Arsenal v Knor Which Sit Ee. A load of numbers and a bit of a preview

By Bulldog Drummond

Norwich are currently sixth in the Championship, in the bottom play-off place five points off the second spot that brings automatic promotion.

Pos Club P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 13 9 2 2 24 13 +11 29
2 Cardiff City 13 8 3 2 18 10 +8 27
3 Sheffield United 13 9 0 4 18 11 +7 27
4 Leeds United 13 7 2 4 21 12 +9 23
5 Aston Villa 13 6 4 3 19 13 +6 22
6 Norwich City 13 6 4 3 13 14 -1 22

And indeed we should be aware that Norwich are on a very good run and full of confidence.  Last season they came eighth in the league and missed the play offs by ten points.   Here are the recent matches…

Date Game Res Score Competition
26 Aug 2017 Millwall v Norwich City L 4-0 Championship
09 Sep 2017 Norwich City v Birmingham City W 1-0  Championship
12 Sep 2017 Norwich City v Burton Albion D 0-0 Championship
16 Sep 2017 Sheffield United v Norwich City W 0-1 Championship
19 Sep 2017 Brentford v Norwich City W 1-3 League Cup
23 Sep 2017 Norwich City v Bristol City D 0-0 Championship
26 Sep 2017 Middlesbrough v Norwich City W 0-1 Championship
30 Sep 2017 Reading v Norwich City W 1-2 Championship
14 Oct 2017 Norwich City v Hull City D 1-1 Championship
22 Oct 2017 Ipswich Town v Norwich City W 0-1 Championship

As we can see, since the hammering by Millwall it has been nine games in a row without defeat, including the (what I guess was for them was a great, overwhelming feeling) beating their local rivals Ipswich.  The fact that these two local rivals are over 50 miles apart doesn’t seem to reduce the excitement.

However what we might note is that in the last five games they have scored five and conceded two, so this is a team with a mean defence and not an overwhelmingly strong attack.  A sort of second division version of Arsenal in 1992/3 when in a 42 match season we scored 40 and let in 38.   If you were there you’ll remember it.

Which means we are going to need some high level inventiveness from the second team, and I suspect Jack Wilshere and Reiss Nelson could flourish in this environment.  A couple of early goals would set the tone.

What is interesting is that Norwich are a bit of an up and down side of late

Season League P W D L F A Pts Position FAC LgeC Top scorer Goals
2011/2 Prem 38 12 11 15 52 66 47 12th R5 R2 Holt 17
2012/3 Prem 38 10 14 14 41 58 44 11th R4 QF Holt 8
2013/4 Prem 38 8 9 21 28 62 33 18th R3 R4 Hooper 8
2014/5 Chmp 46 25 11 10 88 48 86 3rd R3 R3 Jerome 21
2015/6 Prem 38 9 7 22 39 67 34 19th R3 R4 Mbokani 7
2016/7 Chmp 46 20 10 16 85 69 70 8th R3 R4 Jerome 16

Several points of interest here.  The goals for column shows an incredible variance, from 28 to 88, back down to 39 up to 35.  This reflects the moves from the premier league down to the Championship.  But this season they are not yet delivering a Championship style attack – at the present rate they are going to end up with a paltry 48 goals.

Also we can see that they don’t traditionally go in for many high scorers in a season – imagine having your top scorer knock in just eight.  Must have been hard to take.

We can also see from the table above that the club has not had too much of a run in the cups of late, while Arsenal of course have picked up the FA Cup (not a trophy) three times in the past four years.

However despite seeing Norwich as a club we should easily beat, it should be remembered that out of the 57 games between the sides Norwich have won 11.  Of course this has in part been aided by the deep wells that are dug into the edge of the pitch for camera positions, which as we know can cause serious injury to unwary visitors.

But in the Premier League era it hasn’t been too bad for Arsenal:

Date Game Res Score Competition
15 Aug 1992 Arsenal v Norwich City L 2-4 Premier League
03 Mar 1993 Norwich City v Arsenal D 1-1 Premier League
26 Oct 1993 Arsenal v Norwich City D 1-1 League Cup
30 Oct 1993 Arsenal v Norwich City D 0-0 Premier League
10 Nov 1993 Norwich City v Arsenal W 0-3 League Cup
13 Feb 1994 Norwich City v Arsenal D 1-1 Premier League
10 Sep 1994 Norwich City v Arsenal D 0-0 Premier League
01 Apr 1995 Arsenal v Norwich City W 5-1 Premier League
28 Aug 2004 Norwich City v Arsenal W 1-4 Premier League
02 Apr 2005 Arsenal v Norwich City W 4-1 Premier League
19 Nov 2011 Norwich City v Arsenal W 1-2 Premier League
05 May 2012 Arsenal v Norwich City D 3-3 Premier League
20 Oct 2012 Norwich City v Arsenal L 1-0 Premier League
13 Apr 2013 Arsenal v Norwich City W 3-1 Premier League
19 Oct 2013 Arsenal v Norwich City W 4-1 Premier League
11 May 2014 Norwich City v Arsenal W 0-2 Premier League
29 Nov 2015 Norwich City v Arsenal D 1-1 Premier League
30 Apr 2016 Arsenal v Norwich City W 1-0 Premier League

Certainly the run from 1992 to 1994 was pretty awful, with just one Arsenal win in seven.   But the last defeat was at Norwich back in 2012.  Since then it has been four wins and a draw, all in the the Premier League.

More tomorrow.

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19 Replies to “Arsenal v Knor Which Sit Ee. A load of numbers and a bit of a preview”

  1. Wonderfull news Ronald koeman available to become manager for Arsenal at least i think thats what all the so called Wenger out fans wanted.
    no disrespect ment for RK.

  2. Apparently Norwich needs disambiguation.

    There are other places named Norwich: Ontario, Jamaica, Kansas, Massachusetts, two in New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont, and Roanoke, Virginia.

    Some people confuse Norwich with a ship.

    And the wikipedia disambiguation page, has a Brickfields-ism which I won’t disclose.

    For a long time, Norwich was the second largest city in England.

    In May of 2012, Norwich was named England’s first UNESCO City of Literature. I guess that comes from the quality of the writing about sports teams in the city?

    I gather Norwich dates to the times of the Roman’s.

    I gather Norwich City football defenders first learned to tackle by taking on horses pulling chariots in the times of the Romans. It is unclear whether Norwich City still uses horses pulling chariots for tackling dummies today.

  3. Just in.

    GIROUX WINS PUSKAS AWARD For best goal in 2017

    This is after not even winning goal of the month in EPL.
    What a slap on the face of the FA. A very dirty slap indeed.

  4. Congratulations to Olivier Giroud for winning the Puskas award for best goal in 2017 .Not bad for an alleged “donkey” and “lampost”!

  5. Whatever be the case, the reserve team of Aresnal will beat Norwich City in this Carabao Cup match taking place tomorrow night’s at the Emirate Stadium where the Canaries are expected to play their own version of World Cup final game.

    In view of this World Cup final match which Norwich City are suspected will play against Arsenal, the Gunners should be careful not to take beating them for granted and thereby become complacent in their game against them. Rather, they should carry the game to the Canaries unabated pressing them high and hard with relentless vigour until they breach their back of the net again, again and again three times during the game to leave them returned home conceding 3 goals to Arsenal without them scoring any goal against Arsenal at the final whistle ending the match

    My 3-4-2-1 Arsenal reserve team starting XI and 7 on the bench others for this match are as follows:

    Macey
    Debuchy Holding ElNeny
    Nelson Niles Coquelin Willock
    Walcott Giroud Wilshere.
    What a starting XI!

    Bench:
    Cech Dragomir McGuane Sheaf Nketiah Dasilva Akpom.

  6. Andy Carroll I gather won the the winning goal for that month, according to some media types.

  7. ‘This is after not even winning goal of the month in EPL’
    That’s right. I think they chose the offside version by Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
    Still it was in MOTD top goals list.

  8. I was at that bloody match in ’92. I think we had a mural covering the North Bank.

  9. In 1992 we were 2=0 ahead before losing 2-4.

    BBC TV news reports Ronaldo winning FIFA Player of year award, but no mention of only English based player to win an award. Must be their policy to avoid anything positive about Arsenal.

  10. If Roony or Kane had won the award or some other English player, the hype would be inescapable and we would not be told or only in passing that Ronaldo was player of the year.

    Giroud’s award is another triumph for ‘Frenchman who doesn’t know what he is doing.’

    You know the one who wont ‘splash the cash’

    Who buys unknowns and has patience with them.
    Who have football skill but lack ‘thug’ skill.

    Now let me think what is his name? Naer I can’t think of it.

    You say his name is ‘Arsene’

    Arsene who?

  11. I wouldn’t be so harsh on Kane. He is one of the best non-English speaking strikers in the league.

  12. ‘I wouldn’t be so harsh on Kane. He is one of the best non-English speaking strikers in the league.’
    Not cool Josif, although in the godforsaken part of the world you originate from it’s probably the norm.

  13. Josif – “I wouldn’t be so harsh on Kane. He is one of the best non-English speaking strikers in the league.” Brilliant hahaha.

    Jax – What difference does his nationality make? Why do people like you always bring that up? It just stinks of xenophobia.

  14. @Jax

    Be careful or I will come to your country without any money, contacts and advanced knowledge of English and still manage to steal your job. 🙂

    @Jammy

    Xenophobia? In “post-Brexit-they-don’t-like-it-up-’em”-England?” Impossible!

  15. Josif – sometimes humour slips by the idiots who believe they are superior having achieved nothing.

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