Slavia Prague recent results and Arsenal’s drive to be fouled less often

The Slavia Prague vs. Arsenal match kicks off tomorrow at the rather curious time of 5.45pm, which is in fact 6.45pm in the Czech capital city of Prague (as you might expect from the club’s name).   Their ground holds 19,370 spectators, and is the largest football ground in Prague.  And quite possibly in the whole country, but you might be able to correct me on that.

As you will expect, the game is on TNT1 in the UK.

In terms of injuries, Arsenal are being quoted as having seven injured players, the same as Sunderland, but two fewer than Tottenham Hotspur.   This compares with one each for Manchester City and Manchester United and looks remarkably like a return to the “kick him, the ref won’t notice” policy that was adopted last season as a “remarkably successful” way of reducing Arsenal’s effectiveness on the pitch for part of the season.

In a moment, I’ll have a look at the number of times Arsenal are fouled per match (at least according to referees) to try and throw a bit of light on the issue.   But of course, we do have a situation in which many people see any attempt to analyse Arsenal in terms of numbers as some sort of suggestion of a “conspiracy theory”.  The idea is that as soon as one says “conspiracy theory,” that encourages people to dismiss whatever notion has been under discussion, without any look at the facts or whether any conspiracy is being suggested.

But of course, it is always possible to consider the numbers and the rationale behind any analysis, and many of us surely must recall that last season Arsenal were almost derailed with a total of 36 separate injury incidents to Premier League players, which amounted to a grand total of 1,297 days lost for players.  Not the highest in the Premier League, but nearly the highest, and something that did indeed derail Arsenal’s attempt to win the title.

It also incidentally led directly to the policy of expecting this number of injuries, and so buying in cover above the average needed – something that is already showing a real benefit this season.   

According to GivemeSport, the club with the most injuries suffered by players from the first team squad this season is Manchester City with 21, followed by Leeds with 19, and then Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool each with 18.  At the other end of the table West Ham and Bournemouth each have ten, while Manchester United have eight.

The question that arises of course, is what is the cause of all these injuries?  Is it

a) Pure chance

b) Opposition players deliberately targeting particular clubs on the grounds that referees believe some clubs have players who make a lot of fuss (and so don’t book the foulers).

c) Opposition clubs deliberately targeting certain clubs on the grounds that it is the only way to stop them (or to scare them).

Certainly, one of the great problems in discussing this sort of issue is that clubs will not discuss these issues themselves – at least not openly and honestly.   This is probably because they don’t want to appear to put any blame on their own medical team or their training staff, when a lot of their players are out, and they don’t want to admit that their style of play is calculated to hurt the opposition. 

Matters are, of course, also not helped in the slightest by the media’s refusal to engage with the topic of fouls and injuries in any meaningful way.

But despite all this, one statistic that does stand out and which does suggest that clubs treat other sides in different ways, is the number of fouls that each team gets.    If we look at last season, we can see that Aston Villa were fouled 13.7 times per Premier League game on average, while Brentford were fouled 8.9 times per league game on average.   Arsenal were fairly mid-table in this regard, being fouled 10.7 times a game on average.

But now this season the Arsenal figure has gone down again to 10.2 times a game that Arsenal were fouled – not a massive decline but still a helpful one, and one obviously brought about by a change in style of play, which is encouraging players to get rid of the ball much more quickly, before the foul can be committed.

More tomorrow