West Ham v Arsenal: the Arsenal team

 

 

By Sir Hardly Anyone

• West Ham v Arsenal: how Anthony Taylor behaves as a referee
• A West Ham recovery or is there something behind the numbers?
• West Ham v Arsenal. The home/away factor, plus shooting and cards

“Arsenal are sweating on the fitness of Gabriel Magalhaes ” says the Metro,  Perhaps more interestingly they tell us that Saka has provided eight PL assists this season, more than any other player.   They give us a team of

Raya

Timber Sablia Gabriel Calafiori

Odegaard Partey Rice

Saka, Jesus Martinelli

The BBC says Mikel Arteta said on Friday that he’s unsure if defender Gabriel will be fit to play this weekend.  They also tell us that if WHAM win it will be the first time since March they have won two games in a row.

They also have the unexpected bit of news that “Arteta’s side are one of only three teams, along with Brentford and Ipswich, to have fewer than 50 attempts on goal in Premier League away games this season.” But of course, it is goals that count and in this regard, despite having by far the hardest away fixture list of any club so far this season Arsenal are actually ninth in the away league table, but 16th in the goal-scoring away from home.

But the BBC does have some interesting consoling information for us by saying that Arsenal “have earned 19 points out of a possible 21 in their seven Premier League London derbies in 2024, scoring 23 goals and conceding just four.”  Which sounds a bit more like it.   They could have also told us that Arsenal have scored just there goals fewer than Liverpool in the League this season, despite having a much harder fixture list.

But of course in analyses like these the details can be important.  so it is worth taking a peek at West Ham’s home games so far this season in the league…

 

Date	Match	Result	Score
17 Aug 2024	West Ham United v Aston Villa	L	1-2
31 Aug 2024	West Ham United v Manchester City	L	1-3
21 Sep 2024	West Ham United v Chelsea	L	0-3
05 Oct 2024	West Ham United v Ipswich Town	W	4-1
27 Oct 2024	West Ham United v Manchester United	W	2-1
09 Nov 2024	West Ham United v Everton	D	0-0

 

What we can see here is that West Ham have managed to beat Ipswich Town who have only won one league game at home this season, and Manchester United who away from home have only beaten Southampton and Aston Villa. 

In short if we look at the last six games table we see this

 

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
9	Arsenal away	6	2	2	2	6	6	0	8
14	West Ham home	6	2	1	3	8	10	-2	7

 

Which is not too great for Arsenal but even less not too great for West Ham.

So now, Arsenal with most of the team back, are doing ok in the last couple of  games, but less positive noises would be made about West Ham if we took the analysis any further.

Of course it would be silly to say that Arsenal are playing perfectly, and there are more and more elements in the current record to torment them such as  “Arteta’s side are one of only three teams, along with Brentford and Ipswich, to have fewer than 50 attempts on goal in Premier League away games this season.”   But then again, if you look at who we were playing away from home, and remember this is an average, this is understandable.

On the positive side this calendar year Arsenal have picked up 19 points from a possible 21 in their all-London matches.  And when we come to goal scorers, and also remember who was unavailable for a while, we might also note that “Bukayo Saka has been directly involved in 12 Premier League goals this season – second only to the 16 by Mohamed Salah – but all four of the Arsenal winger’s goals have been scored at home.”

The Standard has a team of 

Raya;

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori;

Odegaard, Partey, Rice;

Saka, Havertz, Trossard

 

which to me, with Havertz playing centre forward makes a lot more sense than having Jesus playing centre forward.

And indeed this is what 90 Min give us the same as the Standard, and that is what I expect to see.

Have a good game!