By Tony Attwood
- Just how much better were Arsenal than the rest last season?
- Why do we bother with the world cup at all?
On 14 August last year, a bunch of so-called “pundits,” sometimes known as “experts” and a so-called “supercomputer” gave predictions for the ultimate top four in the Premier League in the 20205/26 season.
Now, as you may recall, the actual table ended last season, with Arsenal first, Manchester City second, Manchester United third and Aston Villa in fourth. But what made it difficult to see how badly some of these pundits had done was the fact that the actual table of predictions didn’t include any votes that gave a top four position at the end of the season for Manchester United and Aston Villa. What we did find, however, were 22 votes for Liverpool to win the league, from the 34 experts whose opinions were sought in the writing of the article.
I guess this once again confirms, first, that the experts who are presented to us on the radio and in newspapers are generally no more knowledgeable than the rest of us regular fans are. And that basically they make things up to suit themselves.
Indeed, only six out of the 34 pundits asked gave Arsenal as the ultimate winners of the league. Which just goes to show that predicting who is going to win the league is tough.
And here we might also particularly note that 65% of the “experts” actually predicted Liverpool as the ultimate winners of the league.
But although there is of course expertise in the way managers select their teams and set them up to play, there must also be luck as well, and a certain amount of influence from the referee – sometimes by chance, sometimes deliberate.
Yet what really did strike me last season was that the variation Arsenal brought into the team during the course of the campaign did mean that some clubs were not quite sure how to deal with the players they were facing, or the overall tactics Arsenal were utilising. True, the number of changes Arsenal made during the season to its first team squad was not huge, but it was enough for Arsenal to use some different tactics which could cause a bit of confusion.
I do think it can be particularly good to utilise the approach Arsenal used from time to time in having players changing position – the centre forward being a winger and then a centre forward again now seems to be a favourite activity with a number of clubs, but it also means that the team sheet the opposition manager gets one hour before kick off might not tell him everything that it used to…
In fact, that league table of course ended Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa. While the speculations from the media earlier in the campaign had lots of votes for Liverpool to reach the top four.
So we might ask, quite why do these experts who are paid to go and watch matches at least a couple of times a week and pontificate on what will happen by the end of the season be so far amiss?
I think we must all admit that part of the problem is that there are elements of luck within football, along with the vagaries of decisions made by referees and an endless stream of online rumours. So it is not an easy task to judge what’s real and what’s not.
But also we might say from the results that there is a fair tendency of pundits to suggest that what will happen this year is going to be only a slight variation on what happened in the previous year. They tend not to expect major upheavals and changes from one season to the next. They rarely foresee new tactics working.
Of course to be fair to them, another factor that they really cannot judge very well is going to be injuries, and I have no doubt that there is a tendency of the defenders of some of the clubs that people feel are heading for the title, to go in particularly hard on their rivals, thus making it harder for them to continue their progress at the top of the league in the latter parts of the season.
Clubs will of course always go for players who can play in multiple positions, but I also suspect there is a growing interest in players who can start out by appearing to take up one position but then switch to another part way through the game.
Although Arsenal did not score more than Manchester City in the campaign, they were the second highest scoring team, and the media did not expect that, and certainly were not ready for them to have the best defence and best goal difference in the league.
Arsenal’s goal difference was +44 while ManC’s was +42; a close run thing. But then the gap below these two was huge – with the next clubs by this measure being +19. That is to say 25 goals behind Arsenal in terms of goal difference – getting on for one goal a game across the whole season.
Manchester United in third place were not only 14 points behind Arsenal but also a goal difference of 25 behind the league champions. That is a lot to make up in one summer.
I like to think that we are in a better place than last season. I was very happy with the decision to buy Zubimendi and Noorgard . As well as the purchase of Victor G . Am glad that we have Bruno , and looking forward to a few mote sales , and buys.
This season hope we more further fowards and upwards .
Up the Gunners !
Of course there is another possible answer as to why the “experts” get it wrong. It might be that they are actually just people who at, at best played the game professionally, or at worst are just paid to write about it.
The truth is most, if not all, of them are not “experts” at all, we’re just told that they are to try and con us into litening to them or reading what they say. But that’s just my opinion…..I’m no expert!! But I have been watching football longer than them!
Personally I think next season is very hard to predict. So many clubs making lots of signings.
Plus, again personally, I don’t think we were that great in the 2nd half of the season. There were reasons. Injuries to key players being one. A ver very tiring season. And last but not least nerves. i think the sheer pressure of getting over the line wieghed very heavy on some shoulders.
So, are we better than the 2nd half of the season suggests. Yes, I think we are, assuming players are rested (not guarenteed) and we are luckier with injuries. (Again not guartenteed)
Have we improved the squad. Well, a little. Bruno is certainly a great player, but he is one player. We have replaced Trossard like for like. So as we stand there isn’t a massive improvement to our squad.
Others seem to of improved but that is no guarentee until we see them. So, as of this moment all we can guge our predictions on is what we saw last season. And from what we saw last season the team I see as the biggest danger is Man Utd.
Of course you make this very good point:
“Manchester United in third place were not only 14 points behind Arsenal but also a goal difference of 25 behind the league champions. That is a lot to make up in one summer.”
It is, but then again if you look at the second half of the season, the half with new manager Carrick, they were the top team in the country. They certainly had a better second half to the season than we did.
Our second half of the season read: P 19 W 10 L 4 D 5 Pts = 35
Man Utd’s second half read: P 19 W12 L2 D 5 Pts = 41
Not only that but I think the 2 toughest games we had last season were home and away to Man Utd, and the stasticts bear that out, especially at OT. Despite winning these are the stats.
Man Utd had 61% poss, 22 shots, 7 OT for an xG of 1.59
Arsenal had 39% poss, 9 shots, 1 OT for an xG of 1.05
Nobody else gave us such a hard time. We were a little fortunate to come away with all 3 points. We’ve played a lot better and lost.
Even at the Em’s they gave us a tough game:
Arsenal had 56% poss, 15 shots, 4 OT for an xG of 1.02
Man utd had 44% poss, 10 shots, 3 OT for an xG of 0.73
Now, granted we were ourselves a little unlucky to lose that. Uniteds finishing on the day was exceptional. But it was still one of our toughest games, and unlike most teams who came to the Em’s with a ‘low block’, including Manc, United actually went for it.
on the basis of what I saw last season, in the second half at least, in my humble opinion I think Man United are going to be our biggest challenger this season
@Nitram,
you forget Dowman, Salmon and Miles Lewis Skelly. They are growing into the game, the team, the PL.
Dowman will not be playing the odd minutes here and there, that seems clear.
MLS, have you seen how muscular that young lad has become ? he was already a handful, he will be hard to dislodge, more the Nwanery who does seem frail compared to others.
IMHO, these 3 players coming from the youth ranks that are now part of that squad. At zero cost.
So that is 5 ‘new players’.
I prefer that much more then spending millions on a player hindering their evolution.