Tottenham v Arsenal: last season’s improvement and the home / away record

The story so far…

• Tottenham H v Arsenal; covid passes at the ready but will it delay entry?
• How Tottenham used the Leicester’s model to become masters of the gentle tackle

By Bulldog Drummond

Tottenham beat us to seventh place by a point last season of course – and if you are a regular reader you’ll know we’ve made much of the change that took place in during the course of last season. 

Up to Christmas we were doing pretty badly indeed…

P	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
6	Tottenham Hotspur	14	7	4	3	25	14	11	25
15	Arsenal	14	4	2	8	12	18	-6	14

with Tottenham already 11 points and 17 goals in GD better off, leaving them nine places ahead.  But our season was a season of three thirds (or something like that) and for the last two thirds of the season we did somewhat better than them.

P	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	24	20	0	4	62	20	42	60
2	Arsenal	24	14	5	5	43	21	22	47
3	Manchester United	24	13	8	3	43	21	22	47
4	West Ham United	24	13	5	6	41	28	13	44
5	Chelsea	24	12	6	6	29	22	7	42
6	Leicester City	24	11	6	7	42	33	9	39
7	Liverpool	24	11	5	8	32	23	9	38
8	Tottenham Hotspur	24	11	4	9	43	31	12	37

We performed better than they did in the final two thirds of the season, (in fact better than anyone except Manchester City) – although interestingly during the final two thirds both scored the same number of goals.

So the issue, aside from the technical point about referees and yellow cards made in the previous post is one relating to whether Arsenal pick up the style of the last two thirds of last season, or of the first third of last season.  If it is the first third, they’ll knock us about a bit; if it is the last two thirds, we should see them off.

As for the transfers so far Arsenal have brought in

Data from the Guardian

Back to our data, and Tottenham’s home record last season was very much like Arsenal’s away performance:

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
3	Tottenham Hotspur home	19	10	3	6	35	20	15	33
7	Arsenal away	19	10	3	6	31	18	13	33

which if it continues should make us easily matched.

And a little quiz question to while away a few seconds.   There has never been a competitive game between the two sides where one club has scored more than six goals, and only one game between Arsenal and Tottenham has involved one of the sides scoring six goals.  Any idea when the six goals game was?   Answer at the end.

And while you are contemplating that here are the latest match changes.

Brighton & Hove Albion v Arsenal
Saturday, October 2
Kick off: 5.30pm (originally 3pm)
Live on: SKY SPORTS

Arsenal v Crystal Palace
Monday, October 18 (originally Saturday, October 16)
Kick off: 8pm
Live on: SKY SPORTS

Arsenal v Aston Villa
Friday, October 22 (originally Saturday, October 23)
Kick off: 8pm
Live on: SKY SPORTS

Leicester City v Arsenal
Saturday, October 30
Kick off: 12.30pm (originally 3pm)
Live on: BT SPORT

More on the game against Tottenham tomorrow.  Meanwhile the answer to the little quiz above is 6 March 1935, Tottenham Hotspur 0 Arsenal 6, League Division One.  If one looks at the final league table for that season shown below, one finds a reason…

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GAv	Pts
1	Arsenal	42	23	12	7	115	46	2.500	58
2	Sunderland	42	19	16	7	90	51	1.765	54
3	Sheffield Wednesday	42	18	13	11	70	64	1.094	49
4	Manchester City	42	20	8	14	82	67	1.224	48
5	Grimsby Town	42	17	11	14	78	60	1.300	45
6	Derby County	42	18	9	15	81	66	1.227	45
7	Liverpool	42	19	7	16	85	88	0.966	45
8	Everton	42	16	12	14	89	88	1.011	44
9	West Bromwich Albion	42	17	10	15	83	83	1.000	44
10	Stoke City	42	18	6	18	71	70	1.014	42
11	Preston North End	42	15	12	15	62	67	0.925	42
12	Chelsea	42	16	9	17	73	82	0.890	41
13	Aston Villa	42	14	13	15	74	88	0.841	41
14	Portsmouth	42	15	10	17	71	72	0.986	40
15	Blackburn Rovers	42	14	11	17	66	78	0.846	39
16	Huddersfield Town	42	14	10	18	76	71	1.070	38
17	Wolverhampton Wanderers	42	15	8	19	88	94	0.936	38
18	Leeds United	42	13	12	17	75	92	0.815	38
19	Birmingham City	42	13	10	19	63	81	0.778	36
20	Middlesbrough	42	10	14	18	70	90	0.778	34
21	Leicester City	42	12	9	21	61	86	0.709	33
22	Tottenham Hotspur	42	10	10	22	54	93	0.581	30

More anon.

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• MP stance on football should fill us all with disgust
• If all lives matter, if slavery is unacceptable, what is the FA doing about Qatar?
• British media universally continues to support modern slavery