By Sir Hardly Anyone and a slide rule
- Arsenal Women 2021-22 Season Review: Part 2 WSL Match by Match highs and lows
- The ten things we really learned from the 2021/2 season
When people talk about teams making progress they tend to talk in generalisations without giving any statistics to justify what are often preposterous claims. But Untold likes statistics and facts, so we thought we would measure how the clubs beyond the top two (who are for the moment totally out of reach) are doing, in order to see what happened in this season just finished compared with the season before.
And this turns out to be a vital table because while that bunch of wannabes in the current game (Manchester United, West Ham and Leicester) all went down in terms of their positive achievements, Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea all progressed. It turns out the gap between the top five and the rest is getting large.
These tables show how much each club has improved in terms of the normal factors that are measureed. So we went up three places, by getting eight more points.
| Pos | Team | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | Arsenal 2021 | 18 | 7 | 13 | 55 | 39 | 16 | 61 |
| 5 | Arsenal 2022 | 22 | 3 | 13 | 61 | 48 | 13 | 69 |
| +3 | Improvement | +4 | -4 | 0 | +6 | +9 | -3 | +8 |
So we didn’t make the top four but we went up three places, won four more matches, and slipped a little on goal difference.
Thus now we can move on…
| Pos | Team | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Tottenham Hotspur 2021 | 18 | 8 | 12 | 68 | 45 | 23 | 62 |
| 4 | Tottenham Hotspur 2022 | 22 | 5 | 11 | 69 | 40 | 29 | 71 |
| +3 | Improvement | +4 | -3 | -1 | +1 | -5 | +6 | +9 |
Tottenham also gained four more wins and improved their goal difference while ours declined. But above all they took their points tally up by nine – one more than we did.
Now Chelsea…
| Pos | Team | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Chelsea 2021 | 19 | 10 | 9 | 58 | 36 | 22 | 67 |
| 3 | Chelsea 2022 | 21 | 11 | 6 | 76 | 33 | 43 | 74 |
| +1 | Improvement | +2 | +1 | -3 | +18 | -3 | +21 | +7 |
Chelsea also improved, winning two more, and losing three fewer. But their goalscoring massively improved with 18 more goals.
So suddenly it becomes clear, the three teams in the chasing pack all improved which made our improvement seem marginal.
Now this makes a top five (not a top six) very interesting as even more interestingly next year the top five clubs will go into the Champions League. And that is interesting because Arsenal in fifth ended up 11 points above Manchester United in sixth. Man U have a lot to make up!
| Pos | Team | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Manchester United 2021 | 21 | 11 | 6 | 73 | 44 | 29 | 74 |
| 6 | Manchester United 2022 | 16 | 10 | 12 | 57 | 57 | 0 | 58 |
| -4 | Decline | -5 | -1 | +6 | -16 | +13 | -29 | -16 |
Manchester United went down four places and their points total tumbled by 16, just as their goal scoring ability did.
As for West Ham…
| Pos | Team | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | West Ham United 2021 | 19 | 8 | 11 | 62 | 47 | 15 | 65 |
| 7 | West Ham United 2022 | 16 | 8 | 14 | 60 | 51 | 9 | 56 |
| -1 | Decline | -3 | 0 | +3 | -2 | +4 | -6 | -9 |
West Ham so beloved of the media also declined, getting nine points fewer, while at the start of the season they were really talked up. Oh dear!
And also beloved Leicester whose curious tatics over tackles and penalties we can’t mention.
| Pos | Team | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Leicester City 2021 | 20 | 6 | 12 | 68 | 50 | 18 | 66 |
| 8 | Leicester City 2022 | 14 | 10 | 14 | 62 | 59 | 3 | 52 |
| -3 | Decline | -6 | +4 | +2 | -6 | +9 | -15 | -14 |
Thus the love-in with Leicester took a bit of a knock as they went down three places with a 14 point drop.
Of course, we don’t know how much further Leicester City, West Ham United and Manchester United might go in buying their way up the league. After all Arsenal went through a period of decline which took them down to 15th, with a recovery to 8th by the end of the season and an expenditure of £150m.
But here is the big difference. In 2020/21 when Arsenal came 8th, we were
- 1 point off seventh
- 4 points off sixth
- 5 points off fifth
- 6 points off fourth.
But now the gap is much, much bigger. Leicester city in eighth are
- 4 points off seventh
- 6 points off sixth
- 17 points off fifth
- 19 points off fourth
The gap between the top five of Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal and the rest is much much bigger than it was between the top five and the rest in earlier years. Even West Ham in seventh are going to have a problem clambering up based on this season’s final positions. They finished seventh in the league on 56 points leaving them
- 2 points off sixth
- 13 points off fifth
- 15 points off fourth
I think that if I were to be a gambling man which I ain’t I would put a few pounds on the top five of this season to be the top five of next season. The order of the five might change but the clubs will be just shuffling around.
Unless Chelsea fall off the edge of the cliff.
even the most dimwit person knew the club has make progress when you compare this season and last season points tally and league position. you can ignored anyone who said otherwise cause they’re arguing in bad faith and their reasoning does not make any sense. now, even the team has make significant progress, they cannot rest on their laurels and endanger becoming stagnant. squad strengthening is a must and competition within the team is top priority as they must push each other into greater height. and i certainly won’t underestimate and dismiss the wannabes too easily as overconfident have massive consequences plus there’s no guarantee in football. the stats also shown they definitely capable and already finish above us before. and you can bet your bottom dollar they will be busy strengthening and add more fire power to their squads as they plot to overthrown each other
Easy to make West Ham’s season look bad if you ignore all the extra matches they played in Europe. Without that I suspect they would have had a good chance of fourth. Certainly they look as good a squad as Arsenal at the moment. I also suspect you are not going to be able to ignore Newcastle next season, assuming they start spending that oil money over the summer.
So if I messed up in the first 2 seasons and achieve expected result in the 3rd
I have improved
It must be pretty easy working in the the uk.
Thank you Ongs. That really is one of the most meaningless comments I think we have ever had. And given that we have had well over quarter of a million comments on this site, that is saying something. You’ve really given us quite a chuckle.
Of course. Chuckle as much as possible.
Because I am sure you and only a few others will do that as no one really take your blog seriously anymore
WE TAKE THIS BLOG SERIOUSLY . And the upper case retort is proof of my indignation ! So there !