- Premier League club finances – it really can’t go on like this
- Pro Ref is introduced, so is this pure bias or just incompetence?
By Tony Attwood
One of the fun jobs (although it can also be a job of desperation) in football journalism with the mass media is the making up of lunatic headlines and concepts. For example calling Tottenham v Villa the “desperation derby” won’t win any prizes but it is amusing.
Sadly I can’t think up an equivalent for this game but I can put in a bottom of the league table once again, just because it makes me smile when I look at the number of goals that Tottenham “Hotspur” have scored so far. Still they have got two pints. Sorry, points.
| Club | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
| 17 | Tottenham Hotspur | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 | -5 | 2 |
| 18 | Fulham | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 7 | -3 | 1 |
| 19 | Aston Villa | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 | -6 | 1 |
| 20 | Coventry City | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 10 | -10 | 0 |
I would say we wish these lower clubs well, but that wouldn’t be true. Instead we must focus on higher matters. For Brighton Jack Hinshelwood is out (more on injuries below) but his replacement Yalcouyé is knocking in goals, and Brighton and Hove must be rather pleased. They finished eighth last season and were 20 points behind Arsenal.
Brighton are now the top scorers in the league, and Arsenal are about to play their fourth away game in a row. That would normally give cause for some concern, but apart from the fact that the players may have forgotten what their own stadium looks like, it shouldn’t matter too much..
However we are now getting into the regular season so we can expect some strange previews to turn up for Arsenal matches, and indeed here is one old one that popped up for no reason I can explain – but it made amusing reading.
It came from the BBC website and of all people it was written by Martin Keown and it started with the headline “If Freddie Ljungberg wants to be Arsenal manager for any length of time, he has to change what the Gunners do when they are not in possession.” Yes well, things move on. So jumping forwares, here’s how things look
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 7 | 12 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 6 | 12 |
| 3 | Leeds United | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| 4 | Hull City | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 8 |
| 5 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 7 |
And yes we can see that they have indeed scored five more goals than Arsenal and let in four more.
But we might also ask, where do all their Premier League goals come from? Well they got three against Chelsea but lost 3-4. And four against Villa who look to be in real trouble. And five against Coventry who are bottom of the league. And obviously not counted in our league table, four against Tromso at home but they let in three away.
And we might also consider their goals against – five compared with Arsenal’s one in the league. Which suggests that they actually they do enjoy galloping up the field en masse to try and score, but then can leave some gaps at the back. Here are the clubs who have let in more goals than Brighton have so far.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Chelsea | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 9 | +1 | 7 |
| 10 | Ipswich Town | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 10 | −3 | 6 |
| 12 | Newcastle United | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 8 | −1 | 5 |
| 13 | Manchester United | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 4 |
| 15 | Bournemouth | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 7 | −1 | 3 |
| 16 | Crystal Palace | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 11 | −5 | 3 |
| 18 | Fulham | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 7 | −3 | 1 |
| 19 | Aston Villa | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 | −6 | 1 |
| 20 | Coventry City | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 10 | −10 | 0 |
So a solid defence and an emphasis on attack ought to do it, which given that Arsenal have only let in one but scored eight, should not be too hard. But we do have to watch out for that Brighton and Hove attack which has knocked in 13.
Last season Brighton were exactly half way down the league in terms of scoring goals with 52 scored, compared with 71 for Arsenal, so their results so far this season might just be a bit of a flutter in the wind, or maybe they have discovered the secret of getting the ball over the line. (Magnets behind the goal and iron filings in the ball perhaps?)
One factor to note however is that Arsenal are sitting on three injuries and Brighton have nine. Our three out are Saliba, Mosequera and White – the latter two being listed as possibles for this game. Saliba has a potential return now marked for the end of November.
But this is as nothing when compared with Brighton who have nine men out. Stefanos Tzimas is certainly out as is Yankuba Minteh Moat, Kaoru Mitoma, Mats Wieffer, Michael Svoboda, Jack Hinshelwood, Zand adok Yohanna. Some may recover.
I am not at all sure what has caused such a wave of injuries all at once and so early in the season, and whether it is in any way linked to their charge up the table, but if the information being received from Brighton ahead of the game is correct they are going to be putting out a disrupted side. Now maybe they are already used to that, but if not it could give Arsenal another advantage.
