Arsenal v Chelsea: the teams, the predictions, the fair play league thus far

Posted on by Tony Attwood
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It seems to be working so why change it?
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Meanwhile building sandcastles we might well see…
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Ospina, Gabriel, Gibbs, Xhaka, Elneny, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Pérez

Although Giroud might be preferred to Pérez if he is fit.

Returning to the injuries mentioned in the last article, we have two of the players out scheduled for return in the coming two months – Ramsey in the middle of October and Jenkinson in mid-November.

And one other little fact.  Last season Arsenal came top of the Fair Play league but of course none of the press made anything of that because it was Arsenal.  This year, thus far we are not doing quite so well but still it is worth a look.

Different organisations run the Fair Play listings in different ways, giving numbers of points for yellows, reds and various situations.  This is the FA version.  They give…

  • Caution 4 pts
  • Denial of a goal scoring opportunity or dismissal for two cautions 10 pts
  • Violent conduct, serious foul play, spitting or offensive and abusive language 12 pts
# Team Games Cautions  Dismissals  Disciplinary Points
1 Watford 6 17 1 78
2 Chelsea 7 18 0 72
3 Stoke City 7 16 0 64
4 Sunderland AFC 7 12 1 58
5 Manchester City 6 10 1 52
6 Manchester United 6 13 0 52
7 West Bromwich Albion 6 13 0 52
8 Liverpool 7 13 0 52
9 Crystal Palace 7 12 0 48
10 Leicester City 6 9 1 46
11 Arsenal 6 11 0 44
12 West Ham United 6 11 0 44
13 Burnley 6 10 0 40
14 Middlesbrough 6 10 0 40
15 Southampton 6 10 0 40
16 Tottenham Hotspur 6 10 0 40
17 Swansea City 7 10 0 40
18 AFC Bournemouth 7 5 1 30
19 Hull City 7 5 1 30
20 Everton 7 6 0 24

Chelsea and Watford seem to be streaking ahead on this analysis.  There is a version on ESPN using a different scoring system but the result is very similar.  Transfermarket also do one that includes the number of fouls – and watch out because they publish the lowest offending team at the top not the bottom – but this analysis too comes out with much the same result.   Chelsea and Watford are the dirty buggers.

Remember you read that here first.

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Anniversary of the day

  • 24 September 2003: Six Arsenal players charged by FA after a 0-0 at Man U, probably with “failing to allow Man U to win”   Lauren, Keown, Vieira and Parlour banned.

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96 Replies to “Arsenal v Chelsea: the teams, the predictions, the fair play league thus far”

  1. I never thought Monsieur Wenger was a deregatory term but perhaps I’m wrong about that.
    There are two Monsieurs , four Signores, three Senors, one Senhor,one Herr, one Gospodin, and one Meneer in the PL management this season.
    Perhaps this fact has more to do with the media not using the prefix Mr in managers native language and not the anti – Wenger bias, since he was the first ( I think) non British manager in the PL league.

    Maybe your prosecution complex is just getting the better of you sometimes.

  2. WARNING: As I have been invited to the TV studio’s with our supportersclub in Belgium for this match I will not be able to write a live match report and publish it seconds after the match has finished.
    Sorry folks.

    But I will try to write something later on and might add a few bits from the TV studio.

  3. Yes Chelsea are dirty bu..ers but the official numbers don’t tell the true scale of their thuggery and chicanery. In our referee analyses of the first four weeks of the season Costa should have been sent off for a straight red card once and had two yellow cards on three occasions. Expect him to continue against us today.

    COYG

  4. ManU looked tidy against Leicester today. Leicester was all over the place in the first 50 minutes and then started creating chances when it was 4-0.

  5. amazing… almost identical situation to Arsenal with the handball in the box and the sending off, however when it is Liverpool it is a good decision by the ref.

  8. I just read that we scored 2 goals, how to go Gunners!

    But, I got a huckle out of the Guardian build-up on the second goal.

    … Iwobi and Owibi …

    I didn’t think that Iwobi and Ozil approximated the Bobsy Twins. 🙂

    COYG!

  10. gutted for le’coq, hope is not to serious. really amazing performance so far from the gunners. com’on arsenal

  16. what a lovely counter attack by the gunners and what a beauty finish from Ozil. 3 up, let finish it now lads

  18. What a masterfull performance so far.
    Please keep a clean sheet. Please!
    And more of the same in 2nd half.

  19. Hope it is just a tweek for Coquelin however I have confidence in Xhaka from what I have seen of him.

  20. The commentators are finding words:

    Earlier this afternoon
    “Unstoppable!” talking about ManC
    now
    “Irresistible!” about Arsenal.

  21. From replays.

    Second goal looks like a whole lot of ball watching by Chelsea. One commentary suggested Ozil mishit third goal. I don’t know, bouncing the ball off the turf will lead to a less predictable trajectory from the defenders point of view. Good goal. Good run by Alexis, and also by Ozil to keep going with the play.

    It would be soo much nicer, if TSN would just ditch the commentators. They only ruin the product.

    COYG!

  24. After not scoring against Chelsea for so long, within 45 minutes we scored 3, beautiful just beautiful. Let’s keep it up. Pre-match commentators Petit and Townsend was looking at the starting squad and say they don’t understand why AW didn’t put Giroud up top and Sanchez out wide, pretty much suggesting AW doesn’t know what he is doing. Experts.

  34. Xhaka don’t listen to the ems crowd….they’ll ask you to shoot from our own penalty area…

  43. How to go Gunners!

    For what little of the game I watched, Gibbs played well. Cech made a good deflection on Batman.

  45. So, bring on ManU now.
    Why don’t we get them early?

    Seriously, clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap….

    That’s my applause for the team today.

  46. yes, 3 point and a clean sheet. what a great performance. roll on to CL match this midweek. com’on Arsenal

  47. Mesut has scored off the turf before (against United in our 3:2 defeat last season). So, yes, I believe he didn’t mishit that shot. 🙂

    Excellent performance, Iwobi was brilliant, Alexis was majestic, Theo was out of this world and Mesut was…Mesut.

  51. Of course he miss hit it.

    But come on, just embrace it.

    Doesn’t take away from the goal. A long time ago now I had a protracted debate on here about how the miss hit shot is often the best, because the keeper cant read it. Instinct ensures he sets himself for the perfect shot, so when it’s scuffed or hit in to the turf it catches him out.

    What a performance.

    COYG

  52. Just enjoying the so called experts squirming and stuttering – just choke on it !

  53. Very hard to get signal here in Newfoundland where the bears support Arsene. As other faraway fans say – Woo Hoo hoo! Have you heard the joke about the penguin and the Polar bear? Woo Hoo!

  54. Great team performance today! Koscielny and Mustafi were great and left Costa crying in their back pocket all day. What an effort from Walcott, Sanchez, and Özil!

    @Arsenal13, maybe Iwobi just found Vardy’s superman power arm wrap and wanted to try it out!

  55. meanwhile in the bt studio Ian Wright want to take a full credit for the win today for his inspirational video that bt was showing before the match. wtf’ are this guy for real, whatever make u sleep better at night. rite’ Ian

  56. Brickfields

    “Just enjoying the so called experts squirming and stuttering – just choke on it” !

    Here her to that my friend. Especial that arsehole Wright.

  57. Near perfect performance from Arsenal.
    Not to get too greedy but this should’ve been our 6:0 against the Chelsea.
    A few better decisions in the final third and it probably would’ve been.

    @Josif
    Chelsea look off the pace. Your pick for the Chelsea league title doesn’t look good my friend.

  58. Many good performances today, but the moment I particularly enjoyed (and I did enjoy all the rest) was Sanchez showing up Cahill – the same Cahill who formerly came close to breaking a Sanchez leg!

  59. Been a long time coming and very sweet it was too. Well done to the whole team, everyone covered for each other when necessary and our counter attacking was glorious at times. Best performance for a long time.

    Hope Coquelin isn’t a serious injury but at least we have a more than capable backup this year – even if he can’t shoot for toffees!

  60. engram

    Out here in the Peace (BC and AB), apparently the most supported team is Liverpool!!! It’s nice that Newfoundland supports the Gunners.

    —

    Scanning the news, Coquelin is a repeat of last year’s problem. How severe, not known.

    The Independent is claiming that they learned something.

  61. @Tom

    Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I guess it shows how, at the end of the day, little I know about football. 🙂 I expected them to do something this season with Conte, with the pretty much same squad that won the league with Mourinho two years ago and without European distractions but I’m glad I was wrong about that one. 🙂 Ivanović looks well past his best, Cahill is hilarious and Cesc looks like he is on strike again. I have no words left for David Luiz except I hope someone will investigate all transfers he has been involved in.

    When it comes to our performance, aside from that nasty and unfortunately serious injury for Coquelin, I don’t have any complains. We had kept Chelsea without a single shot on target for 84 minutes and when they finally mustered one, Čech showed his class to deny a consolation goal. Mustafi and Koscielny were brilliant. Like someone wrote on Twitter, it was like having two Koscielnies today.

  62. I want to say as well, I said Oliver would have a good game and I think he did.

    He wasn’t perfect, but I don’t expect perfect. I want perfect, but I don’t expect it.

    Again, like most performances from the referees this year, watching it in real time, it felt ‘fair’, which is all we are asking for, surely.

    The most important thing is he didn’t get drawn into Costas histrionics every time he got touched, and THAT was very important.

    Okay, the way the game went it wasn’t as tough as it could of been for Oliver, but still, again, credit where credit is due I feel.

  63. Daily Mail is also claiming they learned something. The Express is claiming they learned something.

    Maybe they all learned how to tie their shoelaces? How not to dribble when they are eating?

    ESPN is NOT claiming they learned anything. After all, they are the worldwide leader in being ESPN. Whatever that is.

  64. AW confirmed it’s the same knee injury for Coq but unsure how long the recovery will be, but he is optimistic that there are capable back ups.

    Let’s hope the team can keep this performance up. Another thing, watching on tv the home support was amazing to hear, good job.

  65. why is it whenever arsenal leads her opponent by 3 or 4 goals that commentators decide to refresh our memories about the incident that happened at st james park some eons ago

  66. febrechenko

    More to the point is, how is it whenever we lead by 3 or 4 goals it’s all about how shite our opponent is rather than how good we actually are ?

  68. Josif
    I think you’re being too hard on yourself.
    I respect your football knowledge a lot but taking this Chelsea team from the tenth place to first in one season ,and making up some thirty points would be a great ask for anyone.

    The way I see it ,Chelsea have some problems starting with the aging defense. There are also rumors Cortuois wants out and go back to Spain.

    Kante is being played in the old Matic role, while Matic is being played in Kante’s role from last season at Leicester, which hasn’t yet worked for them.

    Conte has his work cut out for him. Making top four this season will be a great result for them.

  69. A very impressive win to upset all those who forecast a draw at best. Arsene’s team selection was received with its usual criticism but yet again he was proved correct.
    Iwobi was BT’s MOTM but anyone on the side could well have received that accolade.
    Throughout the match, it was abundantly clear the Arsenal were well fired up to meet any challenge that Chelsea would make. They harried the opposition whenever they had the ball and were a yard faster in all positions from start to finish.
    Any neutral watching this match would surely have seen a rare example of English football at its very best. 😉

  70. Iwobi

    The positions he takes up. His touch. His vision.

    They all remind me so much of Berkamp.

    If he continues in this vein we really could have a superstar on our hands.

    Early days I know but there’s no harm in dreaming is there.

  71. Excellent preview Drummond.

    I’m really pleased about the comments today.

    Well done y’all. Well done Arsenal.

    COYG

  73. Were is Walters report ?

    Following such a wonderful display could it be he’s over done it in the hospitality lounge ?

    I for one wouldn’t blame him.

  74. I disagree that Chelsea are a team looking to make up 30 points. Chelsea are a team looking to make up 5-8 points, who happened by some statistical accident last season to get 22-25 fewer points than they probably should have. And that Leicester happened to find about 5-8 points worth of betterness in Ranieri and his work, who happened to acquire 26-28 points more by some statistical accident. I think it is quite unusual to see two such events, being almost mirrors of each other, in a single season. But it isn’t as simple as the points Chelsea lost somehow went to Leicester.

    ====

    Maybe this is useful in understanding the aaa? This is for the Ig Nobel Peace Prize.

    > Three University of Waterloo researchers share this year’s Ig Nobel Peace Prize — an award on the silly side of science — for their analysis of why people believe meaningless garbage.

    > The trio and two American partners put it more crudely in a paper called “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bulls—.” (They didn’t use the little dashes.)

    I don’t see anything in this article particular to football.

  75. Jambug

    As pointed out above, Walter the movie star is in studio today. He will be late with a report, possibly not even today.

  76. Gord.

    I know. Hence the reference to the hospitality lounge.

    Whatever, whenever, I’m sure he’s had a wonderful day, as have we all.

  78. The only thing Wright and Ferdinand can find to moan about is Ozil taking a selfie after the game.

  80. MickHazel

    Wrights been making an even bigger tit of himself than usual these last few days with his incessant criticism of Wenger, so he and BT are having to go to ridiculous lengths in an effort to save face, and in doing so are just making themselves look more and more ridiculous.

  81. Dwelling on Arsenal’s excellent performance today, I was suddenly reminded of the story of a game at Highbury in the 1930’s.
    At half-time Arsenal were a goal down and not playing well. As the team were about to leave the dressing room and begin the second half, Wilf Copping, the fiery Arsenal and England left half, stood up and in a menacing voice said “Everyone will now get stuck in”.
    Boy, they sure got stuck in today….every single one of them. 😉

  84. Jambug
    In street football parlance, particularly in this side of the divide (Nigeria), we can the Özil shot ‘Banana Shot’ where the player deliberately slams the ball on the turf to create a bounce and bit the goalkeeper. It takes extremely good players to perfect which is not surprising from Özil, since he has scored from that shot multiple times.

  86. Fantastic result. Didn’t watch so had to make do with motd and predictably, gullit moaning how shite Chelsea were, and only Sanchez’s goal was deemed worthy of analysis…Anyway, guess some things never change. COYG!!

  87. Just great all round.
    Going to be some upset WOB, we just seriously did one of their darling teams

  89. In the good tradition of judging a team’s performance by their last game, one could be excused for dreaming at the title. For once I can live with that thought:) But of course, them being the newspapers and us being Arsenal, they’ll always judge us by double standards.

  90. @ Florian -September 25, 2016 at 12:54 am -“…. and us being Arsenal, they’ll always judge us by double standards.”
    And some !

  91. I think we need to ease up on Wrighty a bit, I think his comments as punditry is just to be controversial for tv viewing. I saw his interview on ArsenalFanTV, he was all of praise for AW, saying how AW changed his life personally.

  94. Why is there no match reort and fans have to go to other anti-Arsenal sites for professionsl reportage. This site prides itself on it’s football reporting prowess and yet your main match reporter is a poor writer who does not attend games and is either to early or late with his copy. Think it is also terrible how people on here rubbish heroes like Wrighty but perhaps because a majority post from other countries their only experience of Arsenal is what they read on here in bitter segments. Complacency is a poor culture. I might add I watched Arsenal for fifty years before I retired to a life fishing with Eskimoes.

  95. engram – you suck! Fishing needs patience. Where’s yours? Besides, using Eskimoes as bait is not the done thing!! 😉

  96. Ozil meant the shot.

    Look at him as he shoots, he turns away almost immediately as he shot and celebrated. He “knew” it was going in.

    Well, that’s my version anyway.

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