsenal History Society And if you want to show positive support for Arsenal as a club, there is the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association.
As a boy in the 1930s,full of Arsenal info,I seem to recall that the Club was also known as the Prudential Insurance Team. Not sure why.
I remember being on the North Bank before our home game against City in 2011 (I remember because it was our 125 year celebration year). My mates and I started crunching some numbers and it turned out that the five City substitutes had cost more than our entire squad and not just the 16 we had in the squad on the day, every player we had at the club at the time!
I learned later, after a friend had done some more numbers on the train home, that City’s 16 man squad that day had cost more than we had spent on players in our 125 year history.
Yet still their are City supporters who don’t believe they are buying trophies.
OT
Rumour has it that Harry and Meghan have been in touch with Tottenham Hotspur to ask for their extensive experience of what it’s like to live without a title 🙂
Lets not forget the originator of cheque book trophies is Chelsea. They were the first in the modern era to spend obscene amounts.
The true origin of big money in football was probably the Littlewoods influence on Liverpool. It was the club that bought every quality player irrelevant if needed or not, just to ensure the opponents didn’t get them. It also kept them winning the league on a regular basis.
That mantle went to Manchester United under Ferguson whose money supply was a result of national pride marketing after the ‘Busby babes’. That marketing, the superb scouting and the on field success kept the coffers topped up to support the spend on players.
Todays match will expose the squads to the mercy of PGMOL who will decide the result, irrelevant of the investment of capital and the coaching of the players. There again players can expose the PGMOL by playing a level of non contact that Arsenal have resorted to in order to evade unfair officiating.
COYG.
Mikey
Another defeat today. How long before the ‘special one’ gets shown the door…..again.
Menace , Blackburn Rovers bought their title , Dalglish manager and Jack Walker the owner
Here are the confirmed line-ups:
Arsenal
Leno; Bellerin, Mari, Holding, Tierney; Elneny, Xhaka; Odegaard, Saka, Pepe; Aubameyang
Subs: Ryan, Cedric, Luiz, Gabriel, Ceballos, Willian, Smith Rowe, Martinelli, Lacazette
Man City
Ederson, Cancelo, Dias, Stones, Zinchenko, Fernandinho, Gundogan, Bernardo, Mahrez, De Bruyne, Sterling
Subs: Steffen, Walker, Jesus, Aguero, Laporte, Rodrigo, Torres, Mendy, Foden
We’ve got Moss the corrupt as whistle blower and his teacher past makes him treat players like kids.
Let’s hope we show the watching world our quality despite the PGMOL agenda.
The offside flag is another PGMOL special tool it comes up after the pregnancy!!
The goal was following a pass to Mahrez who might have been offside – no VAR check!!
Following the quick raise of flag for Auba offside, the flag has been a little more efficient.
Arsenal have been avoiding physical tackles and intercepting passes to win the ball but some of the tackles that City make seem to not be seen by Blind Moss.
Moss the corrupt books Xhaka for being in Sterlings way when there was absolutely no reason for a booking. It is this same fat tub of lard that red carded Xhaka for a trip on an opponent.
80+ mins and Auba is barged by Stones and the blind Moss lets it go. Saka has been kicked from pillar to post and most have got away with the fouls.
Moss now in his element of rubbing the salt into the Arsenal wounds by blowing his whistle for nothing but vindictive glory.