- It is absolute nonsense to say Arteta does not rotate
- To win the Premier League clubs need scorers AND creators
By Bulldog Drummond
In terms of home and away games the simplest way to signify the difference between Wolverhampton at home and Arsenal away is to say “Plus 26”. That is Arsenal’s goal difference away from home, while that of Wolverhampton at home is zero, although to be fair they have won seven home games out of 15 – which for any professional journalists reading is around about half.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Wolverhampton W home | 15 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 23 | 23 | 0 | 24 |
| 1 | Arsenal away | 16 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 37 | 11 | 26 | 33 |
But of course, the big media fuss at the moment is Arsenal’s current form. So let’s look at that in every way possible. First, the last six games, because the media really are quite sure that Arsenal are losing it – so much so that lots of fans walked out of the last game before the end.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 3 | +10 | 13 |
| 16 | Wolverhampton | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 11 | -5 | 5 |
And sadly for the raging negativists even here we can’t get Wolverhampton above Arsenal, so those journalists are simply going to have to make it all up again. However, there is still one more approach – the last six Arsenal away games against the last six Wolverhampton home games.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Wolverhampton home | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 10 | 9 | +1 | 9 |
| 1 | Arsenal away | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 22 | 1 | +21 | 16 |
So whichever way we look at this over a matter of more than a couple of games Arsenal come out all right. In fact the only way to make Arsenal look bad is to take the two champions league games and the last league game which give two defeats and a draw. If you perceive that as the dominant momentum then yes Arsenal are in trouble tomorrow
But to be fair let us consider Wolverhampton in terms of their last few games…
For Wolverhampton to maintain their possession rate they will have to reign Arsenal down from their average of 59.8% I think they could find that difficult given that Wolverhampton have scored just 23 goals at home this season while Arsenal have scored 37 goals away.
Those goals figures suggest something like a 4-2 victory to Arsenal. The home and away figures however reduce this to something like 2-1 or 3-1 to Arsenal.
More anon…
