Arsenal v Chelsea: the referee, recent comparisons and where is Abramovich?

 

 

• Two Arsenal players in danger of serious injury as prices rise and rise
• Arsenal v Chelsea: a visit from little Stamford Creek

By Bulldog Drummond

Last summer Arsenal spent Sum: €108.90m on transfers  Chelsea spent Sum: €276.00m  (Figures from https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/)

In the league the clubs’ positions are

 

 

So we might conclude that spending two and a half times as much as Arsenal on players in the summer last year has not improved Chelsea that much.   And yet journalists and bloggers keep demanding that Arsenal should follow Chelsea’s lead and spend more.  (In the last seven seasons Chelsea have meandered between third and 12th).

And yes I know no one actually says “be more like Chelsea” with their funny little bridge, but that is because that would rather defeat their argument.  But people do  make the demand on the basis that spending money works.  After all our big argument against ManC is that they spent far more on players than anyone else – and of course that is the case.   But they kept on doing it year after year until eventually they had the team they wanted, no matter how much it cost.  Other clubs can’t do that.

And yes we must admit that Chelsea have outscored Arsenal this season…. by one goal, although that achievement is rather overshadowed by the fact that they have let in 12 more, and hides the fact made in our last piece that of late they have been stumbling around quite a lot.

As for the referee that is Chris Kavanagh

His results for matches against Chelsea played at the Arsenal Stadium are six Arsenal wins, four draws and no Chelsea wins.  There have been 15 yellow cards in the ten games.

At Stamford Bridge he has overseen 12 Chelsea v Arsenal games, with three of them Chelsea wins, four being draws and five being Arsenal wins, with 28 yellow cards.   (They really are a bunch of hearty roughs down that way).

Overall, Arsenal have won 84 to Chelsea’s 66 games but in recent times things have not been going Chelsea’s way.  For example, if we just take the last ten league games, which takes us back to 21 January 2020 we can see that Chelsea have won just one of these.  That was on 22 August 2021 when the result was Arsenal 0 Chelsea 2.   There have been three draws, including in the last game between the two which was at the Bridge last November, ending 1-1.

Which leaves six games that Arsenal have won in the last ten.  In these ten games Arsenal have scored 20 goals and Chelsea have scored 11…  All were Premier League games

Date	Gane	Res	Score
21 Jan 2020	Chelsea v Arsenal	D	2-2
26 Dec 2020	Arsenal v Chelsea	W	3-1
12 May 2021	Chelsea v Arsenal	W	0-1
22 Aug 2021	Arsenal v Chelsea	L	0-2
20 Apr 2022	Chelsea v Arsenal	W	2-4
06 Nov 2022	Chelsea v Arsenal	W	0-1
02 May 2023	Arsenal v Chelsea	W	3-1
21 Oct 2023	Chelsea v Arsenal	D	2-2
23 Apr 2024	Arsenal v Chelsea	W	5-0
10 Nov 2024	Chelsea v Arsenal	D	1-1

 

Of course, part of Chelsea’s problem is that its stadium is a bit on the titchy side. being around only seven tenths of the size of Arsenal with a capacity stated as a suspiciously round number of 42,000.   They want to take that up to 60,000 but seemingly can’t decide if to rebuild the existing shed, sorry stadium. or build a completely new one.  The cost of rebuilding the existing ground to take that capacity up to 60,000 would be about £1.5bn, which raises the question, where is Roman Abramovich when you need him? 

In answer to that, reports suggest that he lives in Turkey, while spending some time in Tel Aviv, and also occasionally popping into Sochi – a resort in Russia.   A lot of his wealth is said to be stored on giant yachts which remain in international waters where no country wanting him to pay tax or account for his past actions in other ways, can get at them.

But money aside this is looking like an Arsenal win as did the figures considered for the last six games, and home v away results.  Details of that data is here..