- Progress and regression: How Arsenal have outdone every other club in the league
- When journalists suggest the only comparison point is Man C, we know they have lost it
By Tony Attwood
In the last article we looked at Arsenal’s points total and found that Arsenal were unique among the clubs we looked at by having a growth in the number of points year by year. Something the media singularly fail to notice.
But what about other attributes? This time we’ll look at goals scored, since every summer the media and their coat-tail hangers on, suggest we need a new centre forward who can knock in 20 a season.
The final column (Diff) once again measures the difference between the best and worst seasons – and some of these differences are huge.
Arsenal have increased their goals each year. So too have Tottenham but their goal improvement over the four seasons six. Arsenal’s by comparison is 36: a 65% increase in goals over four seasons. Arsenal are also the only club in our selection that has increased the number of goals scored season by season.
Manchester City however might be excused because having scored 99 goals in 2022 it would be a bit unrealistic to expect further development.
| Team | GF 2021 | GF 2022 | GF 2023 | GF 2024 | Diff | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 83 | 99 | 94 | 96 | 16 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 55 | 61 | 88 | 91 | 36 |
| 3 | Liverpool | 68 | 94 | 75 | 86 | 26 |
| 4 | Aston Villa | 55 | 52 | 51 | 76 | 25 |
| 5 | Tottenham Ho | 68 | 69 | 70 | 74 | 6 |
| 6 | Chelsea | 58 | 76 | 38 | 77 | 39 |
| 7 | Newcastle Un | 46 | 44 | 68 | 85 | 41 |
| 8 | Manchester U | 73 | 57 | 58 | 57 | 16 |
| 9 | West Ham U | 62 | 60 | 42 | 74 | 32 |
| 10 | Crystal Palace | 41 | 50 | 40 | 58 | 18 |
Now these figures give us quite an insight I think. Seeing Arsenal improve their points total in each season as was revealed in the last article, and now seeing them improve their goal tally, that confirms there is real, serious, planned progress.
We might compare with Tottenham who could also claim they are making goal scoring progress. But while Arsenal have improved over four years by 36 goals, Tottenham have improved by six.
And although Manchester United can celebrate the FA Cup win, they might also reflect on three consecutive seasons for scoring just 57 or 58 goals. Roughly Arsenal’s level in 2021, at the start of their climb back to the top two.
Now what has already become clear both through the points total and the goals scored, is that there is a great deal to be learned by looking at the way clubs have performed over several years, rather than comparing one year with the next.
And what we are looknig for is some sort of consistent improvement. Take Newcastle for example: there we can see this sort of change across three years. That looks promising for them.
But the figures for Tottenham show stagnation. They have obviously replaced their centre forward, but the net result is just growth at a very, very slow pace.
At this rate it will take Tottenham another four years to get up to Arsenal’s level of scoring, and that assumes Arsenal don’t themselves improve. And thus we can consider the endless claims that Arsenal need to follow Tottenham’s model and have a centre forward on 20+. That is Tottenham’s constant approach, and it is getting them nowhere.
Chelsea’s figures, like their approach of buying everyone available and then discarding them after a while, are all over the place as one would expect. Newcastle howeer have grown massively over the last two seasons.
Manchester United are going nowhere, but West Ham United have had a huge improvement. But their points are still not back at the 2021 level, which reminds us that all of these numbers (points, goals scored, and the one we have yet to look at – goals conceded) all need to be taken into account.
So what we have seen is that Arsenal’s goals have increased year by year and their points have also increased. Tottenham’s goals have increased by a tiny amount but their points have fluctuated.
The conclusion I am starting to reach is that measuring the evolution of a club over a number of years is much more important than the media ever suggests, and what a club needs to get to the top is not one superb season, but some real development over time.
In this regard, for all that they have just won the FA Cup, Manchester United are stagnating both in goals and points. Liverpool are zigzagging both in terms of goals and points. Chelsea and Newcastle have improved their goal scoring by more than Arsenal but they both started from a low base, and Chelsea’s numbers have been zigzagging all over the place.
Next time we’ll look at defence, but certainly so far, no one is matching Arsenal for consistent progress.
It is clear from all the statistics you have produced that we have definitely been making progress in many parameters, but at the end of the day, no matter what progress we make in those parameters, they are all irrelevant if they fail to bring us trophies. Well, more specifically championships, which as yet they have failed to do.
But, they have definitely moved us closer. As I said elsewhere, we have gone from a team challenging for a UEFA place. To a team challenging for a CL place. To a team challenging for the title.
And yes, that is great progress. Now the key is to maintain that level. Whether it’s with a few goals more or less, is pretty irrelevant. Even a few points more or less is pretty irrelevant. Because they are all relative to what other teams are doing. However many goals we score, let in, or points we attain, the key is to remain a title chasing team.
Beyond that, the next step we want is to WIN the title. Then beyond even that, what we want, in fact what we need, is to be a constant challenger in, indeed winner of, the CL.
Again as I said elsewhere, if we are to push our ‘Global Brand’ (I do hate that term, alas it is real, and it is important) and go to the ‘Next Level’, (oh dear, another term I hate, but never the less a fact), we have to do that.
That is real progress. That is what will start to elevate us to at least somewhere near the Global levels of your Man Utds, Liverpool’s, Barcelona’s and Real Madrid’s.
It is success in the Champions League that we must ultimately achieve.
That is the next step. Become a constant in and around the CL final, or the semi finals at the very least.
A very tough ask, given the level of opposition at home and abroad, and if there isn’t some kind of restriction put on clubs finances, be it via FFP or some other form of financial control, it’s just going to get tougher and tougher as Oil and state financed teams simply keep advancing further ahead, or indeed new ones keep popping up.
Exciting times ahead.
I think Arsenal can improve if they can identify why those lapses happen and iron them out. We gave away many silly goals last season.
Nitram – It seems clubs ambitions to go “Global” will according to football finance expert Kieran Maguire see the demise & moving away of the season ticket holder as being less important to club owners than tourists. As he says” they are as private equity organisations, they are revenue maximers”
As someone who went to the game on Yeovil’s sloping pitch for an FA cup game (Now a Tesco Express) as a pensioner I’ve long been priced out of going to football So enjoy going to games as long as you can afford it while they maximise returns on their investment
Adrian
I know what your saying. As an olden myself I find a lot about the modern game, and more even all that surrounds it, frustrating and a little sad.
I think at times I am guilty of looking back with rose tinted glasses. As I have said on here a few times, I distinctly remember a wet Tuesday night in early Feb back in the 80’s, watching Arsenal draw 0-0 at home to Norwich City with 22,000 other sopping wet soles.
But I also stood in the North Bank in a crowd of 55,000 watching us beat Liverpool, Man Utd or Spurs.
That was the thing in those days. Without the season ticket sell out model we now have, attendances fluctuated wildly, depending on who you were playing, how you were doing, even the weather. This was not only true season on season, but within a season.
Yes, there was a certain joy in deciding at the last minute to ‘go to the game’. Turn up. Get a Hot Dog from a man outside. (Very dodgy). Pay a Fiver. (Lovely Jubbly). Have a wee standing in the previous guys misdirected effort. (very messy). Pick a spot in the dry that you can see MOST of the pitch from. (If half full). Or alternative, at a full house, pack into a spot you can hardly see any of the pitch from,(at 5’5” a common occurrence for me) AND get soaking wet!
And then watch us lose!!
So yes, those 55,000 fans at the ‘big’ games, were REAL fans. But alas, as the meagre 22,000 at the Norwich game were testimony to, real or not, most of them were not that loyal when things went a bit awry.
As for the players, at least back in the 70’s and 80’s, the money they earned was nothing like today. Yes it was good compared to the ‘average’ wage, but it was a short career with very high risk of curtailment due to injury.
They usually had to get a ‘proper’ job after football.
All I’m saying is it was different.
If you want state of the art grounds with food that wont poison you and toilets you don’t paddle in, you have to pay, and pay a lot. And that’s before you even start on how much players earn and transfers cost.
But, and here’s the thing, it needn’t actually be as expensive as it is. Yes, all those advances would make it expensive, but what has really taken football to such an exorbitant level is the financial doping.
It’s why I keep on about it. yes, inflation and the ‘natural’ evolution of the game would of seen costs increase, but not to the magnitude they have.
Once certain clubs pay transfer fees and wages beyond what is naturally generated then the other clubs have to find a way to match them somehow, and that somehow starts with the necessity to sell out the ground every week. Not only sell it out, but charge as much as they can. Then they need corporate match day investment. The ‘Prawn Sandwich’ brigade if you like. Then they need massive sponsorship. Then they need Global branding.
Yes, all this may of happened without financial doping, but it would of happened at a rate supported and financed by the ‘natural’ evolution of the game.
The need to keep up has meant the game has evolved beyond it’s natural level, which as you say, has often as not raised the cost of a match day ticket beyond the ‘working man’.
The game simply has no choice but to be ‘Global/Corporate’. However they do it. Whoever they get through the gate. Stadiums simply have to be full every week.
Whether ‘The Game’ is better or worse for all this, is a matter of opinion. Whether it’s right or wrong, as we have seen in discussions, is also a matter of opinion.
As much as I don’t like lots and lots about the ‘modern game’, having lived through those ‘good old days’, I have to say I’m not convinced they were better.