- Why do Tottenham players get fouled more than those of any other club?
- The media, the League and PGMO. An insidious agreement rears its ugly head
By Bulldog Drummond
So we are into another “games coming thick and fast” event, as the journalists like to say, and we are also back to a 3pm Saturday match – which itself is quite unusual.
And let’s take the traditional look at the home vs away form ahead of this match…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Arsenal | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 18 | 7 | 11 | 17 |
| 12 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 11 | -2 | 7 |
That shows an obvious positive boost for Arsenal – double the number of goals scored at home than Wolverhampton have scored away, only one goal a game at home conceded, and a goal difference that is 13 goals better than Wolverhampton. It all looks rather promising.
And indeed if we look at the record of the two clubs over the last six games we find even more good news… Wolverhampton have won two to Arsenal’s four, and that impressive goal difference is maintained in Arsenal’s favour.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester Utd | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 5 | +4 | 15 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 4 | +8 | 13 |
| 3 | Aston Villa | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 7 | +6 | 13 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 12 | 4 | +8 | 12 |
| 5 | Manchester City | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 16 | 8 | +8 | 11 |
| 6 | Newcastle Utd | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 7 | +6 | 11 |
| 7 | Everton | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 10 |
| 8 | Brentford | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 8 | +1 | 9 |
| 9 | Tottenham Hot | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 9 | -1 | 9 |
| 10 | Bournemouth | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 13 | -4 | 9 |
| 11 | Chelsea | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 14 | +1 | 8 |
| 12 | Wolverhampton | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 8 |
Overall Arsenal have been pulling away from the other members of the big seven, with only Manchester United outperforming Arsenal in the last six games. Although such was their poor performance early on in the season they are still six points and 17 goals behind Arsenal.
Thus Arsenal are very much a team in form and Wolverhampton are a team jogging along with a win-some, draw-some, lose-some formbook. And it does look as if they are in a bit of a rut.
In 2022/3 the club won 11 and lost 19 with a goal difference by the end of the campaign of -27. If we take this season’s form so far and imagine it continuing through the rest of 2022/23 they will end up with 12 wins (an improvement of one), nine draws (last season it was eight) and 17 defeats (last season it was 19). Over all that gives them 45 points – an increase of four over last season. It’s progress, but not as we know it.
However, we do know from correspondence received at Untold that some, perhaps many, members of the Wolverhampton supporting community were incredibly angry about refereeing last season, and indeed blamed the referees for Wolverhampton not making progress up the league.
So let’s take a look at how the referees are treating them this campaign compared to Arsenal this season. Data from Who Scored
| Team | Goals | Shots pg | Yellow | Red | Possession% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal 23/4 | 27 | 14.5 | 17 | 2 |
61.1 |
| Wolves 23/4 | 18 | 12 | 41 | 3 |
47.1 |
We already know that Arsenal are scoring many more goals than Wolverhampton, but this table shows us that it is not because Arsenal have many more shots, but because they are more efficient. Arsenal need 1.86 shots to score, Wolverhampton need 1.5 shots to score.
But the big, big, big difference comes with the cards. Kindly referees have granted Wolverhampton almost two and a half times more cards than Arsenal this season.
Now this is interesting because of the direction of travel. Wolverhampton last season got 84 yellow cards. If they carry on at the current rate they will end up with 120 cards, and goodness how many players missing matches.
To compare this to last season Arsenal got 52 yellow cards. If Arsenal carry on as they have been doing for the past 13 games they will end up with 50 cards. So while Wolverhampton are currently increasing their yellow card rate by 43% compared to last season, this season Arsenal are actually reducing the number of cards they get match by match in the league. I’ll have to check but I think Arsenal is the only club to do this.
But what is certain is that those projections (120 cards to Wolverhampton if they carry on as now, against 50 cards for Arsenal) show the different trajectories of the clubs.
If we do the same projections in terms of the league table we can see that Arsenal currently have 30 points after 13 games. After 38 games we will have 88 points. if we carry on at the same rate. Wolverhapton by the same projections will end up with 44 – exactly half.
We’ll continue in the next article.
Would it be too much to hope the officials will play a straight game? In a world where referees just do their job without bias i would be confident for a home win .
But could it be that some tactical creative refereeing will see us lose points . All those previous Wolves travesties will be reversed and the cry will go up ” these things have a way of evening out over the course of a season ” then cue more “the Spaniard’s latest rant over Arsenal’s 6 disallowed goals and the descent into hooliganism from his team saw 3 red cards rightly being brandished in this feisty match ”
Investigations … points deductions … Instant ejection to the Tristan da Cunha league division 2…ad nauseum.
Whatever, eh ? 👍😉👋
We just have to hope the PGMO don’t try and make up for all the mistakes they’ve made against Wolves by giving them an easy penalty or Arsenal red card.