Arsenal v Chelsea: why Chelsea can tackle and Arsenal must avoid it like the plague

By Bulldog Drummond

Our games against Chelsea of late have not been too bad, despite all that the media would have you believe.   Here are the last 14 matches – enough to give a fair flavour of what has been going on.

Date Match Res Score Competition
27 May 2017 Arsenal v Chelsea W 2-1 FA Cup
6 Aug 2017 Arsenal v Chelsea W 1-1 FA Community Shield
17 Sep 2017 Chelsea v Arsenal D 0-0 Premier League
3 Jan 2018 Arsenal v Chelsea D 2-2 Premier League
10 Jan 2018 Chelsea v Arsenal D 0-0 League Cup
24 Jan 2018 Arsenal v Chelsea W 2-1 League Cup
18 Aug 2018 Chelsea v Arsenal L 3-2 Premier League
19 Jan 2019 Arsenal v Chelsea W 2-0 Premier League
29 May 2019 Chelsea v Arsenal L 4-1 Europa League
29 Dec 2019 Arsenal v Chelsea L 1-2 Premier League
21 Jan 2020 Chelsea v Arsenal D 2-2 Premier League
1 Aug 2020 Arsenal v Chelsea W 2-1 FA Cup
26 Dec 2020 Arsenal v Chelsea W 3-1 Premier League
12 May 2021 Chelsea v Arsenal W 0-1 Premier League

That gives us seven wins to Arsenal, four draws and three defeats in the last 14.  Of course, I doubt you will hear any of the media ever speak of such things, because it goes against their constant narrative

Last season both clubs had a bit of a difficult time in the early part of the campaign.  Here is the league table as it looked on Christmas Day, and although Chelsea were in eighth that game in hand meant it could have been less bad than it looked.   But Arsenal were really struggling.

Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Liverpool 14 9 4 1 36 19 17 31
2 Everton 14 8 2 4 25 19 6 26
3 Tottenham Hotspur 13 7 4 2 25 12 13 25
4 Leicester City 13 8 0 5 24 17 7 24
5 Southampton 14 7 3 4 25 19 6 24
6 Manchester City 13 6 5 2 19 12 7 23
7 Manchester United 12 7 2 3 22 19 3 23
8 Chelsea 13 6 4 3 26 14 12 22
9 West Ham United 13 6 3 4 21 16 5 21
10 Wolverhampton Wanderers 13 6 2 5 13 17 -4 20
11 Aston Villa 11 6 1 4 21 13 8 19
12 Newcastle United 13 5 3 5 17 22 -5 18
13 Crystal Palace 14 5 3 6 19 25 -6 18
14 Leeds United 13 5 2 6 22 24 -2 17
15 Arsenal 14 4 2 8 12 18 -6 14

But then in the last two thirds of the season we outplayed them totally, scoring 14 more goals, conceding one fewer and getting five more points that they did in the last 24 games of the season.

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

So if we can overcome our current injury and illness problems we could take matters on from there.  I certainly know (from a comment one director made at a meeting as which Untold was represented) that the board of directors are fully aware of the disparity between the first third and the last two thirds of the season last time around.

But there was also a change underlying this – and here we can look at the complete season.

Team Tackles 2019/0 Tackles 2020/1 +/- Fouls 2019/0 Fouls 2020/1 +/- Yellow 2019/0 Yellow 2020/1 Change
Arsenal 584 456 -22% 421 345 -18% 86 47 -45%
Chelsea 638 612 -4% 386 433 +12% 60 50 -17%

In short, Arsenal cut their yellow card total by 45% as they desperately needed to do.  As the table shows, in 2019/20 Chelsea committed 156 MORE tackles than Arsenal, but got 35 fewer fouls given against them than Arsenal.   Even more outrageously the got 26 fewer yellow cards against them than Arsenal!

So in 2020/1 Arsenal took the view that if the referees would not get this sorted, Arsenal would.   They cut their tackles by 22% so they now committed an amazing 156 fewer tackles than Chelsea.   Now at last they had fewer fouls given against them than Chelsea (88 fewer) and finally, finally, got 3 fewer yellow cards than Chelsea.   So 156 fewer tackles than Chelsea to get 3 fewer yellow cards than Chelsea.  Amazing figures.

The big difference is emphasised in the ratio table below

Team Tackles Fouls Tackle/foul Ratio Yellow Foul / yellow Ratio Tackle/yellow ratio
Arsenal 456 345 76% 47 22% 10%
Chelsea 612 433 70% 50 11% 8%

This season, just after one game we can see the astonishing difference between the two clubs.  Chelsea put in 21 tackles but had only 15 fouls called on this – a ratio of 71%, virtually the same as last season.   Arsenal put in only nine tackles but eight of them were called as fouls.

Team Tackles Fouls Tackle/foul Ratio Yellow Foul / yellow Ratio Tackle/yellow ratio
Arsenal 9 8 89% 0 0 0
Chelsea 21 15 71% 0 0 0

It is patently obvious that as things stand Chelsea can tackle and know they will get away with their tackles quite often, whereas Arsenal will have almost every single tackle called as a foul.

What this means in the end is that we can expect Arsenal to start picking up yellow cards today but Chelsea are far less likely too, despite the fact that they will put in more tackles.

It most certainly is unlikely to be even handed from the referee.

Now of course it will be argued that Arsenal’s fouls are worse than Chelsea’s but there is not a single scrap of evidence to back this up.  Our tackles are simply called as fouls more often and we get yellow more often.   That’s why our tackle level dropped by over a fifth from two years ago to last year.

6 Replies to “Arsenal v Chelsea: why Chelsea can tackle and Arsenal must avoid it like the plague”

  1. Just a quick point. 47 yellows from 345 fouls looks to be a 14% ratio rather than 22%.

  2. Interesting, VAR OFFICIALS V BRENTFORD C KAVANAGH ASSISTANT S MASSEY-ELLIS. VAR OFFICIALS V CHELSEA C KAVANAGH ASSISTANT S MASSEY-ELLIS. WELL DONE M RILEY.

  3. Following on from Peter’s comment, I note that Mr Riley and co allowed Mike Dean (Wirral referee, Tranmere fan) to again referee a Liverpool team as happened last season. I assume that Mr Riley feels that Mr Dean is unbiased despite coming from the region with the associated fanbase. Indeed the Liverpool manager Mr Klopp wondered why Mr Dean did not award any yellow cards against certain Burnley adherents for some apparent poor tackles during their game.
    Are we now to find that referees will allow the type of infringement that Leno was subjected to in the Brentford match to which Klopp also alluded to. If so, perhaps the Arsenal team may well find that hard tackling (fouls?) may once again become prominent as was wished for by a journalist interviewing Klopp. (This journalist was heard to support “Bring back the 70’s and 80’s. Let us no longer protect goalkeepers……!”)

    Into the second week of the season and already there are rumblings of a movement suggesting “b
    Back to the Future”. No longer “Kick out Racism”, but just “Kick Out-it’s a man’s game after all really!”

  4. They can tackle – from behind. Ask Thomas Partey. To meet Chelsea a couple of weeks before the clash in league is sooo stupid. They did it on purpose. Partey was a threat. He isn’t anymore.

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