By Tony Attwood
- Why one bizarre draw and an unexpected signing doesn’t affect the view that Arsenal are moving in the right direction
- How likely are Arsenal to move out of the 8 game group stage in Europe?
Looking back we can see that there was just the hint that Arsenal were going to sign Sterling via an interview before the Villa game when one of the journos asked if this was something he was thinking about.
Arteta at once said no, but then went on to talk about Raheem Sterling in the most glowing terms saying that the time they spent a lot of time together at Manchester City and developed what Arteta called “a really strong relationship together.” It was, he said, “About individuals, how they play and how we give them support and help them. He’s someone I have a really strong feeling about.”
The media went on to say that, “it was not really that surprising” when the transfer happened on deadline day. To which one might reply, “in that case why were you not writing about it all the time, instead of hyping up all sorts of other transfer ideas that never happened – like buying a centre forward.”
In fact all that stood in the way of a deal was the insane Chelsea salary of £16.9m a year. It seems Arsenal are paying half that and the deal (which helps Chelsea’s “Financial Sustainability” chaos, and so was pushed through as fast as possible, concluding only an hour or so before the deadline (although Arsenal didn’t confirm the deal for another couple of hours.)
Of course, all players making a transfer will talk about how happy they are to be making the move this really looks to be true in this case as insanely Chelsea had publically announced that they would not play the player. Stirling needs to show them they were wrong, and additionally Stirling and Arteta have a close bond. Edu, it seems, also gets on well with the player so everything was arranged at speed.
Indeed Edu was also really open about the fact that it was all last minute saying, “We never planned to sign him when we started the transfer window… But we always say to everyone that you have to be prepared for every single scenario. It makes a lot of sense to have someone like him because I’m pretty sure he is going to add a lot in the squad.”
So what this means is that Arsenal now have three former Manchester City players in the squad, (the others being Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus).
Meanwhile, there is also the question of days lost to injury last season. The average number of days lost to injuries by clubs in the Premier League was 1257. Arsenal registered 898. The number of games missed by injured players across the league was 152.6. For Arsenal it was 108.
At the other end of the scale Manchester United recorded 1620 days lost and 202 games missed. Newcastle had 1950 days lost and 245 games missed by players through injuries.
As a result, Arsenal last season ran at 71% of the team with the most days lost and 44% for days lost by injured players. And the question is, was that all down to chance (in which case the numbers will rise) or does Arteta have a secret, which he picked up at Manchester City?
There again if we look at the BBC table for the team with the most injured players last season we find Tottenham won that with 22, Arsenal had 14, the same as Manchester City at the bottom of the table.
Of course, having both Arsenal and Manchester City at the bottom of the table for injured players, raises the question, what is it that Arsenal and Manchester City can get right that other clubs like Tottenham get so wrong?
I honestly don’t know – but I suspect it is something to do with the training system, which Arteta picked up while he was at Manchester City. But it is obviously not widely known as there would not otherwise be such a spread in the number of injuries between various clubs.
One other possibility is the number of times each team is tackled because a bad tackle can put a player out for a long time. Arsenal were the fourth most fouled club in the league last season getting on average one more foul against them per game than Manchester City.. But on the other hand Manchester United were the least fouled club last season and yet had just one player fewer than Tottenham injured.
So I suspect the answer, if we can unravel it, as to why some teams get more injuries than others is more to do with the training sessions than fouls in Premier League matches. If you have an idea please do write in, because I’m really uncertain on this one.
I suspect the issue is partly due to style of play. Both clubs trend to focus more on order and do not like chaos ball. That means that the opponent knows that Saka is exceptional, but because Saka will not bare down on him non stop and instead of coached to go for high percentage opportunities, the defender will have a plan of how to foul Saka and when, so as not to get cards etc. I think for those teams with more chaos type football, the injury true will be poorer.
The other thing is that when your team has an exceptional free kick record, they tend to foul you earlier where the free kicks are less effective. Earlier fouls meant less panic, so they might be less dangerous. (To prove or disprove this you might be able to look at the areas of the pitch where man c and arsenal get fouled.)
Counter attacking teams I believe tend to pick up more injuries too because the defense is in a state of panic and more likely to foul them without being in full control of their tackle. We face low to mid blocks, opponents tend to know what they are doing when they foul us, it’s deliberate and quite often part of a rotational plan. Wherever would they find time to panic when they expect us in their final third and have a plan for it?
I also have other thoughts on it, but such with Sunday morning chores, so I will leave it there.
Richard
Counter attacking teams I believe tend to pick up more injuries too because the defense is in a state of panic
Thank you for that. Now you write it, it is obvious, but I didn’t realise that before. The brain, I fear, is slowing down in older age!
Thanks.
The difficulty with this analysis is that the fouls statistics cannot offer true comparisons, because of the uneven interpretation of laws by referees.
Our fouls (plus yellow cards) against Brighton could suggest that we are a dirty team. In reality, they were, of course, the consequence of the cheating by the referee.
John L,
Thanks for that. I alluded to the bias in a previous comment, but you’ve nailed it in two sentences. Well put.
As I keep saying time and time again, it is cheating without cheating, which, because of the massively subjective nature of so many incidents in football, is so easy to do.
Under the banner of subjectivity it is hard to argue categorically one way or the other that ‘virtually’ every decision given against Arsenal wasn’t correct, and every decision given in favour of Brighton wasn’t correct.
Taken individually it could be argued every one was correct.
They may of been 50/50 80/20 20/80 but subjectively some will agree with every decision, as some may disagree with every decision.
The problem we have is there is only one (well possibly more with Lino’s and VAR) person making these decisions, and that is the ref.
And this is my point. When 90% of these subjective calls go in favour of one team, surely he is cheating, without cheating?
On an incident by incident basis it is hard to prove bias (or cheating), but surely when you look at a performance such as we saw on Saturday, it is impossible to deny there was a massive amount of bias at play.
This is an interesting analysis someone has made. https://old.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/1f6hkxz/crunching_the_numbers_on_red_cards_in/
Ben
Wow, I mean wow!
Thanks so much for that.
We do stats here but that guy deserves a meddle. Astonishing work
But the thing is, at least it shows that Tony, Untold, and all of us that try to a analyse these things are not simply paranoid.
If football as an entity had any real interest in assessing what was going on they would look at these kinds of statistics and at least try to find out why there was such anomalies.
The stat that stood out most for me was how, since VAR, the straight red cards we received has amazingly changed to 2 yellows. If that isn’t proof of something very odd going on I don’t know what is.
But they have absolutely no interest in these statistics what so ever. Honestly it makes me feel sick.
Again, thank you Ben for the link, and a massive high five for the guys that put those statistics together.
That reddit article mentions Luke Ayling being an outlier. He was an Arsenal player, too.
Even Mike Dean has said that red card was wrong.
@ Ben
I echo Nitram’s thanks for posting that amazing bit of research. It really does go to show what’s really going on.
@ Nitram
I also share your utter frustration at the fact that nobody in the world of football will make anything of this. All football “journalists” do is make up stories (many of which are to our detriment). I use inverted commas, as I can’t possibly consider them to be proper journalists since they do little real research and have no interest in the truth.
I have never seen those of us who believe there is an anti-Arsenal bias in football as paranoid. The facts are out there and this latest piece of research adds considerable weight to that argument. I don’t ever see anything changing though. Those who set the agenda are, essentially, unaccountable.
John L
Thanks for that.
I really try to avoid reading/listening to anything following any controversy involving Arsenal simply because 9 times out of 10 we get absolutely zero support, and more often than not it gets turned against us. You know, whinging Arsenal. Diving Saka. Blah blah blah. The first weekend being a prime example. Apparently strangling Havertz and grabbing Jesus’s arse is all okay and above board.
But from the off and by that I mean the post match analysis by Keown and Co. this does feel a little different, which suggest that this time the referee had gone one step too far. Maybe???
As I/we have said regarding Veltmans attempt to take the free kick:
Apart from the ball moving, being in the wrong place, a deliberate attempt to kick the ball at a retreating Rice AND deliberately kicking Rice, there was nothing wrong with it!!!
I’ll be interested to see what the myopic Gallagher has to say about it, and more over if he mentions any of those 4 clear breaches of rules by Veltman, and of course if he thinks to ask why VAR did not deem it necessary to inform Kavenagh that the ball was moving and in the wrong place, if nothing else?
Ergo an illegal free kick that would of had to be retaken anyway, meaning Rice did NOT stop the taking of a quick free kick.
We all know what happened. All the officials were so beside themselves with joy at the idea of sending an Arsenal player off, any other considerations were not even considered.
Mikey
That is some research is it not? Somebody at Untold needs to speak to whoever put that together.
There are some amazing guys at Untold, and having a guy like that joining the fold, could we somehow get those shameful numbers to a bigger audience? I dare to dream, but unfortunately, as you say regarding ‘journalists’ “……………..they do little real research and have no interest in the truth”.
Wont stop US banging away though will it!!!!!!!!
Back to the Rice incident.
Even if we do get some support, it wont give us Rice back for the Spurs game will it? It wont give us the 2 points back his dismissal almost certainly cost us will it?
Dermot Gallagher has exonerated the referee, just as we all knew he would.
This is what he said:
“The referee has used common sense in my view because common sense is to apply the law correctly which he has done.”
But he hasn’t has he. Because the laws of the game state:
The free kick has to be taken from where the offence took place. It wasn’t in the correct place because Veltman kicked the ball 3 yards further forward in an attempt to gain an illegal advantage.
The ball has to be stationary. It wasn’t because Veltman had kicked the ball forward in order to gain an illegal advantage.
Those 2 contraventions of the Laws of the Game occurred before Rice even touched the ball. If we are being pedantic about applying the letter of the law, punishing those 2 offences first is the correct thing to do, and that nulland voids anything Rice may or may not of done because Veltam would of had to retake the free kick in any case.
Gallagher didn’t mention he kicked the ball at Rice.
He was attempting to take the kick from the wrong place (Illegal)
The ball was moving (Illegal)
Or further that
He was aiming to kick the ball at Rice with force (Illegal) Subjective I know, but the ball was at Rices heel. It had to be kicked at him.
None of those points were addressed by Gallagher. Banging on about 2 wrongs don’t make a right. He hasn’t even got the decency to call that out for what it is, blatant inconsistency. Double standards. One rule for one one rule for the other.
So Kavanagh had no choice but to book Rice because he was apply the Laws of the Game correctly.
But he doesn’t have a problem with the fact Kavanagh didn’t apply the Laws of the Game ‘correctly’ to Vertman for attempting to take a free kick from the wrong place whilst the ball was moving.
What a complete a***hole.
special rules for Arsenal
It looks like the referees are using the “second yellow” loophole to bypass VAR in order to achieve unlikely outcomes
seismic
“It looks like the referees are using the “second yellow” loophole to bypass VAR in order to achieve unlikely outcomes”
That’s what the guy in the article Ben linked to suggested, and the thing I took out of it as one of the most damning of statistics.
And back to Gallagher, who said in bending over backwards multiple times to justify Kavanaghs decision:
“Two things didn’t help him. If you look, he knows what he’s doing, and secondly the touchline…people will say he didn’t knock it very far, but he actually knocks it off the field, so you definitely can’t restart play. So, referee Chris Kavanagh has got nowhere to go really… ”
The key phrase here is “…So, referee Chris Kavanagh has got nowhere to go really… ”
WTF is he talking about???
All Kavanagh had to do was what Gallagher insists he HAD to do, and that is apply the Laws of the Game and order the free kick to be retaken because Vertman had at the very very least, attempted to take the freekick from the wrong position. Reading the rules there is no latitude in this. It doesn’t say the ball can be 3 yards from the correct place if the referee feels like it. He MAY do that, we often see referees allow that, but it isn’t in the Rules, and if he does he is making a choice to give some latitude to the taker.
But what we have here is Gallagher saying Kavanagh had no choice. He had no latitude. Kavanagh had to apply the rules to the letter of the Law. Well, surely you cant have it both ways?
If Gallagher is defending Kavanagh on the basis that he HAS TO FOLLOW THE LAWS OF THE GAME in regard to what Rice did, then surely he has to insist that Kavanagh should also of applied the rules to the letter of the law in regards to Veltman attempting to take the kick from the wrong place?
So on that one contravention of the ‘Laws’, the ball was in the wrong place, Kavanagh could of just ordered a retake. No fuss. No bother. Most importantly, no second yellow.
The perfect solution.
This is not rocket science. If Gallagher was trying to do an objective balanced assessment of the incident that is what he could of pointed out.
Why did nobody at SKY put that to him?
I think we all know the answer to all those questions:
Kavanagh wanted to send Rice off.
Gallagher wants Kavanagh to be right.
SKY want Gallagher to find against Arsenal.
The original decision is bad enough, but what makes it worse is these pathetic attempts to justify it. And sadly we all KNEW it would happen.
It’s a stitch up from start to finish.
As you can tell I’m still p!$$£d
Gallagher always agrees with the final decision. His presence on TV is an insult to viewers’ intelligence.
Dermot Gallagher’s bias
The blurred imagery is of a free-kick taken by Luton’s Henri Lansbury where he kicks Swansea’s Ryan Manning. The incident is on YouTube
I find it interesting and ironic that Henri Lansbury used to play for Arsenal