By Bulldog Drummond
Of course doom and gloom is everywhere for Arsenal. Here is what Football.London said of this match at the start of the weekend…
“The pressure will be on Arsenal on Monday night. The Gunners will have watched Manchester United and Tottenham play before them this weekend and could find themselves out of the top four before they even kick a ball against Crystal Palace on Monday Night Football on Sky Sports.”
Err, yes guys, but really come on…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 30 | 23 | 4 | 3 | 70 | 18 | 52 | 73 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 30 | 22 | 6 | 2 | 77 | 20 | 57 | 72 |
| 3 | Chelsea | 29 | 17 | 8 | 4 | 58 | 23 | 35 | 59 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 28 | 17 | 3 | 8 | 44 | 31 | 13 | 54 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 29 | 16 | 3 | 10 | 47 | 36 | 11 | 51 |
| 6 | Manchester United | 30 | 14 | 9 | 7 | 49 | 41 | 8 | 51 |
For Arsenal to be out of the top four after the weekend games, as they say, Tottenham will have to “win by two goals against Newcastle United on Sunday afternoon.”
And yes that is possible of course, although I doubt it – but then Arsenal would have two games in hand to claw back the difference – with Tottenham even after two extra games only being above Arsenal on goals scored. Beside, Newcastle have only lost two of their last ten games in the league.
Anyway, we shall, of course, see in due course… but it is funny. Is there any other team that a drainpipe like Football.London would find a way that saying, being in fifth on goal difference with two games in hand “is putting pressure on”?
But let us move on from this nonsense…
We now come on to the tackles, fouls and yellow card comparisons. This time I’ve added where the two clubs are in the charts overall
| Club | Tackles | Fouls | Yellow |
| Arsenal | 408 (19th) | 262 (17th) | 40 (16th) |
| Crystal Palace | 509 (6th) | 306 (12th) | 50 (11th) |
| Top | Leeds 619 | Leeds 363 | Leeds 91 |
| Bottom | Manchester City 380 | Leicester 245 | Manchester City 35 |
So we can see that the tackling revolution that was implemented by Artetea and came to the fore after Christmas 2020 is now showing its rewards. Arsenal have moved from being the most yellow carded club of all in the Premier League by the end of the 2019/20 season, down to position 16th.
There is a big warning light in these figures however, and if you are a regular reader of Untold, and you have a decent memory the fact that Leicester are bottom of the fouls league this season will probably be sending you big warning lights. Because it was Leicester’s ability to foul with impunity that really started this whole investigation into the relationship between tackles, fouls and yellow cards.
And assuming Untold’s trip to Lincoln today doesn’t lead to any mishaps we’ll be pulling these figures apart in the near future.
But for now we can look with satisfaction at the way the PGMO has been dealt with. Cut the tackles and it is so much harder for the refs to wave the cards. Let’s look at the ratios…
| Club | Tackles per foul | Tackles per yellow | Fouls per yellow |
| Arsenal | 1.56 | 10.20 | 6.56 |
| Crystal Palace | 1.66 | 10.18 | 6.12 |
So Arsenal get penalised more often for their tackling, but the propensity for the referee to hand out the yellow each time a tackle is committed is pleasantly reduced for each club – both getting away with over 10 tackles before the yellow card is waved. Arsenal can also commit slightly more fouls (in the eyes of the referee) per yellow card than Palace.
Overall Palace are tackling more than Arsenal, have those tackles turned into yellow cards slightly more often (but by a very small margin) but get picked up slightly more often for nasty fouls by having them turned into yellows.
The clubs appear to be treated fairly equally in this case.
We’ll move on to injuries and other data next time….
Off topic but Arsenal Women have taken the lead against Leicesrer City in the second minute. Beth Mead with a volley from a CaitlinFoord cross
Arsenal should win the next 2 games. What will probably determine 4-6th place is the series of matches :Liverpool vs Man Utd, Arsenal vs Chelsea, Arsenal vs Man Utd, Chelsea vs West Ham that take place between 19th-24th Mar .
Two fouls from Arsenal and two yellow cards. Another tilted PGMO pitch.
26 minutes in and still just the one goal. All Arsenal but resolute defending from Leicester with all 11 players in the final third. Miedema with a shot that comes back off the post and doesnt fall for an Arsenal player.
Our final ball isnt precise enough and our passing is just a bit too slow.
Half time and still just the one goal. We haven’t been anywhere near clinical enough, haven’t been helped by another poorreferee and should be out of sight.
If you listned to the comentators and pundits you would think that Leicester were the better team which certainly hasn’tbeen the case. I’ve had the sound off for most of the half!
The commentators haven’t changed Andrew
“Since the goal Leicester have been fantastic”:
Possession 74% to 26%
Shots 17 to 1
On Target 7 to 0
Of course they have !!
At last. 2-0.
Despite a slightly under par performance the least we deserve.
67th minute and Miedema sweeps home our second. Game should now be safe but wecould do with some more goals.
75th minute and Miedemamakes it three. A better flowing attack.
Now4 as a Parris cross is turned in by a Leicester defender
4 – 0
And that should be game set and match. Much more realistic scoreline.
Poss: 7% to 24%
Shots 24 to 1
On target 10 to 1
But apparently “Not really what Leicester deserve considering their industry and resolve” !!!
Really, I mean really !!
1 shot FFS
Poss: 74% to 24%
5 – 0
And sorry, rushing.
On target now 11 to 0
82 minutes and Tobin Heath chests in at the back post from a deflected Parris cross. Five nil. Could still be more to come
Miedema given Player of the Match.
Apparently it was close between her and O’brien of Leicester, but she felt she HAD to give it to Miedema because she was on the winning side.
Again, really ? I mean really ?
No further goals. If you listened to the commentators a lucky win against a plucky Leicester team. In reality a totally dominant performance with a scoreline that went some way to showing that dominance.
We shouldhave been more clinical and could easily have had a bigger margin.
We now need Chelsea to drop some points. Realistically it is only likely to happen in one of the two games they have against Spurs so I expect us to be back down to second again this evening
Now an international break for the Women before our next game on Easter Sunday when we host Chelsea in this season’s FA Cup semi-final
Finished Leicester City 0 – 5 Arsenal
I find listening to commentators mind numbing at the best of times but I was determined to listen through to the end just to see exactly how bad, warped or just plain wrong they are. And it’s ‘very’ to all the above.
Despite a totally dominant performance from Arsenal they were determined to big up Leicester at every opportunity. Apparently they could be very pleased with themselves as this was a BIG improvement from last week.
Was it ? Can they ? Well no to both in reality.
These are the stats from the 2 matches.
V Chelsea
Poss: 77% to 23%
Shots: 25 to 2
On Target: 14 – 0
V Arsenal
Poss: 77% to 23% = No improvement there then.
Shots 30 to 1 = So more against and less for. No improvement there then.
On Target: 11 to 0 = So conceded slightly less on target but still managed zero themselves.
Okay they ONLY let in 5 this time compared to the 9 against Chelsea but does that performance honestly warrant ANY praise what so ever? Surely the only reason we didn’t rack up was how leg weary we were after our road trip, and it had nothing to do with Leicester City what so ever.
But praiseworthy it was, and they nearly had the Player Of The Match’ to boot.
I know in the great scheme of things it doesn’t matter that much, but as I put my self through it I may as well share the pain !!!
Arsenal Ladies = Great.
Leicester Ladies = Rubbish.
Commentators = Embarrassing.
Watching the Spurs game and as usual seeing incidents treated by the officials in a more sympathetic way than similar incidents done by Arsenal players which resulted in red cards. Compare the Pepe sending off for a headbutt to Bentancurs yellow card for similar if not worse today. Will Tottenham and Newcastle be charged for failing to control their players in the ensuing melee like we were. I doubt it.
Fascinating how stupid and propaganda like the comments on french Tv are for the Spurs-Magpies game.
Visibly the referee is totally out of his depth, letting brutality take hold, at least in the 1st half.
And the idiots tell us, I quote from memory : the way how english referees use pegagogy to explain their decisions is just so good…. I mean WTF ?!?! A tussle like the one we saw would have seen at least a red card to an Arsenal player…. and pedagogy ?
As for the rest, well, so all of you know it : Arsenal has lost the battle for 4th, Tottenham now own it, they needed 2+goals to get it. Guess they do need to learn how to read a table. Ah and yeah, the game between Spurs and Arsenal will be the decision on 4th. After 5 minutes or so one of the idiots finally says Arsenal have 2 games in hand, which by the way is factually false….it is 3 games.
That being said, Arsenal need to win, that is a fact.
Ah they finally said it : it’s been 3 yeas that Sp*rs have not been in the top 4… which is a non trophy anyway, so it does not change anything in Sp*rs reality, does it ?!? ;=))
I sense another celebratory mug coming on !!
The BBC describe the Spuds as “cruising into the top four}. Well guess if cruising means “on goal difference having played two games more” !!
Not the first time either:
https://www.claretandhugh.info/fornals-incident-goes-viral/
Romero clearly spits.
At the time I put up a link to the BBC highlights that clearly showed the spit. Funny enough I cant find the BBC or SKY version of it anywhere now.
Not certain but I don’t think either got fined for that incident either.
More images in this link as well.
Romero absolutely spat at Fornels and absolutely no consequences.
https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/10/25/tottenham-hotspur-romero-west-ham-fornals/
Today in the West Ham/Everton game Cresswell booted Richarlison in the ribs who was laying on the ground having been fouled. Incredibly for this Cresswell received only a yellow card. I wonder what colour card Xhaka would have got had it been him. My guess would be the deepest red they could find.
https://www.empireofthekop.com/2022/04/03/video-has-lived-every-liverpool-fans-dream-watch-west-hams-aaron-cresswell-boot-grounded-richarlison-in-the-ribs/
The spud bias is par for the course. Just as well they haven’t played all 38 games otherwise Uefa would have already assigned their champions League group matches to the swamp mutants up in the Armitage Shanks Kharzi.
I just want to see us win tomorrow , of course we could nobble the ref and hypnotize him into giving us 3 ‘arry type pens just to rile the media.