By Bulldog Drummond
This article continues our match preview series following on from Arsenal v Burnley: tackles, fouls, yellows and home/away form.
When it comes to injuries it might feel like we are top of the league, but in fact that is not the case. Figures as always come from Premier Injuries.
It is interesting that the top four places (ie the four clubs with the fewest injuries to players) are all in London. Clearly, it must be something to do with the fresh air in the capital. Unfortunately, the missing team from that group is Arsenal.
We should also remember that Premier Injuries include players unable to play because they are in Africa or suspended. Here is the list of clubs by the number of missing players.
- Tottenham Hotspur: 4
- West Ham United: 5
- Chelsea: 5
- Crystal Palace: 5
- Aston Villa: 6
- Everton: 6
- Manchester City: 6
- Norwich City: 6
- Southampton: 6
- Brentford: 7
- Brighton and Hove Albion: 7
- Arsenal: 8
- Wolverhampton Wanderers: 8
- Newcastle United: 8
- Burnley: 9
- Liverpool: 10
- Manchester United: 10
- Watford: 10
- Leeds United: 11
- Leicester City: 11
Our list of the missing is
- Piere-Emerick Aubameyang: Heart leisions
- Calum Chambers: Neck injury
- Mohammed Elneny: Africa cup of Nations
- Bernd Leno: Back injury
- Thomas Partey: Suspended
- Nicolas Pepe: Africa Cup of Nations
- Cedric Soares: Hip injury
- Granit Xhaka: Suspended
All of which makes the conclusion of the loan deal for Maitland-Niles and the release of Kolasinac, all the more curious. However, as ever we’ll leave the ideas on the exact selection until the day of the game.
Which brings us back to how the two teams have been doing of late.
We saw in the earlier piece that Arsenal’s home record is massively superior to Burnley’s away record. And now we can return to this area of analysis by considering the recent form of both clubs.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 4 | 17 | 18 |
| 2 | Tottenham Hots | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 14 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 16 | 5 | 11 | 12 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 11 |
| 5 | Manchester United | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 11 |
| 6 | Wolverhampton Wands | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 10 |
| 7 | West Ham United | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 13 | 11 | 2 | 9 |
| 8 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 9 |
| 9 | Crystal Palace | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 10 | 1 | 8 |
| 10 | Southampton | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 12 | -1 | 8 |
| 11 | Chelsea | 6 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 7 |
| 12 | Leicester City | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 7 |
| 13 | Aston Villa | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 9 | -1 | 7 |
| 14 | Leeds United | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 19 | -8 | 7 |
| 15 | Norwich City | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 13 | -8 | 6 |
| 16 | Newcastle United | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 13 | -9 | 5 |
| 17 | Everton | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 8 | 14 | -6 | 4 |
| 18 | Burnley | 6 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 10 | -5 | 3 |
| 19 | Brentford | 6 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 14 | -10 | 3 |
| 20 | Watford | 6 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 14 | -10 | 1 |
This table continues to suggest that our push to end up in one of the top four places is still on track, despite the fact that we are currently sixth in the whole-season table. Burnley are now bottom of the league, but they have played fewer games than any other club. In fact, Burnley have managed only 17 games this season while Chelsea have played six more league games!
Thus although Burnley are bottom they might have some hopes of winning a few of those games in hand – but to do this their form is certainly going to have to improve.
Indeed if we move on and look at the league rankings over the last 10 games we see that Arsenal are functioning at the level of fourth, which is what we are hoping for at the end of the season. Burnley are running at 16th which sounds better than the last six match table but is only achieved on goal difference.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 7 | 22 | 30 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 24 | 7 | 17 | 23 |
| 3 | Tottenham Hots | 10 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 17 | 9 | 8 | 21 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 10 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 21 | 12 | 9 | 18 |
| 5 | Manchester United | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 16 | 13 | 3 | 18 |
| 6 | Wolverhampton Wands | 10 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 15 |
| 7 | West Ham United | 10 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 18 | 16 | 2 | 14 |
| 8 | Chelsea | 10 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 15 | 13 | 2 | 14 |
| 9 | Aston Villa | 10 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 13 |
| 10 | Brighton and Hove | 10 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 12 |
| 11 | Leeds United | 10 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 14 | 22 | -8 | 12 |
| 12 | Leicester City | 10 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 18 | 21 | -3 | 11 |
| 13 | Southampton | 10 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 15 | 21 | -6 | 10 |
| 14 | Brentford | 10 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 19 | -10 | 10 |
| 15 | Crystal Palace | 10 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 15 | 17 | -2 | 9 |
| 16 | Burnley | 10 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 11 | 16 | -5 | 8 |
| 17 | Newcastle United | 10 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 20 | -11 | 8 |
| 18 | Norwich City | 10 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 18 | -12 | 8 |
| 19 | Everton | 10 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 20 | -11 | 5 |
| 20 | Watford | 10 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 11 | 22 | -11 | 4 |
It is particularly interesting to see Everton in 19th in the last ten matches table. Since David Moyes left the club in 2013 they have had nine managers, three of whom were temps. The permanent men were: Martinez, Koeman, Allardyce, Silve, Ancelotti and Benitez. Of the permanent managers the most successful in terms of win percentages was Ancelotti with 46.27%.
During the same spell, Arsenal have had three permanent managers and one temp. Of the permanent managers, the win percentages across their entire time at Arsenal were Wenger 57.25%, Emery 55.13% and Arteta, 55.05%. These in fact are the three most successful permanent managers in the history of Arsenal.
Burnley have had one manager across this period since 2013 – Sean Dyche, and what is interesting is that in a few games time he will become the third-longest manager in the history of the club. But his win percentage is only 35.44%. But he did win the championship title in 2016.
Cavani was clearly offside on ManU’s winning goal…not surprised it wasn’t called.
GGG – not clear and obvious!!
Southampton v Man City – Armstrong fouls with thigh high studs first rake down the opponents leg…… its a yellow!! That is clear and obvious corrupt officiating.
I cannot think of a single dubious decision against Man Utd in my lifetime. That’s from the Busby era.
@ Menace
I couldn’t believe how he got away with that. I know none of our players would have. And then one of the muppets in the MotD studio “explained” that the reason was because, “it was only a glancing blow”. Thank goodness we have “experts” like Danny Murphy to explain about “intent” and “dangerous play”.
This must be the level playing field we are told about!!
Mikey
So how did the referee perform ?
Actually he did okay. He certainly can’t be criticized. And how do we know that ? Well, because Danny Murphy says so ! I assume he was faced with a couple of nodding donkeys agreeing with his every word.
Basically how the referee was judged:
Had nothing to do with how he applied the laws of the game.
Had nothing to do with consistency.
As long as Danny Murphy, all the other talking heads and media hacks agree the referee did nothing wrong, he did nothing wrong.
But as you say, if it had been Xhaka for example, the judgement would of been completely different.
How did the referee miss that ?
How did VAR let Arsenal get away with that ?
The referee was terrible.
Arsenal get away with it yet again.
As I keep saying, that’s why referees referee as they do. It has nothing to do with gambling, little brown envelops, actually liking United, or disliking Arsenal. It’s as simple as knowing what will and wont get them criticised by the media, who are, as I keep saying, their judge jury and executioners.
It’s not an exact science, but anyone with a pair of eyes can see that as a rule, if a referee gives anything verging on contentious in our favour he gets buried by the media in a way he would never with any other team. In fact, as you point out, he will often as not get defended, even when it’s indefensible.
The bottom line is, it’s the media that our problem, not the referees. If the media changed their attitude towards us, and judged us in the same way they do most other teams, then the way we are refereed would change and follow a similarly benevolent path.
Of course the referees shouldn’t be influenced by the media, but they are, of that I have no doubt.
It’s one of the reasons I have said, as have others, that the premier league should be refereed by referees from the continent, who live abroad, and as such are more or less insulated from the pressure of our biased media. In fact I have no doubt they would take great satisfaction in annoying them by not falling aver backwards to accommodate their bias. Never gonna happen.