by Bulldog Drummond
Since playing their first leg of the current Europa League round both Arsenal and Olympiacos have won – in the case of Olympiakos it was a 0-1 away win that means that the club is top of the league at the end of the first part of the season. It also means that they are unbeaten.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | D | P | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Olympiakos Piraeus | 25 | 19 | 6 | 0 | 51 | 9 | +42 | 63 |
| 2 | PAOK | 25 | 18 | 4 | 3 | 49 | 22 | +27 | 58 |
| 3 | AEK Athens | 25 | 15 | 5 | 5 | 41 | 21 | +20 | 50 |
| 4 | Panathinaikos | 25 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 31 | 22 | +9 | 41 |
| 5 | Aris | 25 | 8 | 10 | 7 | 37 | 30 | +7 | 34 |
| 6 | OFI | 25 | 9 | 4 | 12 | 32 | 35 | -3 | 31 |
| 7 | Asteras Tripolis | 25 | 8 | 6 | 11 | 33 | 34 | -1 | 30 |
| 8 | Atromitos | 25 | 8 | 5 | 12 | 29 | 35 | -6 | 29 |
| 9 | Xanthi | 25 | 8 | 5 | 12 | 20 | 31 | -11 | 29 |
| 10 | Lamia | 25 | 5 | 12 | 8 | 19 | 30 | -11 | 27 |
| 11 | Larissa | 25 | 6 | 9 | 10 | 25 | 33 | -8 | 27 |
| 12 | Volos NFC | 25 | 7 | 6 | 12 | 22 | 38 | -16 | 27 |
| 13 | Panaitolikos | 25 | 3 | 8 | 14 | 20 | 40 | -20 | 17 |
| 14 | Panionios | 25 | 4 | 4 | 17 | 15 | 44 | -29 | 10 |
From this point on, with all the legal challenges to Olympiakos’ endless dominance of the league now set aside (at least for the time being) there are the play offs in which the top six teams in the league play off to see who will be champions. It will be Olympiakos, because it is always Olympiacos.
Goal has a wonderful piece which argues that because Olympiakos has already played Tottenham the club knows all about Arsenal. Which is rather odd because their own article has a quote from the Oly manager which says, “What I saw was one team like Tottenham, with experience, with great players and I saw one team like Arsenal, with young players who were not of the same maturity.”
“Arsenal is building a new team and Tottenham is the same team that it was three or four years ago. This is a huge difference. It’s not about the quality, it’s about maturity, experience.”
But at least Goal does get it right when it says that “If Arsenal avoid defeat on Thursday night it would extend their unbeaten start to 2020 to 11 games in all competitions.”
Rather neatly that run of ten started on 1 January and here it is…
| Date | Game | Res |
Score | Competition |
| 01 Jan 2020 | Arsenal v Manchester United | W | 2-0 | Premier League |
| 06 Jan 2020 | Arsenal v Leeds United | W | 1-0 | FA Cup |
| 11 Jan 2020 | Crystal Palace v Arsenal | D | 1-1 | Premier League |
| 18 Jan 2020 | Arsenal v Sheffield United | D | 1-1 | Premier League |
| 21 Jan 2020 | Chelsea v Arsenal | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 27 Jan 2020 | AFC Bournemouth v Arsenal | W | 1-2 | FA Cup |
| 02 Feb 2020 | Burnley v Arsenal | D | 0-0 | Premier League |
| 16 Feb 2020 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 4-0 | Premier League |
| 20 Feb 2020 | Olympiakos v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Europa League |
| 23 Feb 2020 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 3-2 | Premier League |
Six wins and four draws. Not too bad.
The injury list for the match is not too awful considering where it has been at times…
| Player | Reason | Detail | Return | Status |
| Calum Chambers | Knee Injury | Ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee. | 29/08/2020 | Ruled Out |
| Kieran Tierney | Shoulder Injury | Aiming to be in back in full training by the end of February | 07/03/2020 | Ruled Out |
| Cedric Soares | Knee Injury | Aiming to be in full training by the end of February. | 02/03/2020 | Ruled Out |
| Pablo Mari Villar | Other | Aiming to be available for selection for Olympiacos. | No Return Date | 50% |
| Sead Kolasinac | Shoulder Injury | Suffered a significant right shoulder injury (vs Everton) on Sunday. He will undergo further specialist assessments this week. | No Return Date | Ruled Out |
So it is the same squad as we had available for the game against sticky people (sticky, toffee, Everton, geddit? Oh never mind).
More anon.
The shoulder injury to Kolasinac was the result oif an elbow by Sidebe that wasn’t ‘seen’ by the officials nor was it checked by VAR. Considering the power used in the ariel challenge it should have been checked for a possible red card.
PGMOL rules OK!
I can’t imagine 😈 Mike Riley holding a news conference to say that decision was a VAR mistake.
—-
FIFA has a new “vision” statement out. They seem to have forgotten to document “increased corruption”. Maybe the bags of money will be made of white paper, instead of brown paper?
A new paper, that is in the “news”
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227758
The paper surveys the literature on referee bias. They also point to where they obtained their data. It appears that their data is available as a XSLX file.
Interesting article from Washington University in St.Louis (student newspaper).
https://www.studlife.com/sports/2020/02/26/matts-musings-morons-are-ruining-var-in-the-premier-league/