By Tony Attwood
Across the last 10 games played Arsenal are second in the league
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 10 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 26 | 7 | 19 | 26 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 10 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 14 | 13 | 1 | 21 |
| 3 | Manchester City | 10 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 24 | 9 | 15 | 19 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 10 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 17 | 7 | 10 | 19 |
| 5 | Manchester United | 10 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 19 | 13 | 6 | 17 |
All we have done here is taken the six league games of this season and the last four league games of last season, to give approximately one quarter of a full season and built the league table.
During these ten games Arsenal have played three against other members of the traditional big six – Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham. So 30% of our games have been against the other big clubs. That is a bigger percentage that in a full season (where it is 26%) so it is not as if we have been having an easy ride.
Of course we don’t normally measure league tables across part of one season and another – but this analysis is helpful when a club like Arsenal receive an endless battering from the media with talk of relegation and the like, and ceaseless, endless, remorseless demands for the manager to be sacked.
Is it really sane to sack the manager of a team that over the last 10 games has the second best set of results in the entire league?
Obviously we started looking at this today because we discovered that in the last two thirds of last season Arsenal were the second best club in the league.
You might recall the table for the last two thirds of last 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 |
| 6 | Leicester City | 24 | 11 | 6 | 7 | 42 | 33 | 9 | 39 |
| 7 | Liverpool | 24 | 11 | 5 | 8 | 32 | 23 | 9 | 38 |
So the question we were interested in was whether Arsenal would continue this glorious form, in the face of having decided to buy in a new defence. The answer was yes.
And looking back to yesterday, it was glorious. For me arriving at Arsenal stadium 50 minutes before kick off there were no delays and no queues – except at the bars which were and remained horrifically over packed and quite possibly unsafe in terms of health and safety requirements. But since I wasn’t planning to have drink it didn’t matter, and the thought from those sitting around me was: forget the Arsenal Points system on our new club cards; carry on as before. Enjoy being at Arsenal with my pals.
As for the football it was the best first half we’ve seen in a while, and the team structure, layout, organisation, enthusiasm and skill was wonderful to behold. Even the eternal nay-sayers (who would normally be expected to tell us that the opposition was crap, and we wouldn’t get away with this against Chelsea) shut up. It was noisy, it was fun, it was joyous.
It was a pleasure to be at Arsenal.
And it wasn’t just a joy for us, looking at the players it was a joy for them too. They were full of it, smiling, and sharing it all with us. Fans and players, players and fans. Screw the journalists and pundits, we were Arsenal. It was just like old times.
Auba was wonderful of course, but what was sublime was on the one hand the interplay of Ostergaard, Smith Rowe and Saka, and the terrific solidity of the defence which constantly moved from being a back three to a back four. It was Tierney who moved forward when the play demanded it and Xhaka who pulled back; the back three stayed where they were. Solid.
Better, there were partnerships and inter connections popping up all over the place, and this game showed us more than any other the huge benefit of having an ex-player as manager. His explosion of enthusiasm at each goal was an absolute wonder to behold.
It made me forget the horrors of the morning, desperately driving from garage to garage trying to find enough fuel to make the 190 mile return trip that each home game brings for me – but that’s my problem and who cares when the club performs like this?
But more than that – when they perform like this we want to know the reason why and the explanation of how. Not the mindless garbage that the media (who has been telling us that Arteta’s job was on the line) but the real stuff.
Why would any manager’s job be on the line when the club is second in the league across the last ten games? Does anyone (other perhaps than Tottenham) sack a manager who is being successful?
We’ve replaced the defence and built the new lineup into a team that can play with reduced tackling, in order to stop the referees taking control. We’ve built a quick attacking team based on individual talent and quick interpassing. And it works.
Just compare and contrast with “Arsenal warned they are in free fall” from the Daily Mirror. That was published at the exact moment when our fortunes changed. These journalists eh?
Love your eye on the stats. Not that I need anything today, but “2nd over the past ten games” is gold for the soul.
Arsenal offered reality check by Graeme Souness as he delivers damning verdict
Some things dont change, do they?
What a joy to watch this Arsenal.
I hope MK’s years of learning under AW and Pep will help him build a new generation of winning Gunners.
All the new players are performing really well. Ramsdale, White, Tomi, Odegard… Money well spent.
I’ve said before most people can ride the crest of a wave , do you learn ? Mikel Arteta has had to learn on the job , steady a ship , re-balance a squad , a pandemic , no crowds in stadiums and a covid/injury hit team at the start of this season , that’s one hell of a learning curve .
I may have missed a few things but he’s going to build a great future for Arsenal .
Just fascinating paragraph…just read it aloud and try to figure out what it is supposed to mean…
“Arsenal were dreadful for significant parts of last season, and a lot of that was down to Mikel Arteta and his players. During the summer prior to it, the club spent £45m on Thomas Partey, only for injuries to restrict him to 24 starts. The impact of this ill luck was largely ignored, especially once, during last season’s first north London derby, Partey wandered off the pitch while Spurs were in the process of scoring.”
So they were dreadful – UA has shown how that ‘dreadful’ was limited to the 1st third, so ‘large part’ is a concept like the crowds at Trunp’s inauguration being described in a paralle reality.
Mr Arteta and the players were the culprits. yet at the same time Partey’s missing 24 games was ill luck….
That kind of double talk, double meaning, oxymoron statements, let’s hit them anyway whatever is being written is just so ‘normal’. I’m sure we could call it a reporting ‘genre’, next to ‘lawrencing’. Maybe we ought.
Just looked at the stats as per PL website. Makes for interesting reading :
Tackles
ARS : 21
T*T : 14
Fouls
ARS : 12
T*T : 13
Yellow cards
ARS : 2
T*T : 1
Just strange…visibly PIGMOB is reading UA and are doing their utter best to screw up statistics…
They did however manage to fire off 2 yellows in the waning minutes, like “oh gosh, forgot to get them out, hurry let’s get to work”
I wonder if the ref was reminded of his dismal yellow record 5 minutes from time by his VAR colleague ?
Then maybe I’m being paranoïd…but can’t remember there being much of faults. Not like Kane just mugging a defender in broad daylight and getting away with it.
Chris, there is something very odd about the Fouls listing on the PL site. It is also noteable that they are not included in the main sections for clubs – only by players, but they then turn up elsewhere. For the past couple of seasons I have been using
https://www.footstats.co.uk/index.cfm?task=leagues
which when I have spent a whole match counting the stats myself gives an answer much closer to what I get in trying to note them down.
I think the PL list simply takes the players data and adds it up, but they don’t manage to collect every foul there.
I did look up details of thegame on footsstats, fouls are same as PL website, but no mention of tackles on footstats.
Considering how agressive the team was in 1st half, I’m not surprised of the number of tackles being 21-14 however. Neither when I look a possession.
The Premier League website needs some maintenance work pronto. Many of the filtering options don’t work correctly.
PGMOL use of officiating by headphone is most apparent when Atkinson or Moss are officiating. Moss however needs some hearing aids as he seems to get so focused on moving his ‘mass’ over to an area near play that he dboth the opponent oesn’t respond to command.
Watching the game on TV for the second time to catch the little PGMOL steps that slope the pitch and it is quite clear how selective vision is used to defend and move the ball away from the spuds half.
Xhaka is being targetted by commentators, officials, opponents and by the idiots who can’t see for them selves.
I think he is a superb player that has strength that others cannot muster.
Kane sliding in on Saka just before Saka scored is worse that the ‘Red card’ tackle that Xhaka was sent off for, but nothing was said as the goal grabbed the focus.