The Perfect Pitch

Well Arsenal looks to stay top of the league for another week and a bit due to international (zzzzzzzz) football. A lot of Arsenal fans will feel that we’ve had a somewhat lucky start to the season, with some easy games and most of them at home. Man Utd and Liverpool fans will point out this fact too to say that we haven’t been really tested so far. I would have to say that I agree partially, but to say that we haven’t been tested is a stretch. We’ve already played the 3rd, 5th and 6th placed teams, 2 at home, 1 away. But our fixture appears to be easier than the other two team’s, I will admit. An easy start is the best, it allows you to build confidence while still warming up to the new season, and by the time the hard games come, you will be ready for them - I believe that it’s these little differences in luck that help teams win trophies, but only if the team manages to take advantage of the luck and win the hard games too.

As a stats freak, I thought I would get an Excel sheet up and to scientifically determine just how easy or how hard our fixtures are compared to the other two teams. Boring? Blame it on the international break then.

First of all, I take into account the opposition’s current league position, and find the average position of the teams each side has played. For the record (and lower is better), Arsenal’s average opposition league position is 12, Man Utd 10.78 and Liverpool 11.63. Not a huge difference to be honest, but it does support the claim that we’ve had the easiest of fixtures.

Next, I take into account the home and away status of these games, halving the opposition’s league position if our 3 teams are playing them away from home, while keeping it the same for home games. (Let’s call this “LPHA” for future reference) This produced (again, lower is better) an average of 9.88 for Arsenal, 8.44 for Man Utd and 9.38 for Liverpool. Again, we’ve had the easier fixture when home/away status is accounted for, although it’s close between us and Liverpool.

But simply playing hard teams does not a great team make - the actual result of the games is probably the most important aspect. It’s no good to play easy games and lose or draw them all (us last season), and it’s easily no good to play the hard games but not pick up 3 points. So finally, taking into account 3 points for each win, 1 points for a draw, and 0 for a loss, and then adding to these bonus points based on the opposition’s league position and home/away status (the formula is “21 - LPHA“, so playing Derby at Home will give you 21 - 20/1 = 1 bonus point, where playing Man City away will give you 21 - 3/2 = 19.5 bonus points). This produced an average of 13.88 points per game for Arsenal, 14.17 points per game for Man Utd and 13.63 points per game for Liverpool. If goal difference is then taken into account as a measure of performance (basically add “GD / num. of games” as a bonus point to the average points just calculated), then Arsenal has 15.5 points per game, Man Utd 16.68 and Liverpool all the way back at 14.88.

The table below summarises these stats:

So to summarise. Man Utd have had the harder games and have gotten the results despite their poor start. Arsenal are not too far behind in second with the easiest set of games, but more points per game than Liverpool even if you take into account the difficulty of the games. And when goal difference is accounted for, the difference between Man Utd and Arsenal is almost negligible, but Liverpool fall further behind.

But what does this all mean? Nothing really. Well, it does highlight that the difference in fixture difficulty isn’t as great as some would claim, it’s not as if Arsenal have been playing bottom of the table teams at home, while both Man Utd and Liverpool have been battling teams at the top away. Arsenal are 2 points ahead with a game in hand, and that’s probably the most important statistic right now. With Arsenal’s first “hard” fixtures coming soon (Liverpool away, Man Utd at home), the situation could be completely different by the end of these games. And of course, the most important statistic is the one that is marked “points” at the end of the season. Time will tell …