By Bulldog Drummond
Looking at the various stats being thrown around the most commonly mentioned is that Arsenal have lost each of their last three League home games and the last time it was four consecutive home league defeats was in 1959, when Burnley also turned up on the list. In fact the run started after a home win in the league on 31 October 1959, with the next home win in the league coming on 6 February 1960.
During that spell we had three away wins before finally beating Blackburn at home 5-2 in February.
| Date | Game | Res | Score | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Nov 1959 | Arsenal v West Ham United | L | 1-3 | Division One |
| 28 Nov 1959 | Arsenal v West Bromwich Albion | L | 2-4 | Division One |
| 12 Dec 1959 | Arsenal v Burnley | L | 2-4 | Division One |
| 26 Dec 1959 | Arsenal v Luton Town | L | 0-3 | Division One |
| 2 Jan 1960 | Arsenal v Wolverhampton Wanderers | D | 4-4 | Division One |
| 6 Feb 1960 | Arsenal v Blackburn Rovers | W | 5-2 | Division One |
Overall we went 14 games with just one win Our league position was pretty much like now after that run of four home defeats… (two points for a win, and clubs on identical points were separated by goal average not goal difference).
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Chelsea | 24 | 9 | 5 | 10 | 46 | 53 | 23 |
| 14 | Manchester City | 24 | 10 | 2 | 12 | 52 | 52 | 22 |
| 15 | Blackpool | 24 | 8 | 5 | 11 | 34 | 37 | 21 |
| 16 | Arsenal | 24 | 8 | 5 | 11 | 38 | 49 | 21 |
| 17 | Everton | 24 | 7 | 6 | 11 | 37 | 46 | 20 |
| 18 | Leicester City | 24 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 38 | 52 | 20 |
| 19 | Nottingham Forest | 24 | 8 | 3 | 13 | 29 | 46 | 19 |
| 20 | Leeds United | 24 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 39 | 58 | 18 |
| 21 | Birmingham City | 24 | 6 | 5 | 13 | 32 | 47 | 17 |
| 22 | Luton Town | 24 | 5 | 6 | 13 | 27 | 45 | 16 |
Interestingly although this was 60 years ago only four of the ten teams above are now not in the top division. We ended the season in 13th, five points above relegation.
Two more negatives (all courtesy of Sky, naturally)
First this one, “Arsenal have won just 13 points in their opening 11 league games this season, their worst start to a season since 1981/82 (12 points).” What that one doesn’t tell us is that in 1981/2 Arsenal finished the table in fifth – and it is the recovery of that season that is remembered as the most notable achievement. Here’s the final table…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 42 | 26 | 9 | 7 | 80 | 32 | 48 | 87 |
| 2 | Ipswich Town | 42 | 26 | 5 | 11 | 75 | 53 | 22 | 83 |
| 3 | Manchester United | 42 | 22 | 12 | 8 | 59 | 29 | 30 | 78 |
| 4 | Tottenham Hotspur | 42 | 20 | 11 | 11 | 67 | 48 | 19 | 71 |
| 5 | Arsenal | 42 | 20 | 11 | 11 | 48 | 37 | 11 | 71 |
But to be fair they do give us one decent stat: “Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has scored more Premier League goals against Burnley than he has any other side in the competition (7 in 5 games).”
The Short Fuse kindly comes in with a suggestion for the team, and the bench as well…
Leno
Bellerin Holding Gabriel Tierney
Ceballos Elneny
Aubameyang Lacazette Saka
Nketiah
And on the beach:
- Joe Willock
- Emile Smith Rowe
- Willian
- Ainsley Maitland-Niles
- Shkodran Mustafi
- Granit Xhaka
- Alex Runarsson
The Daily Canon offers up…
Leno
Bellerin Holding Gabriel Tierney
Ceballos Xhaka
Willian Lacazette Saka
Aubameyang
The BBC meanwhile pile in with the negative stats…
- The Gunners’ total of 62 chances created from open play is the third lowest in the Premier League this season, with only Burnley (57) and Newcastle (60) ranking lower.
- They have gone 656 minutes without scoring a top-flight goal from open play.
And although they have far fewer stats in the negative list of Burnley to Arsenal (Arsenal win that 7-4) they do have some…
- Burnley have won one of their past 11 league games, losing seven times.
- The Clarets have registered 27 shots on target, the lowest figure in the Premier League this season.
- Their total of five goals is the joint lowest in the division prior to the weekend.
- Burnley could fail to score in four consecutive top-flight away matches for the first time since December 2016.
The Evening Standard is back to its old ways with a headline promising “Prediction, team news, lineups,” but actually gives us no line ups so we have to look elsewhere.
The Hard Tackle offers
Leno;
Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney;
Ceballos, Xhaka;
Saka, Lacazette, Aubameyang;
Nketiah
The Guardian ventures…
Leno;
Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney;
Ceballos, Xhaka, Saka,
Willian. Nketiah, Aubameyang;
and as ever do their substitutes from list…
Runarsson, Soares, David Luiz, Kolasinac, Marí, Chambers, Mustafi, Maitland-Niles, Elneny, Willock, Nelson, Smith Rowe, Lacazette, Balogun.
They also give us Leading scorer Lacazette 3, while for Burnley we see Leading scorer Wood 2. I guess that means League matches only.
So there we are. I would say you pays yer money and takes yer choice, but Untold Arsenal is of course free so you don’t. Unless you kindly support any of our advertisers, which of course is always welcome.
- Burnley visit Arsenal this evening. Will our run against them continue?
- And so we play Burnley on Sunday at 7.15pm. Tactics, statistics and injuries
- How the media provides a cover for money laundering in football.
In recent years, virtually every club that has had a run of not beating us, has broken that duck and beaten us.
Not a good sign.
The believes in many Arsenal quarters believing that the Gunners manager Mikel Arteta will tonight still opt for his regular playing senior team players to start the Arsenal vs Burnley match at the Ems in the PL is not out of place. For, this is the normal thing that is expected of Arteta to do.
But should Arteta take a gamble to depart a little bit from the status quo in his starts and bench for Burnley tonight to unexpectedly includes at least 3 Arsenal proven quality youth players in his starting XI team and Subs for the match, and change the position of playing for Saka from left to right?
If Arteta takes this gamble to do these unexpected changes to his Arsenal team for Burnley tonight, it could lead to his Arsenal starting team for the match being rejig to do something new and positively different in the game that could impact on the outcome of the match to the favour of Arsenal collecting a handsome dividend at the end of the match.
My wished Arsenal 433 playing formation starters and 7 Subs on the bench for the match are as stated below.
Starts:
Leno;
Bellerin Luiz Maglhaes Tierney;
AMN Lacazette Elneny;
Saka Balogun Aubameyang.
Bench:
Runarsson Soares Holding Willock ESR Nelson Nketiah.
The PGMOL EPL goes on. Foul throws, no different to thoes by Bellerin not pulled up.
Several freekicks – ball kicked away from initial placement and the invisible player less than 3 feet away from the free kick!! This is the PGMOL method of officiating.
VAR looks at an ‘offence’in the penalty box but the referee does not see a foul on the pitch side monitor. However, Souness disagrees with the Referee’s opinion but an ex Manc player sees differently.
It is quite amazing how officiating deviates from match to match, with some teams getting dessert instead of main course yet the media give the officials Michelin stars like confetti.
I am glad I opted out of match tickets for tonights game as it is a cold miserable night and coming home by public transport with masked and unmasked public doesn’t feel secure.
Ultimately both Corvid and Coward frightened me away! 😉
Leno
Bellerin, Gabriel, Holding, Tierney
Xhaka, Elneny
Saka, Willian, Lacazette
Aubameyang
Substitutes
R. Rúnarsson
Ceballos
Maitland-Niles
Mustafi
Willock
Nketiah
Smith Rowe
I’m taking the half way house, Menace. Being in a tier 2 area I can go to the pub. For the last match there, it was me and four others. Being a sunday night might be a few more in.
Enjoy the game Tony and have a pint on me.
Xhaka why?????
This Tarkowski is a piece of work…he’s the one that mugged Tierney in our own box by elbowing his head!
Xhaka was downed but that is not shown on VAR!! How did Xhaka go down?
The VAR is used by PGMOL as another tool to slope the playing field. Xhaka was coaught losing his cool by selective vision. The fouls not seen by VAR are not in question.
Hate to say they had the best chance of the game in the first half a free header , Wood I think it was should have done better .
It seems when your in a bad run of form your in it , didn’t deserve to lose , other than that one chance they had they win with an OG .
See what I mean.
Any team that has not beaten us for ages is now doing so.
Xhaka had to go. The correct question you raise is whether the person who pushed him down should have gone as well? I only saw the replays, not the whole incident.
Where do we go from here?
@jjgsol,. If you take Menace’s interpretation of events on the pitch seriously, I fear for you. Dhaka wasn’t pushed down by anyone. He fouled a Burnley player on the break, a bit too harshly. The player stood up and remonstrated with him, some “handbags”, Xhaka grabs the player by the throat, he goes down like a sack of potatoes, players from both teams rush to the scene, laca pushes Xhaka away from the the scene, this is where Xhaka trips and falls -while laca is pushing him backwards away from the scene of the crime in a bid to douse tensions. Unfortunately it was too late, VAR had spotted the Xhaka choke hold
Arome – It is obvious you don’t like truth. The player that had his collar caught was the one who tripped Xhaka to the floor. Xhaka grabbed him in anger. Anger is the worst imbalance in any walk of life. I am not condoning what Xhaka did. He was justified doing it in the street but not on the PGMOL field of play. There were two players that should have been punished but only one is shown on the VAR footage. It is referred to as selective vision. It is what it is.
We had several shots at goal, unfortunately none accurate enough to hit the net. It is not the end of our season but the beginning of a realisation that we are above the parapet as a historic club. Anything that can be done to reduce our esteem will be done. The fouls against us will be ignored or played out as advantage. The fouls we commit will be instantly punished with a card.
What do we do to avoid this situation? We train better and learn to control our tempers while being more accurate in our progress toward success.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=keUX3Zx_fsk
Pushing and shoving going on all round, you don’t see cards shown for that. Anyway that’s the video, for anyone who wants to see
Arome
14 December 2020 at 13:10
Selective vision is always the bias we have to live with. Watch carefully how Xhaka goes down – it is not shown in this clip but in the actual game footage there is clear reason to send 2 players off.
This is bias on TV and how hatred is propagated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_jSnpG1XkE
“it is not shown in this clip but in the actual footage there is clear reason to send 2 players off”. In other words, don’t believe what you see, rather believe what I tell you. This coming from someone who out of the 7+ billion people on the earth was the only one who saw Laca push, rather than elbow the Bate Borisov player last year.
Like I earlier said, if you want to take Menace’s version of any events, that’s your business, I’ll only advice you get a tin foil hat alongside