By Bulldog Drummond
- Arsenal v Liverpool: all the form of late points to a draw
- Arsenal v Liverpool: This is Arsenal’s best position since 2014.
An interesting snippet of news in between our coverage of the Liverpool! game. Chelsea applied for their FA Cup game at Middlesbrough to be played behind closed doors, because they couldn’t sell tickets. They said that the sporting integrity would be protected by such a measure.
The Guardian are reporting that “their request for Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough to be played behind closed doors after causing exasperation and disbelief in Downing Street with their desperate push for permission to sell tickets.
“There was widespread incredulity,” the paper added, and, “Middlesbrough said the suggestion was “bizarre and without any merit.” The government “accused Chelsea of blurring their priorities with the club up for sale and Friday’s deadline for bidders to submit proposals drawing closer.”
It would appear that the PR department at the department has either gone on holiday, been sacked, or given up on an impossible task or indeed are deliberately undermining the club for reasons that have not become clear at this point. Ah well.
But to check on how this is being seen elsewhere one must take also a peek at the venerable Telegraph.
Chelsea forced into embarrassing climbdown after Government and Middlesbrough fury over FA Cup ticket row runs their headline which leaves little doubt as to where they stand. They then add “Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson says the words ‘sporting integrity’ and Chelsea ‘do not belong in the same sentence.”
Time now to look at the tackles, fouls and yellow cards for the Liverpool! match.
| Club | Tackles | Fouls | Yellows |
| Arsenal | 379 | 276 | 37 |
| Liverpool! | 379 | 239 | 34 |
These figures look quite close, but when we take into account the fact that Liverpool have played two more games than Arsenal we can see that is not the case. So here are the figures per game
| Club | Tackles | Fouls | Yellows |
| Arsenal | 14.57 | 10.61 | 1.42 |
| Liverpool | 13.54 | 8.54 | 1.21 |
Thus we can see that Arsenal make one more tackle per game, but commit two more fouls per game, and get a fraction of a yellow card more per game.
So numbers are close but let’s consider also, as we always do the all-important ratios.
| Club | Tackles/Fouls | Tackle/yellow | Foul/yellow |
| Arsenal | 1.37 | 10.24 | 7.46 |
| Liverpool | 1.59 | 11.15 | 7.03 |
Liverpool, as we might expect, can commit more tackles before getting a foul, can commit more tackles before getting a yellow card, but commit fewer fouls before being picked up for a yellow.
But we should say the differences throughout are small, which makes a bit of a change compared with the numbers we normally see.
Man united 0 – 1 Athletico Madrid
“Disgraceful scenes as cans and bottles rain down on Simione as he heads for the tunnel following his teams magnificent victory at Old Trafford that sees United crash out of the Champions league”
Now that’s my headline. But will it be the medias ?
My point isn’t really about the result but the fact Simione was bombarded with cans and bottles as he headed to the tunnel. Yes the commentators mentioned it but no ‘disgrace’ or ‘shame’ or anything like. Not mentioned again. It’s half an hour since the final whistle. Still not been mentioned.
It will be interesting to see if they do mention it, because as sure as eggs is eggs they would be all over it if it was us.
One thing is for sure, United should be fined, at least. Again it will be interesting to see if they are ?
The post match analysis finishes and the throwing of bottles and cans at Simione, that hit Simione, didn’t get a mention. What a surprise.
We here on Untold are constantly trying to hold the media to account with regards to their honesty and integrity, especially when it comes to reporting Arsenal.
Our, or at least my argument is (although Untolds and my views on this are very similar, from now on I’ll just express this as my opinion) that although some of their criticisms are true, without comparison or context they mean very little. The infamous article by Amy Lawrenson in the Guardian is a prime example. But that approach to Arsenal is extremely common.
Anyway, for reasons I will make clear, every day this week I’m waking up to something nasty on my doormat. As nasty as it is, oddly enough I have actually asked for it to be squeezed through my letter box. Not only that I’m even paying for it ! It’s called The Sun, and as much as I detest this steaming pile of crap it’s a necessary evil just to get my hands on their Racing section to assist me in my, up until now at least, fruitless attempt to win a million on the nags at Cheltenham.
Anyway I thought I’d brave Mark Irwins ‘build up’ piece to see just how accurate and balanced he is. It didn’t start well. Now I was going to do a critique on it paragraph by paragraph, but in the end decided to use just one statement, a very common statement, that I’ve heard used many many times by way of criticising us despite it factually having very little in common with reality, and it’s this:
“…..finding their feet again after a decade of decline”
A DECADE OF DECLINE
It really p***** me off when I read this because it simply isn’t true. It’s a complete fabrication and re writing of history simply in order to discredit us and reinforce these notions of us being a club in perminent decline.
So, have we really gone through a decade of decline? Lets have a look.
2011-2012
Poss: 3rd FAC: NO LC: NO CS: NO
2012-2013
Poss: 4th FAC: NO LC: NO CS: NO
2013-2014
Poss: 4th FAC: YES LC: NO CS: NO
So league finish wise 3rd, 4th, 4th is no different to the preceding 5 or 6 years. No decline there. And in any case we won an FA Cup, our first trophy for 9 years so in my book that’s actually an improvement.
2014-2015
Poss: 3rd FAC: YES LC: NO CS YES
So an improvement in league position. Another FAC and a Community Shield for good measure. So again, no decline there.
2015-2016
Poss: 2nd FAC NO LC: NO CS: YES
So another improvement in league position, but alas no trophies this season, having to console ourselves with the consolation of a Community Shield.
So again another season that can hardly be defined as a decline.
We are now 5 seasons into this mythical 10 seasons of decline. 5 Seasons that have actually been our best seasons since the halcyon days of Wengers early years and of course follow our 10 years of austerity when we spent Nett ZERO on transfers.
So lets look at the next 5 years starting with:
2016-2017
Poss: 5th FAC YES LC: NO CS: NO
This season saw us dropout of the top 4 for the first time in 21 years, so league wise on the face of it quite a decline from 2nd to 5th, but there are some caveats that show this is season is not really the major decline it first appears. Firstly our points tally of 75 was a 4 point improvement on the previous season and was in fact only bettered twice in the previous 10 years. And in any case, we won yet another FAC. So more points AND a trophy is arguably an improvement on the preceding season.
My argument is, that despite missing out on 4th by ONE point those last 6 years are simply not indicative of a team that is in ‘decline’.
Now we move on to the next and most recent 4 seasons. That’s FOUR seasons, where we’ve finished 6th, 5th, 8th and 8th. So yes, league wise this period can certainly be seen as a decline. But it’s FOUR seasons NOT TEN !! And even within those 4 seasons we won an FAC and 2 community shields, which is more than Spurs have won in over 20 years.
If only Spurs could ‘decline’ to our level they might finally win something !!
The entire tone of his piece was as I say, to infer that finally after all those years of mis management and decline Arteta is finally saving the club from it’s terminal decline into obscurity, when in reality what he has done is get us back to where we were 5 years ago.
So okay, we’ve had what for us is 4 disappointing seasons. But this is nothing if compared to the barren spells that Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Man city and Spurs have endured, yet the way they talk you’d think we were the only team that ever had a ‘rough patch’, and of course nobody else’s ‘rough patch’ was anything like as bad as ours.
I only have to read one article in this rag to remind me just why I stopped buying it in the first place.