- What do we see tonight? Lots of yellow cards for Arsenal!
- Arsenal v Newcastle League Cup Semi-Final: the form
By Tony Attwood
Games between Arsenal and Newcastle go back over 130 years, starting with a 2-2 draw in division two in a match in Plumstead when Woolwich Arsenal and Newcastle drew 2-2. A couple of weeks later Newcastle got their revenge with a 6-0 win, again in the league on Tyneside. But the following season Arsenal hit back winning both league games by an accumulated total of seven goals to four.
Overall in this fixture, Arsenal have 85 victories, Newcastle 70 and just 39 games have been drawn.
Newcastle are, as we know, doing well of late being second in the last six games table. But what is the home and away form of each club?
For tonight’s match we can see that despite playing two fewer league games at home than Newcastle have played away, Arsenal have three more points, are only one goal short of Newcastle’s total and have conceded eight goals fewer.
But there have been times when Arsenal just couldn’t match Newcastle. For example a series of 14 Division I games either side of the First World War, leading up to and including Herbert Chapman’s first season at Arsenal.
Across 14 consecutive Division I games between the two clubs Newcastle won ten, and three were draws. But over time Arsenal have caught up, and before today’s game Arsenal have won 85, Newcastle 70 and 39 have been drawn.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Arsenal home | 9 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 18 | 6 | 12 | 21 |
| 5 | Newcastle United away | 11 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 19 | 14 | 5 | 18 |
| 7 | Newcastle United home | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 8 | 7 | 17 |
| 4 | Arsenal away | 11 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 21 | 12 | 9 | 19 |
As of today Arsenal have five more points, have scored five more goals, and conceded four fewer. Arsenal’s overall averages at 55.4% possession to Newcastle’s 50.9%
As for the team, The Standard make the rather strange statement that
“Arsenal are without attackers for tonight’s Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Newcastle” and yet then give us a line-up of
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori;
Odegaard, Partey, Rice;
Martinelli, Jesus, Trossard
I suppose Simon Collins who wrote the piece doesn’t consider Martinelli or Jesus attackers, which seems a bit harsh. Personally, I also rather think Havertz could start, and it was with this thought in mind that he didn’t come into the previous game. But then I don’t work for a newspaper so I guess I don’t know anything.
90 Min who tend to be somewhat more coherent offer us one different player and some different positions.
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Partey, Rice, Odegaard;
Martinelli, Jesus, Trossard.
But now as a PS let me quote from The Mag, a Newcastle United fan website. They have the following, and I am quoting it at a little length to ensure there is notsuggesting of cuttng and pasting. Here we go… I should add “They” means “Arsenal supporters”. That’s you and me, I guess.
“The way they go on is hilarious.
“Conspiracy theories, dodgy match officials and so on, they really do scrape the barrel with their claims of injustice and why they are (supposedly) hard done by.
“However, this is the real truth.
“From the start of the 2007/08 season, right through to May 2022, Arsenal fans saw their team play Newcastle United 29 times, home and away, all competitions.
“Newcastle United won two of those 29 meetings across 15 years.
“Three draws and 24 Arsenal victories in those 29 games against Newcastle United over the course of a decade and a half.”
Now you’ll probably have seen what they have done, since it is what we witness over and over again. The first paragraph (“Conspiracy theories…”) is a general review of the situation as they see it, without any evidence or statistics to support the claim. Then the statement that what follows is “the real truth”. And after that the Arsenal results over this period.
There is of course no connection between the two except in the mind of the writer. The fact that PGMO is a secret society that does not have a website and hardly ever offers interviews is indisputable, although it may be that our pressure on them to open up a bit might lead to a little more insight in tonight’s game.
The fact that Premier League clubs including Arsenal do tend to get the same referee quite a few times in a season, when fairly obviously, any possibility of unconscious bias would be reduced by ensuring (as we have asked for, for years) each ref to see each club no more than once at home and once away each season. We’ve been asking for that since 2010.
They also of course ignore the way in which some refs are prone to bias toward the home side and others not. John Brooks for example last season saw two thirds of his games as home wins. Then we have a ref who sees almost half of his games as away wins. Then we have a ref who sees fewer than one in ten of his games as draws, and antoher who sees one in three. Of course we are not saying these numbers should all be the same, but the fact that recently Arsenal had a ref whose last seven league games had resulted in not one single home win, was odd. Here’s a few stats from last season
| Referee | Games | Home% | Away% | Draw% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Brooks | 22 | 40.9 | 36.4 | 22.7 |
| Robert Jones | 22 | 63.6 | 13.6 | 22.7 |
| Jarred Gillett | 21 | 42.9 | 47.6 | 9.5 |
| Paul Tierney | 25 | 36.0 | 44.0 | 20.0 |
| Anthony Taylor | 27 | 37.0 | 29.6 | 33.3 |
Of course it can be argued this is the “luck of the draw” and the “rub of the green” but what makes us suspicious is that the size of these variations, the fact that this is never considered or examined anywhere and as we’ve so often examined before, the radical change that occurred when games were played behind closed doors in the pandemic.
Then there is the fact that across 12 games Robert Jones this season has seen 45% more fouls than Peter Bankes. That is just in twelve games!
Of course there are many, many more facts about referees on this site – we have been analysing their behaviour for years, and the key point here is that those who suggest there is nothing to worry about in the world of refereeing simply don’t answer these points, unless it is to say “you can prove anything with statistics.”
Most of us with research degrees know that you can’t; it if were there would be no research degrees. Where the real answer is, is through investigating the stats and asking, “what actually is going on?” Abusing opposition supporters in general isn’t very helpful.
The one incident last year at SJP where their goal was allowed (with VAR complicity) despite:
– the ball having gone out of play before being crossed
– clear foul on Arsenal defender by push in the back
– scorer offside (only one, not two defenders between him and goal line
– handball by the scorer
is comprehensive proof, on its own, that Arsenal grievances against referees are fully justified.
As the news hits that Tomas Rosicky is a likely contender to replace Edu, we have the team which is
Raya,
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly,
Rice, Partey, Odegaard,
Martinelli, Trossard, Havertz.
Subs: Porter, Zinchenko, Tierney, Kiwior, Calafiori, Jorginho, Merino, Sterling, Jesus.
Isak’s goal falls very nicely for him from the free kick , Merino against Brentford , need to take chances, hopefully we get something from the game COYG
A lesson in efficiency…. two chances, two goals for them. Lots of chances and situations for us and nothing to show for it