- Man U v Arsenal. I hope the Arsenal players have all been warned
- Is there a regional bias over the way referees hand out cards?
On the Arsenal History Society website:
By Tony Attwood
And so the impossible has happened. Here we are at the edge of the new season and we still don’t know the result of the multiple charges brought against Manchester City back in February 2023 (yes two and a half years ago). Indeed, the Premier League is continuing as if nothing has happened on that front on the grounds that the “innocent until proven guilty” view must always apply.
Only the media seem to have abandoned that concept – thus the Premier League allows everything to move on in relation to Manchester City, making no comment and pretending there is nothing to see, while the media hammer Arsenal for honouring the law of the land on the issue of innocent untilproven guilty concerning Thomas Partey. But then, it was ever thus.
The cases of ManC and Partey are of course, different in every regard – except for one thing. In neither do we, the supporters, have any idea what went on.
And against such a background, we enter a new season. In one sense, the Partey affair is not our concern any more since he is no longer an Arsenal player, although of course, (again) he has now been charged and therefore legally no comment can be made. But the Manchester City case affects every Premier League club.
Consider this possibility: Manchester City who are charged with offences dating for 2009 to 2018, are found guilty.
In 2010/11 Birmingham City were relegated by just one point. The Manchester City against Birmingham match on 2 February 2011 ended in a 2-2 draw. Was it affected by the sort of events Manchester City are charged with? Should Birmingham City have won, giving them two more points at the end of the season and no relegation?
Going down to the Championship must have been very significant financially for Birmingham. In the event that ManC are found guilty of being ne’er-do-wells in this regard, do ManC owe Birmingham compensation for their years in the Championship until last season, when they were down to League One (which they won).
It certainly can be argued that the result in that one game cost the club unimaginable amounts, and if some action by Manchester City caused Birmingham to draw rather than win the game, presumably Manchester City are responsible for the huge losses made by Birmingham thereafter. And indeed, over the years, many other clubs.
Of course, for the moment we don’t have to worry about that but can focus instead on Sunday’s game away to Manchester United, and can look back to last season’s home and away performances by the two clubs…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Arsenal away | 19 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 34 | 17 | 17 | 35 |
| 14 | Man U home | 19 | 7 | 3 | 9 | 23 | 28 | -5 | 24 |
As we can see here, Arsenal’s away form last season was massively superior to Manchester United’s home form. Indeed so poor were ManU at home that they even had a negative goal difference at very old Trafford.
And indeed (again) although across the decades Manchester United have won 42% of the games between themselves and Arsenal (taking the results from 1894 onwards when the clubs were Newton Heath and Woolwich Arsenal), to 37% for Arsenal, in the last five games in the Premier League the results hae been four wins for Arsenal and a draw which is a lot more encouraging. Looking at those results, a single-goal win for Arsenal would seem likely this weekend.
In the pre-season warm-up games, Manchester United won two (beating West Ham United 2-1 and Bournemouth 4-1, and drew three (with Leeds 0-0, Everton 2-2 and Fiorentina 1-1)
Arsenal, however, only won three of their games, beating Milan 1-0, Newcastle3-2, and Athletic Bilbao 3-0, while losing to Tottenham and Villareal.
More anon…..
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