By Bulldog Drummond
Here’s a positive story and a half: Kanu talking about his heart foundation under the headline, “We have saved 542 lives, that means more than football.” The full piece is in the Guardian. Brilliant for Kanu to dedicate himself to this, good on the Guardian for highlighting the story.
In the injury league table we have Everton way out in front on 11, followed by Burnley on 7 and then four teams on six, Palace, Manchester City, Tottenham and Arsenal. Arsenal’s six include…
- Torreira with a calf injury – he may well be fit for the match tomorrow
- Iwobi who is ill – also a possible for saturday
And the longer term injuries: Jenkinson, Koscielny, Maitland-Niles, Kolasinac. Koscielny is said to be making a good recovery, and Maitland-Niles could be back sooner than previously predicted.
So let’s have a look at Newcastle at home…
Newcastle have played two at home and lost both. Arsenal have played two away, winning won losing one. Last season Arsenal were fractionally below average in terms of away form in the league, although of course a long way below what we would expect from Arsenal. We won four, drew four and lost 11. And as we have said before, if we are going to make an improvement this season, it has to come with the away form.
We can see the gulf between the two teams last season by comparing their home records…
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 19 | 16 | 2 | 1 | 61 | 14 | 47 | 50 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 19 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 54 | 20 | 34 | 47 |
| 3 | Manchester United | 19 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 38 | 9 | 29 | 47 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 19 | 12 | 7 | 0 | 45 | 10 | 35 | 43 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 19 | 13 | 4 | 2 | 40 | 16 | 24 | 43 |
| 6 | Chelsea | 19 | 11 | 4 | 4 | 30 | 16 | 14 | 37 |
| 7 | Everton | 19 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 28 | 22 | 6 | 34 |
| 8 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 19 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 24 | 25 | -1 | 29 |
| 9 | Newcastle United | 19 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 21 | 17 | 4 | 28 |
Newcastle won eight at home last season – Arsenal almost doubled that, but it is with the goals that things are so different – Newcastle scored 21 at home, Arsenal 54.
Now of course this is away for Arsenal – but even in their worst away season for many a long year Arsenal still got 20 goals, just one fewer than Newcastle. It makes an Arsenal win look quite possible.
The match is live on TalkSprout2, if you can take their commentary. Here’s their prediction of the team…
Cech,
Bellerin, Mustafi, Sokratis, Monreal,
Guendouzi, Xhaka,
Ozil, Ramsey,
Aubameyang, Lacazette
And an interesting line up it is, with two players, Ozil and Ramsey, able to push forward, and Ramsey able to drop back if need be. The possibility with this formation is that Ozil could go on the wing.
Although we lost the last game against Newcastle that came after a very long spell of good results… all these are in the Premier League…
| Date | Game | Res | Score |
| 05 Feb 2011 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | D | 4-4 |
| 13 Aug 2011 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | D | 0-0 |
| 12 Mar 2012 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 2-1 |
| 29 Dec 2012 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 7-3 |
| 19 May 2013 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 |
| 29 Dec 2013 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 |
| 28 Apr 2014 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 3-0 |
| 13 Dec 2014 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 4-1 |
| 21 Mar 2015 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 1-2 |
| 29 Aug 2015 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 |
| 02 Jan 2016 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 1-0 |
| 16 Dec 2017 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 1-0 |
| 15 Apr 2018 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | L | 2-1 |
Ten successive wins in that run although the last four in the run were only by the single goal. So it could be a happy hunting ground.
Jumping around the statistics here’s an interesting one: Newcastle have fewer touches of the ball than any other club in the Premier League…
Touches do not equate directly with league position, of course, but it is not that far off a predictor…
| Pos |
Club
|
Touches |
| 1. |
Chelsea
|
3,733 |
| 2. |
Manchester City
|
3,494 |
| 3. |
Liverpool
|
3,299 |
| 4. |
Fulham
|
2,983 |
| 5. |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
2,946 |
| 6. |
Manchester United
|
2,849 |
| 7. |
Arsenal
|
2,747 |
| 8. |
Leicester City
|
2,655 |
| 9. |
Wolverhampton Wanderers
|
2,574 |
| 10. |
Everton
|
2,465 |
| 11. |
West Ham United
|
2,426 |
| 12. |
Crystal Palace
|
2,422 |
| 13. |
Burnley
|
2,341 |
| 14. |
Southampton
|
2,325 |
| 15. |
AFC Bournemouth
|
2,256 |
| 16. |
Watford
|
2,186 |
| 17. |
Brighton and Hove Albion
|
2,130 |
| 18. |
Huddersfield Town
|
2,050 |
| 19. |
Cardiff City
|
1,918 |
| 20. |
Newcastle United
|
1,913 |
No direct correlation as I say, but Newcastle are near the foot of the table with several other struggling teams.
In other stats they have had seven yellow cards this season, and we have had nine. Top of the league of course are West Ham with 13, bottom are Wolverhampton with three.
When it comes to shots Newcastle certainly can be a trifle shot shy, having 36 so far this season in comparison with Arsenal’s 58. Bottom are Huddersfield with 25.
And just one more before I leave you to your Friday evening pleasures… this is a table of “big chances missed” provided by the Premier League itself.
| Rank | Club | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 1. |
Manchester City
|
11 |
| 2. |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
11 |
| 3. |
AFC Bournemouth
|
10 |
| 4. |
Liverpool
|
8 |
| 5. |
Crystal Palace
|
7 |
| 6. |
Arsenal
|
6 |
| 7. |
Southampton
|
6 |
| 8. |
Watford
|
6 |
| 9. |
Wolverhampton Wanderers
|
6 |
| 10. |
Manchester United
|
5 |
| 11. |
Burnley
|
4 |
| 12. |
Cardiff City
|
4 |
| 13. |
Brighton and Hove Albion
|
3 |
| 14. |
Fulham
|
3 |
| 15. |
Leicester City
|
3 |
| 16. |
Newcastle United
|
3 |
| 17. |
West Ham United
|
2 |
| 18. |
Chelsea
|
1 |
| 19. |
Everton
|
1 |
| 20. |
Huddersfield Town
|
1 |
What is interesting is that this is not a case of a club slipping down the league because it doesn’t takes its chances, as the popular media would often have us believe, but quite often clubs making a large number of chances and converting some – and that taking them up the league.
Of course this is not a perfect match – Chelsea have only missed one golden chance – but it works generally.
Newcastle have missed just three golden chances, Arsenal six. But Newcastle have just scored three, and we’ve got eight.
More tomorrow.
- Matchweek 5 – The Match Officials including Newcastle v Arsenal
- Newcastle v Arsenal: handbrake off, Everton points deduction, David gold on sucking
If the past win record in ten years in this fixture isn the PL is to be taking into consideration in predicting the outcome of the match between Newcastle and Arsenal tomorrow at St James’ Park, Newcastle town. Then, practically Arsenal will win the match comfortably and collect all the 3 points at stake in match and leave Newcastle with no point collected in the match.
Notwithstanding, the confidence of collecting the maximum 3 points in the match that is looking to favour Arsenal collecting them, should not be taking for granted by the Gunners to abuse the privilege of collecting them accorded to them with overconfidence performance in the game to collect them. Rather the Gunners must go about in the game taking care to collect them by first and foremost take control of the match from the beginning of the it to the end of it, dictating the pace of the game to the Maggipies to conform to it whether they like it or not will not be a concern to the Gunners who will hit them with an undisputed and unreplied 0-3 away win on Saturday at St James’ Park in the PL. And the Pgmo match officiating officials in the match will become powerless in their match officiating in the match to alter the 0-3 away win score-line at full-time and the added time the Gunners will hand to the Maggipies as a result of their superior game playing in the match against whatever the Maggipies theoretically have on offer in the match.