By Tony Attwood
- Chelsea v Arsenal – the past games, selling part of the club, avoiding the rules
- Chelsea v Arsenal: how some refs are handing out twice as many cards as others.
So it is first against third… as portrayed in the last article. And of course we often focus on not just wonderful moves but also goals, and also wonderful goals. But quite often goals also come from errors, as The Athletic was reminding us recently, although they now seem to have put up a pay wall.
But I can tell you that according to their statistics, altogether the Premier League teams have made 180 errors leading to a shot or goal across the first 12 rounds of matches this season. And it seems this is the highest number of errors in the first 12 games since 2018/9, Indeed, they also tell us that 170 such errors were made in 2024-25. It is, in fact, the season of cockups.
Indeed it seems one just needs to wait for an error and then pouce, and indeed there is now an Alternative Table showing the number of errors leading to the number of shots conceded. Tottenham you might be delighted to hear, make the highest number of errors that lead to shots, with 15 such disasters so far thsi season. Chelsea are in sixth place in the table of errors with 11, the same number as sinking Liverpool – now in 13th position in the league, and 11 points behind Arsenal. Arsenal are 14th in the mistakes table with six errors leading to shots. Bottom of the table is Bournemouth with only three such errors.
So that is another good statistic for Arsenal to go with most wins so far this season (nine), fewest defeats this season (one), second most goals (24) – three fewer than Manchester City, best defence (six conceded).
And amidst all this, we might note that 16 out of the 20 clubs in the league have conceded at least twice as many goals as Arsenal, and four clubs have conceded four times as many. 17 of the 20 clubs have a goal difference at best only half as good as Arsenal’s, if not worse. But then of course Arsenal have four more points than anyone else.
As ever, Sportsmole have some very interesting insights into the game, noting that Chelsea have got well under half their Premier League points at Stamford Bridge this campaign, with three wins, one draw and two defeats. Compared with Arsenal’s away record of four wins, one draw and one defeat. Still, Chelsea can always console themselves with not being as bad as Tottenham.
Home matches only
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Arsenal | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 16 | 2 | 14 | 16 |
| 13 | Chelsea | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 10 |
| 19 | Tottenham Hotspur | 7 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 9 | -1 | 5 |
What is interesting, and again I doff my cap to the Mole, is that Chelsea are “yet to win back-to-back Premier League home matches in the current term.” Goodness!
For Chelsea, it looks like Cole Palmer will be in the starting XI, and for Arsenal… well, the first thing that struck me is just how many goal scorers Arsenal have. Five Arsenal players have scored five or more goals in league matches this season. For Chelsea, the number is two (Estêvão and Enzo Fernández). For Manchester City it is two. For Sunderland, currently in fourth place, it is… well, actually… not to put too fine a point on it… none.
On the injury front Gyokeres and Havertz are being assessed, and of course, the Gabriels are out. Trossard is rated at 50% by Premier Injuries.
So to the line up. Sportsmole (who kindly suggest it will be a 1-2 win for Arsenal) offer us
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Hincapie, Calafiori;
Eze, Zubimendi, Rice;
Saka, Merino, Martinelli
Pain in the Arsenal have the same score and would you believe, exactly the same team. However the Metro does manage to find a variation, and they offer the thought that Odegaard might actually start….
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Mosquera, Calafiori;
Odegaard, Zubimendi, Rice;
Saka, Merino, Martinelli
As ever we shall see, and Untold will of course keep jogging along. I do hope you’ll be back with us tomorrow.
Cristhian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie both start in defence.
William Saliba is injured. Hincapie comes back into the side
Leandro Trossard is also unavailable after going off in our midweek win, so Gabriel Martinelli replaces him on the left, after making a goalscoring impact from the bench in the Champions League.
Riccardo Calafiori replaces Myles Lewis-Skelly.
Gabriel Jesus returns to the squad.
Viktor Gyokeres is also back on the bench, having missed the past four matches with a hamstring injury.
Well the way it looks, Arsenal may not end the game with 11 players….
The violence coming from Chelsea is something else.
And now the Oscar’s season has just started and Chelsea players are going to be dying every few minutes in the hope of provoking a red.
And…. we’ve got our WTF Arsenal refereeing moment of this season : a throw-in being cancelled for I guess more then 3 seconds… Did not see one yet this year and it is not like there were not situations were it could have been warranted. Again, Arsenal are being refereed to a different standard.
That being said, we know the referee and it does come at no surprise. Except for the VAR decision review…even the german TV guys did not expect it, but were saying it should be red.
For those with a little history knowledge the battle of Stanford bridge was 959 years ago… we are in for a remake…
So the stats are fascinating.
Arsenal 12 fouls 6 yellows
Chelsea 13 fouls, 1 yellow one red
Arsenal 64 % possession.
You can’t make it up.
Still can’t believe there was a red on Chelsea.
Gabriel and Saliba are missed.Since Gabriel was hurt we are taking goals….
Chris,
You’ve pretty much said it all. An appalling display by Taylor. I like a tough, physical match as much as the next fellow but Chelsea were dirty. Always sticking the boot in with intent. Continually pushing, shoving and and throwing Arsenal players to the ground. After the whistle! Taylor did nothing, said nothing. I hope the players come out ok. Gabi would never let any of it stand. Taylor will probably be reprimanded for allowing Arsenal a point.
Taylor may well also be reprimanded for actually issuing a red card to an Arsenal opponent and for failing to caution the other half of the Arsenal team. I admit that I was fully expecting him to even things up by sending off one of ours. Good that nobody gave him an excuse for doing that, despite Chelsea’s outrageuos diving and complaining.
Surprising that Merino was not badly injured. Chelsea once again showed themselves to be a classless bunch of cheats. How Cucurella didn’t get a second yellow for any of his numerous fouls is a mystery – actaully no it;s not, the obvious reason was the presence of the bald man with the whistle.
The foul on Merino looked an obvious red card from the outset. I can only assume that the VAT squad spent so long on the matter in the vain hope that they could identify some pretext for not awarding the red.
Taylors card stats from Sundays match. I haven’t counted the red as a Taylor red, as he only gave a yellow. VAR saw it as a red, not Taylor.
Fouls
Chelsea 12
Arsenal 13
Tackles
Chelsea 13
Arsenal 15
So, despite a slight increase in both to Taylors averages (See Tony’s earlier article), given the nature of the game that is hardly surprising. The differentials though remained almost the same as his averages, when comparing home and away.
But, it’s when we look at the cards we see the enormous discrepancies.
Chelsea received (from Taylor not VAR) 2 Yellows for their 12 fouls. That is about 40% more than he usually dishes out to the home team.
Arsenal received 6 yellows from our 13 fouls. That is 350% more than his average of 1.7 cards per game.
So, on the whole Taylor refereed this match in pretty much his usual manner. Slightly favouring the home side. Except for one aspect. Cards.
Taylor saw fit to punish us with 350% more severity than his normal approach. Why was that?
-Are we 350% dirtier than all his other away teams?
-Were we 300% dirtier than Chelsea?
When it came to discipline, it was obvious Taylor applied the Laws Of The Game in 2 completely different ways, and despite Chelseas protestations to the contrary, it wasn’t in our favour.
How Cucurella remained on the pitch is a mystery in itself.