Arsenal v Wimbledon home and away, the injured, statistics, and Lge Cup history

by Bulldog Drummond

One of the interesting things to notice about AFC  Wimbledon is that while they have not been much of an away team in recent years, this season, so far, they have reversed that trend.

Here is the league one table taking only away games into account.

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Bolton Wanderers	4	2	1	1	9	6	3	7
2	Rotherham United	4	2	1	1	4	2	2	7
3	AFC Wimbledon	4	2	1	1	8	7	1	7

So they are doing ok.

Meanwhile Arsenal’s unavailable list is much the same – details as ever from Premier League Injuries

Player	Reason	Further Detail	Potential Return	Condition	Status
Granit Xhaka	Suspended	Sending Off – Red Card	26/09/2021	None	Ruled Out
Mohamed Elneny	Thigh Injury	Sept 16: “Mo has worked hard with the medical team after suffering a hamstring strain and is aiming to be back in full training next week.”	26/09/2021	None	50%
Kieran Tierney	Thigh Injury	Sept 18: “Again he had a problem. I think he was cramping. The pitch was pretty difficult today it was quite long.”	No Return Date	Currently Being Assessed	50%

I can’t imagine that either Granit Xhaka of Kirean Tierney would have played in this game but I can imagine that Mo Elneny would be considered if fit, but I doubt the club will take any sort of risk with him.

But there is another matter that I have never really thought about before and that is the issue of yellow cards.   Wimbledon have had 24 so far this season in 8 league games according to Who Scored – which is of course exactly three per game.  We have had seven in five games making it 1.4 per game, so we can suppose that AFC Wimbledon will indeed be likely to receive double the number of yellows we get.

Wimbledon do have a statistics page on their website   but against every single match there is the same comment: “No additional match data available for this game,” – which doesn’t help much.

But WhoScored again come to the rescue and tell us that they are committing 11.75 fouls per game on average, as opposed to 8.4 fouls per game for Arsenal.

Particularly interesting is the fact that nine of their goals (that is 60%) have come from set pieces this season, while for Arsenal 73% of the goals last season came from open play.  (Obviously not much point looking at Arsenal’s goals this season as we’ve only scored two!)

Wimbledon’s possession rate is 52.2%, whereas Arsenal’s is 44.8%.  Which means if Arsenal show their superiors skills, will Wimbledon be the most bemused by having an unexpectedly high level of possession, or will Wimbledon not know how to play because of a low level of possession?

Finally, a bit about the past… while Arsenal are by far and away the most successful team in the entire history of the FA Cup both in terms of wins and final appearances, Arsenal are only the ninth most successful team in terms of the League Cup not having won it since 1993.  However we have been runners’ up more often than any other club – the most recent being 2018.

Club	Winners	Runners-up	Years won
Liverpool	8	4	1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1995, 2001, 2003, 2012
Manchester C	8	1	1970, 1976, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
Aston Villa	5	4	1961, 1975, 1977, 1994, 1996
Manchester U	5	4	1992, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2017
Chelsea	5	3	1965, 1998, 2005, 2007, 2015
Tottenham Hot	4	5	1971, 1973, 1999, 2008
Nottingham F	4	2	1978, 1979, 1989, 1990
Leicester City	3	2	1964, 1997, 2000
Arsenal	2	6	1987, 1993

Manchester City have won it for five of the last six years which is making it all a bit tedious.

Arsenal v Wimbledon for the first time since the split