- Just published: How Arsenal moved from 20th to 2nd in one season under Chapman
We have had so many Arsenal players have their confidence destroyed playing out of position in a national team that it was rather a surprise to hear that one Arsenal youngster got through an international without being crocked. Indeed he even got a a lovely comment in the Guardian
“Myles Lewis-Skelly was excellent on his first England cap, showing the swashbuckling runs from left-back that have lit up his breakthrough season at Arsenal and scoring after just 20 minutes. You could barely have scripted it. Except this is Lewis-Skelly, the 18-year-old who writes them himself.” Declan Rice was also in the England team seemingly looking after “the boy” (as younger players are called in football).
The Telegraph has the headline this morning on how Lewis-Skelly was imperious on international debut Let’s hope he doesn’t get too carried away – his employer, he needs to remember, is Arsenal FC.
I tend not to watch England matches, by and large having something better to do (last night it was dancing in Peterborough Cathedral which was fun) but it was good to get back home and hear that “the boy” had not only survived but also “done good” as I believe the saying goes. All we can say to Myles is, “Please don’t get too carried away; this is England. It’s Arsenal who pay your wages.”
Ethan Nwaneri was on the beach for the under-21s and apparently managed to survive that experience too, so all is looking good.
So no injuries reported thus far, but there are still more risks to come. Partey for Ghana, Saliba with France, Raya with Spain, Calafiri with Itlay, Tierney with Scotland, Zinchenko with Ukraine, Trossard with Belgium, Gabriel with Brazil, Kiwior with Polane, and most worrying Odegaard for Norway – not forgetting what they did to him not so long ago.
If these international managers play their usual tricks we won’t have a team left for the next match which is appropriately Fulham on April Fools Day.
One day the clubs are going to “just say no” to player theft, although for the moment all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and say to Myles – international managers have no long-term interests; don’t let them play you when you are injured.
And what we should not forget is that Arsenal have got six games in the next 20 days – once upon a time it would be three games in 21 days, but it seems, no more. The fixtures include a home and an away match against Real Madrid, the first of these just three days after an away game at Everton.
Indeed in relation to this I went to look up the number of fouls that Everton have committed this season, and thought I would use the definitive Premier League Club site. They have the listing “fouls” on their site but at least when I looked it was totally blank. I wonder why they don’t want to tell us – or indeed what they have to hide.
Actually it is not that easy to find a table of fouls by club, but statmuse do have it, and they show Arsenal exactly half way down the list for fouls committed. The top four foulers are Bournemouth, Wolverhampton, Southampton and Chelsea, which looks about right to me.
They also have the reverse table – the most fouled teams, and Tottenham are second and Chelsea third. One might reflect on this in the light of Chelsea who are top of the yellow cards received table, followed by Southampton, Bournemouth and Ipswich. Arsenal are 14th.
In rough terms, the teams that foul the most get fouled the most. But there is something rather strange giong on with recording injuries this season. In December and January there was article after article about the number of injuries different teams had in the Premier League. One Football ran it on 15 November, The BBC website ran the story on 10 December, Sky Sports ran it on 13 December and again on 15 January, Give Me Sport on 18 January… but then for the major sites it went rather quiet. In fact look up the issue of injuries on Google and those are the top articles – all now thoroughly out of date.
In fact Arsenal currently have six injuries according to Premier Injuries.com, which puts the club fifth in the injury table. Nottingham Forest are bottom with one.
For the next match Arsenal will have lost Gabriel Jesus, Takehiro Tomiuysau, Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka, and Riccardo Calafiori.
