Brentford v Arsenal and Arteta’s record as manager

 

• Brentford v Arsenal: the referee and his influence on the game
• Brentford v Arsenal: home/away form, plus tackles, fouls and cards

The Athletic tells us that “This will be Mikel Arteta’s 200th match in charge of Arsenal in all competitions (W115 D34 L50).” Whatever the result, he’s won more games in his first 200 in charge of the Gunners than any of the other nine managers to reach the 200 mark with Arsenal.   (There are details of past managers and their achievements on the Arsenal History Society site)

What is not mentioned in the media is that Arteta is getting ever closer to Wenger’s record at Arsenal in terms of the percentage of games won under his management.

If we exclude the short term managers (which for the sake of choosing a number we will say is managers who managed under 50 league games) and just take the figures up to the end of last season the most successful manager in terms of the percentage of games won is Arsene Wenger at 57.25% of competitive games won.  Second (at the end of last season) was Mike Arteta with 180 games and 57.22% won (that’s 103 games).

You might be surprised to know that if we allowed Unai Emery into the list (he only managed 78 games) he would be third with a win rate of 55.13%.  Then comes Herbert Chapman on 49.64% win rate.

But if we include not just league games but games in all competitions this is Mikel Arteta’s 200th match in charge of Arsenal.   And the win percentage of the first 199 is 57.79% making him the most successful Arsenal manager of all time who has managed over 100 games.   In fact he is the most successful manager who has managed over 25 games.

And yes he has already won more of those games than any other manager at Arsenal by the time they reached the 200 mark.    For the record it is 115 wins, 34 draws and 50 defeats.

Which means, I guess, we owe a big vote of thanks to the board at Arsenal for taking no notice of the media.  Media such as Football365 which on 4 April this year said “Man Utd legend Rio Ferdinand has warned Arsenal that he has “heard” Mikel Arteta will soon leave the club as he is “looking” to join a European giant.”

(If you want a quick look back at what it has been like for him, try “Process without progress is nothing, Mikel Arteta must go …” from TNT Sports.   Pretty dumb for a TV station that has the rights to broadcast loads of games.  But then these broadcasters … a pretty shady bunch of nitwits if you ask me.)

And that wasn’t a one off.  F365 also said in April  “Gunners ‘identify’ successor as manager ‘sent signals’ is in ‘pole position’.”  And do remember, that was in April this year.  Not in September 2021 when Arsenal were bottom of the league and Tottenham were top.  Once again, apologies, have there been none.

But moving on… as we have noted here before, Arsenal v Brentford is a series of two halves.  Between 1935 (when Brentford entered the top division for the first time) and 1939 (after which the competition was suspended), the clubs met eight times in League Division One, as it was called.

Brentford won five of those games, two were drawn, and one, the very last one in the series, was won by Arsenal.  That was 2-0 at home.   Brentford were, by any measure, Arsenal’s bogey team.

However, after the war, it was totally different.  Brentford had one season in the top division, and by 1954 were in the Third Division (south).  In fact by 1962 they were in the Fourth Divison.  From first to fourth tier in 17 seasons.

Their most recent climb back to the top started in 2008/9, just 15 seasons ago, when they won League Two, and then came second in League One in 2013/14.  They came third in the Championship in 2020/21 and rose to the Premier League where the four league results have been…

 

 

And just to complete the picture Brentford have not been past the fifth round of the cup for the last 33 years.

More anon.