- Arsenal v Everton, and Tottenham doing almost as well as Luton
- Arsenal v Everton: just how much influence will the referee have?
- Arsenal v Everton: how the use of tackles does Everton and Tottenham no favours
- Arsenal v Everton: the home and away review
And on the Arsenal History Society site today: Farewell Liam Brady
By Sir Hardly Anyone
Bukayo Saka’s position in the team will be “monitored” it is said, and he is not certain to play because of an injury. Timber is the only other injury concern – the question really being whether a normal build-up to next season would be better for him than the risk of coming on into a game against a team that has already picked up 77 yellow cards this season.
Arsenal’s two injuries is the lowest injury total in the league equalled by Forest, Manchester City and Fulham, according to the EPL Injury Table. So obviously the top two in the league are the bottom two in injuries. But how have they done it? No one seems to want to offer an answer except us. Don’t foul.
Top of the injury table is Sheffield United with 13 men down, followed by Tottenham with nine (so they have an excuse) Newcastle, Luton, Brighton and Aston Villa. When one considers that squads are only 25 players big, that is over a third of the players missing – although of course if one includes the under 21s it is not quite so bad.
As for Everton, Andre Gomes is a doubt after a facial injury against Sheffield United, and Jack Harrison, Nathan Patterson, Vitalii Mykolenko and Dele Alli are all out.
The two sides have history, in that no Premier League side has beaten another Premier League side more than Arsenal have beaten Everton. It is 105 times or 111 times depending on which data table you read. I prefer the 111 The BBC’s lower figure excludes FA Cup matches but it is still a record for league games.
And indeed as befits such a record it can be noted that the results in the 31 Arsenal v Everton games in the Premier League is Arsenal 24 wins, 5 draws and two Everton wins (1996 and 2021). So if Everton win I imagine they will have a major street parade.
We should also notice that Arsenal have won more Premier League games this season than ever before, so being a season ticket holder has been rather jolly. In 1930-31 and in 1970-71 Arsenal won 28 and 29 games respectively, but played 42 games each time. They also won the league each time. Thus 27 or 28 wins is a record in a 38 game season.
There is another factoid that the BBC have noticed and that is that Arsenal have won the last league match of the season in each of the last 12 years.
Moving on to the players Leandro Trossard has scored six goals in his last nine games, which really is rather impressive.
And as we approach this final game we must also give a big fanfare to William Saliba who has played (thus far) every millisecond of every Premier League game. He’s the first Arsenal player ever to do this.
But amidst the jollity of the moment we must be aware that Everton have done very well of late – if we just consider winning rather than the boring process of actually scoring goals…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | Everton 1 April | 29 | 8 | 7 | 14 | 30 | 41 | -11 | 31 |
| 15 | Everton 9 May | 37 | 13 | 9 | 15 | 39 | 49 | -10 | 48 |
| Achievement | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 8 | +1 | 17 |
That is not the biggest number of points across the last eight games (Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea have done better) but it shows that if only they could learn where the goal is, they’d be doing all right. (The table above takes no account of points deducted, returned and deducted again).
And so to the team…
The Standard gives us
Raya;
White, Saliba, Gabriel, Tomiyasu;
Odegaard, Partey, Rice;
Saka, Havertz, Trossard
The Racing Post offers exactly the same team but also gives us a bench… Jorginho, Kiwior, Jesus, Martinelli, Zinchenko, Vieira, Nketiah, Smith Rowe.
Sports Mole also have the same team, and so our rather lazy research boffins follow their normal rule that when three sources in a row all pick the same team, we stop.
So that’s it for league and cup preludes for 2024/25. This has been article number 14,359 of Untold Arsenal, since we started 16 seasons ago, during which time we have published 287,150 comments (as of 0900 today). As ever we’ll be out today travelling from the Midlands to the game and back again, We might just get to do another article tonight (but normally we’re too knackered) so more likely we will start the summer lull tomorrow, wherein I rather suspect one of our topics might be not just what happens to Manchester City if they are found guilty, but also what happens if they are found largely innocent, or if they manage to spin out their defence for yet another season. That could be more dramatic than any of the mainstream media likes to contemplate.
But I am ahead of myself. If you have been reading Untold through what has been a rather jolly season, thank you; without you there is no point. If not, well, we’ll be here again tomorrow.
Thank you Tony and all at Untold, for constantly enlightening us with the ‘Untold’ side of, not only Arsenal but the otherwise ‘Untold’ side of football in general.
Three topics in particular come to mind.
-The PGMOL, and their officials.
Your in depth research into their ridiculously inconsistent ‘numbers’, to their paranoid obsession with secrecy.
-FIFA UEFA The FA and The Premier league
Your coverage of all the devious, and at times down right criminal activities.
-Manchester City
Your in depth research of this ongoing saga.
Just 3 of the subjects that the English media to their shame, avoid at all costs.
Thank you for at least giving us some insight into the scandalous state of the game we love. From it’s incompetent officials. It’s dubious governance and last but not least it’s totally compliant media.
Thank you.
Enjoy the game today. Fingers crossed for a miracle.
COYG
Thank you Tony for all your research. Proper Journalism at Untold Arsenal which is refreshing from the standard lazy Journalists from other sites that just copy foreign news reports.
Another good season, keep up the good work with the fans favourite website.Untold-Arsenal.
Look forward to the transfer market. As Man City are the closest rivals to our beloved Arsenal, it would be interesting to use Man City as a benchmark in finding players that have large player ratings when playing against Man City, in the hope that Arteta purchases these individuals for Arsenal next year. For example, crystal Palaces “Michael Olise” is one player that has given ManCity a torrid time every time he played against them with rating from 7.5 to 8.6. It would be grate if Arsenal brought the gifted two footed winger to destroy Man City next season. If we use this method as a benchmark then we cannot go wrong in our team building. You have the best research to find and highlight these player at Untold Arsenal. Up the gooners. Thank you.
The incremental improvements that we need to make are the hardest. Edu et al. are not choosing to replace squad players with Galacticos but rather replacing top notch players with top top notch players. It is not a job for the faint hearted.
Thanks for the great season, everybody! Thanks for your work, Tony!
Alas, it wasn’t to be, but as usual the guys didn’t give up and got the win the performance deserved.
So, proud. So optimistic for the future.
I have said before, and I will say again, I give no, zero, authenticity to Man City.
They probably are the best team, but they are a team effectively on drugs, which is why I will not congratulate them for that.
No jealousy. No envy.
Like all football fans I am used to losing. I am lucky I support a team that loses less than most.
I just don’t like losing to cheats.
Well done to all at Arsenal for a great season. We have more to celebrate and look forward to than Man 119 City.
Thank you also to Untold for keeping the faith and countering the general hostile media rubbish
What they said.
Proud of our club. Proud of our team.
And Tony you can be proud of Untold, telling it like it is. Not many sites do.
For all the talk of how Man City perform in the second half of the season, lets not forget we actually won it.
Arsenal P 18 W 16 D 1 L 1 Pts 49
Man City P 18 W 15 D 3 L 0 Pts 48
The bottom line is, the only way we could of won the Pl is, and accepting we got a draw at the Etihad, is if we had WON every other game!
That is mad.
Just think to yourself. If someone had said to you on January the 1st that to win the PL you not only have to get a draw at Man City, but you have to WIN EVERY other match. That’s right, because a home draw against Villa would not have helped, we had to WIN ERERY OTHER MATCH!!
You would of said they were mad.
But Arteta knew. He kept using the word ‘Perfect’. Alas we were close to perfect, just not close enough.
Never before has such a performance not been enough.
Attwell did his best to influence Oliver into disallowing our winner. He didn’t appear to be as keen to disallow Newcastle’s goal in the autumn. Really nailed his colours to the mast today.
Mick
Good spot
I assume that Oliver knew the score in the other match. If MC had not been 3-1 ahead, I am sure that he would have disallowed our second goal.
Very kind of you GodWoreTen
After all is said and done, Arsenal ended this season better then last.
Just think about the so few times we were upset after a game… 5 times for a loss, 5 times for a draw.
Can’t bitch about that.
@Nitram, yep, Arsenal still don’t have the depth and riches of City115.
My expectation is that this season was the hinge season. The one were Mr Arteta gave proof to the time that they are eye to eye with City115 and that next season, with all City115 players one year closer to retirement and all Arsenal players with one year more experience under the belt, the Gunners will make it over the line and win it.
Just think of Havertz scoring all season like he has this second half. Same for Trossard. Of Martinelli coming back to match fitness.
Mr Arteta was not wrong when he was saying great players play and play and play. He proved it. Visibly the medical staff at Arsenal has been excellent, I can’t remember a season with so little happening in terms of injuries.
By the way, Havertz scored on the 89th minute the goal that brought us to 89 points…
Fine margins. This is all football in the PL is about. The fine margins of rarefied air.
Thank you Untold Arsenal, for being the voice of reason and truth ; for all the incredible research and for the enlightenment.
Great work , keep those plates spinning ( I’m not applying that penultimate word in the Cockney sense, just metaphorically)
North London Forever
Victoria Concordia Crescit.
Up the Gunners.
Thank you Arsenal FC for a great ride of a season. We are now very much better at shutting out the big teams , and grinding out results . I like to think that we good enough to get out hands on a trophy or two , but maybe luck was not with us .
Once again I too would like to thank Tony for all his good work on this site . Which by the way is the ONLY site I read . And the only site I comment on.
Even when we were one down , the fact that those Belgian Supporters , made me feel that we were never going to lose . It used to 3-1 to us , but then again ! Thank you Walter and the rest for your support , and the 3 points !
Now boredom overtakes , until we once again take a tilt at the title next season.
Up the Gunners !
What a great season. Crazy that our incredible performance the second half wasn’t quite enough to win the PL. Maybe they’ll go to Dubai in October next season and cut out that dodgy period we had around Christmas. Thank you to all the regulars on here and to Tony and co, writing such great and insightful articles. Onwards and upwards. Nihil carborundum 115 et illegitemae.
A wonderful, riveting season. Thanks to everyone at AFC.
And a big thank you to Tony for his incredible work and wring clarity. A pleasure to read every day. Thank you and congratulations
to everyone who contributes with posts and comments such as Nitram. Like our friend Brickfields, Untold-Arsenal is the only Arsenal site I read. A report from Walter in Belgium is always well received.
Tony Atwood invites us to join the AISA and I’ll second that. You’ll receive in-depth Arsenal news and info from serious supporters like you find here.
Thanks to everyone for reaffirming why we support this great club!