Arsenal v Wolverhampton: the Arsenal team and predictions

 

 

Arsenal v Wolverhampton: the team

• Arsenal v Wolverhampton: the basic background facts.
• Arsenal v Wolves. Is this the most biased referee in the League?
• Arsenal v Wolverhampton. Mind-numbing hardly seems the word
• Arsenal v Wolverhampton. Football down in the lower reaches

by Bulldog Drummond

A nice statistic has been found by Sports Mole who do tend to do this kind of thing rather well.  “While Arsenal’s penchant for final-day triumphs is well-documented – the Gunners have an all-time high 70% win percentage in gameweek 38 – Wolves have fallen to defeat in each of their last five final-day matches since edging past Sunderland 2-1 in 2010.”

And if one of the rumours around at the moment is true there is some other worry for Wolverhampton as, following up on the piece we recently reported, they add, “Only a couple of weeks on from hailing Premier League survival as his ‘greatest achievement’, Wolves head coach Julen Lopetegui is apparently considering his Molineux future after learning of the spending restrictions that will hamper his side this summer.”

Mind you, with just 31 goals this season Wolverhampton are now the bottom scorers in the league having scored only 37% of the number of league goals Arsenal have managed this season.  So you can see why he might want to splash some money on a striker.

Sports Mole says there is a possibility that we will see Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith Rowe in this game, both because of injuries and because nothing much hangs on the result.  Apart from the fact that some of us do a round-trip approach 200 miles for each home game.

They give the line up as…

Ramsdale;

White, Kiwior, Gabriel, Tierney;

Odegaard, Xhaka, Jorginho;

Nelson, Jesus, Smith Rowe

and a result of 1-0 to the Arsenal.

The Standard has Arteta quoted as saying, “We have a little issue with Bukayo, which has been going on, and with Leo [Trossard]. The rest I think are going to be fine.”  They also note that “Sunday is also set to be Granit Xhaka’s final game for Arsenal before he joins Bayer Leverkusen this summer.”

So that gives us a similar but not identical lineup.

Ramsdale;

Jorginho, Kiwior, Gabriel, Tierney;

Odegaard, Partey, Xhaka;

Nelson, Jesus, Trossard

And now, as it is the end of the season, let’s take in a different source: One versus One.   And yes they do have a line up for us.

Ramsdale;

Jorginho Gabriel, White, Kiwior,

Partey, Trossand, Saka;

Xhaka, Jesus, Odegaard

At least I think that is one they meant, but they have a habit of referring to some players by first names and some by last and with so many Gabriels and Jesus’ in the team it is a bit confusing.  And this site may be a bit suspicious because it does say

“At the moment Wolverhampton Wanderers has the better defense. Through the entire team they have a total of 1614 interceptions and 67 blocks.   Based on this statistics we believe that Wolverhampton Wanderers has currently the best defense.”   (I’ve left the spellings as they have used them).

That I think is an interesting triumph of statistics over, well, facts, if we have a look at the league table which is surely the definitive set of statistics.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
2	Arsenal	37	25	6	6	83	43	40	81
13	Wolverhampton Wanderers	37	11	8	18	31	53	-22	41

 

Arsenal have conceded ten goals fewer than Wolverhampton and have a goal difference which is 62 goals better.

Let’s finish off the season with 90min, and thank them (and Sports Mole of course) for all their predictions this season…

Ramsdale;

White, Kiwior, Magalhaes, Tierney;

Odegaard, Jorginho, Xhaka;

Saka, Jesus, Trossard.

 

Coming up next there will the usual nonsense of 100+ players Arsenal are going to sign but don’t and we’re going to have a search to see if any of the clubs this season in the Premier League have been using some unusual tactics in defence as a way of fooling the referee.

As with all of our research, we don’t do it to prove a point, but rather just to see what is going on in the part of football that the media, in general, won’t touch.

Meanwhile, if you would like to contribute an article or even an idea for an article, as we meander through the summer, please do write in, to Tony@schools.co.uk – you never know where it might lead.

Otherwise, enjoy the game, and have a relaxing summer.  We’re going to try and talk to Arsenal about the way they communicate with fans when there’s a problem to be resolved.  That should be fun!

As for today, we’ll go with a 3-1 win to Arsenal, with Wolverhampton scoring first and all Arsenal’s goals coming in the second half, some Arsenal fans leaving early and a journalist telling us that there is no excuse since there are three underground stations close by which can be used.  (Hint: there aren’t).

If you have been, thank you for reading.