By Bulldog Drummond
Our games against Chelsea of late have not been too bad, despite all that the media would have you believe. Here are the last 14 matches – enough to give a fair flavour of what has been going on.
| Date | Match | Res | Score | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 May 2017 | Arsenal v Chelsea | W | 2-1 | FA Cup |
| 6 Aug 2017 | Arsenal v Chelsea | W | 1-1 | FA Community Shield |
| 17 Sep 2017 | Chelsea v Arsenal | D | 0-0 | Premier League |
| 3 Jan 2018 | Arsenal v Chelsea | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 10 Jan 2018 | Chelsea v Arsenal | D | 0-0 | League Cup |
| 24 Jan 2018 | Arsenal v Chelsea | W | 2-1 | League Cup |
| 18 Aug 2018 | Chelsea v Arsenal | L | 3-2 | Premier League |
| 19 Jan 2019 | Arsenal v Chelsea | W | 2-0 | Premier League |
| 29 May 2019 | Chelsea v Arsenal | L | 4-1 | Europa League |
| 29 Dec 2019 | Arsenal v Chelsea | L | 1-2 | Premier League |
| 21 Jan 2020 | Chelsea v Arsenal | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 1 Aug 2020 | Arsenal v Chelsea | W | 2-1 | FA Cup |
| 26 Dec 2020 | Arsenal v Chelsea | W | 3-1 | Premier League |
| 12 May 2021 | Chelsea v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
That gives us seven wins to Arsenal, four draws and three defeats in the last 14. Of course, I doubt you will hear any of the media ever speak of such things, because it goes against their constant narrative
Last season both clubs had a bit of a difficult time in the early part of the campaign. Here is the league table as it looked on Christmas Day, and although Chelsea were in eighth that game in hand meant it could have been less bad than it looked. But Arsenal were really struggling.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
| 1 | Liverpool | 14 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 36 | 19 | 17 | 31 |
| 2 | Everton | 14 | 8 | 2 | 4 | 25 | 19 | 6 | 26 |
| 3 | Tottenham Hotspur | 13 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 25 | 12 | 13 | 25 |
| 4 | Leicester City | 13 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 24 | 17 | 7 | 24 |
| 5 | Southampton | 14 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 25 | 19 | 6 | 24 |
| 6 | Manchester City | 13 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 19 | 12 | 7 | 23 |
| 7 | Manchester United | 12 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 22 | 19 | 3 | 23 |
| 8 | Chelsea | 13 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 26 | 14 | 12 | 22 |
| 9 | West Ham United | 13 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 21 | 16 | 5 | 21 |
| 10 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 13 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 13 | 17 | -4 | 20 |
| 11 | Aston Villa | 11 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 21 | 13 | 8 | 19 |
| 12 | Newcastle United | 13 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 17 | 22 | -5 | 18 |
| 13 | Crystal Palace | 14 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 19 | 25 | -6 | 18 |
| 14 | Leeds United | 13 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 22 | 24 | -2 | 17 |
| 15 | Arsenal | 14 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 12 | 18 | -6 | 14 |
But then in the last two thirds of the season we outplayed them totally, scoring 14 more goals, conceding one fewer and getting five more points that they did in the last 24 games of the season.
| P | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 24 | 20 | 0 | 4 | 62 | 20 | 42 | 60 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 24 | 14 | 5 | 5 | 43 | 21 | 22 | 47 |
| 3 | Manchester United | 24 | 13 | 8 | 3 | 43 | 21 | 22 | 47 |
| 4 | West Ham United | 24 | 13 | 5 | 6 | 41 | 28 | 13 | 44 |
| 5 | Chelsea | 24 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 29 | 22 | 7 | 42 |
So if we can overcome our current injury and illness problems we could take matters on from there. I certainly know (from a comment one director made at a meeting as which Untold was represented) that the board of directors are fully aware of the disparity between the first third and the last two thirds of the season last time around.
But there was also a change underlying this – and here we can look at the complete season.
| Team | Tackles 2019/0 | Tackles 2020/1 | +/- | Fouls 2019/0 | Fouls 2020/1 | +/- | Yellow 2019/0 | Yellow 2020/1 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | 584 | 456 | -22% | 421 | 345 | -18% | 86 | 47 | -45% |
| Chelsea | 638 | 612 | -4% | 386 | 433 | +12% | 60 | 50 | -17% |
In short, Arsenal cut their yellow card total by 45% as they desperately needed to do. As the table shows, in 2019/20 Chelsea committed 156 MORE tackles than Arsenal, but got 35 fewer fouls given against them than Arsenal. Even more outrageously the got 26 fewer yellow cards against them than Arsenal!
So in 2020/1 Arsenal took the view that if the referees would not get this sorted, Arsenal would. They cut their tackles by 22% so they now committed an amazing 156 fewer tackles than Chelsea. Now at last they had fewer fouls given against them than Chelsea (88 fewer) and finally, finally, got 3 fewer yellow cards than Chelsea. So 156 fewer tackles than Chelsea to get 3 fewer yellow cards than Chelsea. Amazing figures.
The big difference is emphasised in the ratio table below
| Team | Tackles | Fouls | Tackle/foul Ratio | Yellow | Foul / yellow Ratio | Tackle/yellow ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | 456 | 345 | 76% | 47 | 22% | 10% |
| Chelsea | 612 | 433 | 70% | 50 | 11% | 8% |
This season, just after one game we can see the astonishing difference between the two clubs. Chelsea put in 21 tackles but had only 15 fouls called on this – a ratio of 71%, virtually the same as last season. Arsenal put in only nine tackles but eight of them were called as fouls.
| Team | Tackles | Fouls | Tackle/foul Ratio | Yellow | Foul / yellow Ratio | Tackle/yellow ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | 9 | 8 | 89% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Chelsea | 21 | 15 | 71% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
It is patently obvious that as things stand Chelsea can tackle and know they will get away with their tackles quite often, whereas Arsenal will have almost every single tackle called as a foul.
What this means in the end is that we can expect Arsenal to start picking up yellow cards today but Chelsea are far less likely too, despite the fact that they will put in more tackles.
It most certainly is unlikely to be even handed from the referee.
Now of course it will be argued that Arsenal’s fouls are worse than Chelsea’s but there is not a single scrap of evidence to back this up. Our tackles are simply called as fouls more often and we get yellow more often. That’s why our tackle level dropped by over a fifth from two years ago to last year.
- Arsenal v Chelsea: leaderless, clueless and visionless Arsenal (report)
- Arsenal v Chelsea: the injuries, plus referee ineptitude and disaster areas
Just a quick point. 47 yellows from 345 fouls looks to be a 14% ratio rather than 22%.
Interesting, VAR OFFICIALS V BRENTFORD C KAVANAGH ASSISTANT S MASSEY-ELLIS. VAR OFFICIALS V CHELSEA C KAVANAGH ASSISTANT S MASSEY-ELLIS. WELL DONE M RILEY.
Just imagine AFTV’s reaction to this…
Following on from Peter’s comment, I note that Mr Riley and co allowed Mike Dean (Wirral referee, Tranmere fan) to again referee a Liverpool team as happened last season. I assume that Mr Riley feels that Mr Dean is unbiased despite coming from the region with the associated fanbase. Indeed the Liverpool manager Mr Klopp wondered why Mr Dean did not award any yellow cards against certain Burnley adherents for some apparent poor tackles during their game.
Are we now to find that referees will allow the type of infringement that Leno was subjected to in the Brentford match to which Klopp also alluded to. If so, perhaps the Arsenal team may well find that hard tackling (fouls?) may once again become prominent as was wished for by a journalist interviewing Klopp. (This journalist was heard to support “Bring back the 70’s and 80’s. Let us no longer protect goalkeepers……!”)
Into the second week of the season and already there are rumblings of a movement suggesting “b
Back to the Future”. No longer “Kick out Racism”, but just “Kick Out-it’s a man’s game after all really!”
They don’t do statistics however.
They can tackle – from behind. Ask Thomas Partey. To meet Chelsea a couple of weeks before the clash in league is sooo stupid. They did it on purpose. Partey was a threat. He isn’t anymore.