- Why is there home advantage and why does it only apply under some referees?
- Arsenal learn the lesson about African players
By Tony Attwood
Of course, you know where Arsenal are in the league, but I thought we might take a peek this morning at the locations of the other clubs that like to think they are our rivals.
And it is interesting to see, not just for where each team is but to note that Tottenham are again bottom of the group, after all that talk of the mega break through last season by winning the Euro league.
And yes, as ever, I wish Arsenal would win a trophy, but it has to be with a clear view that just winning a trophy, joyful though that is, is not enough to secure continuous development and improvement. As these extracts from the current table show…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 14 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 27 | 7 | 20 | 33 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 14 | 9 | 1 | 4 | 32 | 16 | 16 | 28 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 14 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 25 | 15 | 10 | 24 |
| 8 | Liverpool | 14 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 21 | 21 | 0 | 22 |
| 9 | Manchester United | 13 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 21 | 20 | 1 | 21 |
| 11 | Tottenham Hotspur | 14 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 23 | 18 | 5 | 19 |
One interesting snippet from the table this morning is that Manchester C have scored five more goals than Arsenal, but that in itself is really to say that Haaland has scored five more. In fact, he has 20 goals this season, while Arsenal on the other hand, have six players who have scored five goals or more. Indeed, for Manchester City only three players have scored more than one goal this season. For Aston Villa the number is one. For Chelsea it is three.
These numbers show the great strength Arsenal has on two fronts. First, it means protection against injury to the key goal scorer, for which many clubs are very vulnerable. Second, it means defences can’t mark the key scorer out of the game because if they do, Arsenal just focus on one of their other scorers.
Still Arsenal are five points clear after 14 games. Last season the table after 14 games read…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 14 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 29 | 11 | 18 | 35 |
| 2 | Chelsea | 14 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 31 | 15 | 16 | 28 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 14 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 28 | 14 | 14 | 28 |
So Arsenal are two points behind where Liverpool were last season, but as per last season, 28 points secures second spot by this moment after 14 games. It is all very similar except Arsenal has replaced Liverpool at the top, and Chelsea has slipped.
The one outstanding point that is not normally noticed is that Arsenal are chugging along in a similar way to last season on the goal-scoring front but have conceded half the number of goals that they let in last season. If we go on at this rate we will end up with 27 wins, 8 draws, 3 defeats, 73 goals scored, 19 goals conceded, and 89 points.
89 points is actually the number of points we got the season before last when Manchester City got 91 points – so it might not be enough, but it usually is. 19 goals conceded would be the lowest since 1999 when Arsenal came second in the league with 17 goals conceded – but didn’t win the league. So a good reminder that stopping goals is not enough!
Anyway, back to the present. Declan Rice went off with what seemed to be a calf injury, and that is a worry because the next game is against Aston Villa, although thankfully, Villa are only moderate foulers with virtually the same number of fouls made by them this season as Arsenal have.
Arsenal are mid-table in the fouling league on 146, which is just 72% of the top fouling club. And given that we are already without Gabriel Magalhães and William Saliba, the apparent injury to Declan Rice was very frustrating. But matches keep coming every three days with the schedule having been squashed up to try and reduce the number of games scheduled during the Africa Cup – although, as we have noticed, that won’t affect Arsenal this time.
What is particularly frustrating, however, is the injury to Havertz, with the length of his time unavailable seemingly continuously extended. Still, at least we are only showing four injuries on the EPL injury table. And Martin Ødegaard made it through the evening seemingly ok, and Saka got a rest. Ben White also looked to be doing well, especially given that it was only his second game of the season. White is still only 28 and if he could stay fit could be a really valuable member of the squadm not just this year, but for a few more seasons to come. I hope he stays.
