The Perfect Pitch

So the season is (all but) at an end. Sunderland away the only game left, with nothing to play for other than 3 more points (possibly bringing our total to 83 - 80, 81 or 83, all quite respectable, certainly more respectable than Sp*rs’s theoretical maximum of 49 points). Time to think about (the English) summer and months after months of rumours, frustration, people throwing tantrums at missing out on player X and us showing an interest in player Y. Fun times indeed.

So this blog will look at the possible action that might occur during the summer. Pure speculation mind you, but there’s fuck all to do at the moment, so bear with me. It will be interesting to see how wrong I was when next season begins, that’s for sure. So let’s get things started with …

Players that are/might be leaving
Flamini
Hleb
Lehmann
Gilberto

Well Flamini has left already. For more money. And I will resist the use of term “Flamoney” since I think he deserves a bit more respect than that (although not much more, considering the way he engineered this move and how his move to Arsenal was engineered). He can be replaced though, because other than tramendous amounts of energy, he offers nothing that you would be able to call “special”. Not the best tackler in the world, nor a scorer of great (or great number of) goals. And I think we are still missing something when he’s in midfield (more on that later).

Hleb is almost certainly gone. Can’t say I’m too impressed with his ice cream laden antics, delicious as it might have been. And I can’t say he will be missed … his 11 goals in 3 seasons and barely acceptable number of assists says it all. Replace him with any decent winger and we’ll have improved the squad. In fact, replace him with Walcott and we’ve already improved.

As for the two oldies. Lehmann is leaving Arsenal, if not football entirely. People will say we need someone better than Almunia in goal, but I think he is more than good enough … watch the home game against Chelsea or the one against Tottenham and tell me he’s a “crap” ‘keeper while keeping a straight face (there was certainly a crap ‘keeper in the Chelsea game, but it wasn’t Almunia). Fabianski will make a good understudy at the moment too. Gilberto is an interesting one. With so many experienced players leaving, I think keeping Gilberto will be a good thing. This is a different opinion than I had just a few months ago, but back then, I thought Flamini was staying. If Gilberto is willing to accept a lesser role in the team, as a backup player and mentor to the kids, then he should stay.

So it’s not all doom and gloom. The core of our team will be staying. And by core, I include the four players that have been selected in the PFA’s “team of the season”, namely Clichy, Sagna, Cesc and Adebayor. Others include Kolo, Van Persie, Walcott and Rosicky (don’t think anybody would want him even if we wanted to sell).

Players that could go on loan
Traore
One of Denilson/Diaby/Song

I think it’s that time in his career that Traore needs regular play time. I also think that while our central midfield is still considered weak, especially defensively, we still have too many players there and they won’t all get the pitch time that they sorely seek (and need). Song is probably the most likely to go on loan (again), but all three players offer something different so they may all stay and fight it out.

Players that we should buy
Defensive Midfielder
Left Midfielder
Right Midfielder

Now comes the fun part. First of all, we will need to replace Flamini and Hleb. The latter, as mentioned earlier, is easy. The former a bit harder. Assuming Gilberto stays, then we will still need to re-inforce the squad. Make no mistakes about it … we had a good season with a good team, but we need to improve if we want to win something. Here’s what I think:

Defence: I’m not too keen on the Gallas/Kolo partnership, but at least our left and right flanks are well covered. The key to solving our defensive frailties may lie elsewhere though, since I don’t think the boss is willing to let either Gallas or Kolo go, nor give up on Senderos so quickly. And we still have Djourou, whose progress has stalled for the moment. So for this area, I’m going to say no change, which may be a bit controversial.

Central Midfield: To replace Flamini, we need someone that will free Cesc from defensive duties (not that he won’t help out), so Cesc can concentrate on providing great balls to our forward players. The problem with Flamini and our back line is the inability sometimes to deal with long balls and set pieces, which Wenger has identified as a major problem. Flamini is not the tallest, and when Gilberto played there, at least he could drop back and become the third CB, something Flamini wasn’t able to do effectively. The problem with Gilberto is that he isn’t capable of going forward, which puts too much pressure on Cesc. I don’t know who can fill in this role, but I’m sure Arsene already has someone in mind. Could it be Aston Villa’s Gareth Barry? Or maybe Michael Johnson from Man City? I have no idea. But we basically need is someone who can protect our back line, help out there on occasions and can provide a little bit going forward as well. A proper defensive midfielder. Fran Merida could be back from loan, and he might have a more prominent role in the first team next season.

Wingers: We certainly need someone to replace Hleb, ineffective as he might have been. I think Theo has been doing an excellent job there recently, but I don’t think it’s wise to expect Theo to play 40+ games there next season. A right sided winger who can compete with Walcott would be ideal. But I think our main problem is on the left, the position that Rosicky should have made his own but for his fragile body. A left sided winger is a must. Could Ben Arfa be the guy? Perhaps.

Strikers: I think we have plenty of bodies here, but do we have the quality? It’s hard to say. If Adebayor can keep on scoring. If Van Persie can stay fit. And if Bendtner and Walcott can continue to improve, then perhaps we don’t need anybody here. Remember that the highly rated Carlos Velas is also arriving back from loan, and I suspect he will be in a similar situation to Fran Merida and will be a dead cert for the Carling Cup squad, and perhaps with a few more first team appearances for good measure. So no changes here, but it’s taking a bit of a risk unless we get some goal-scoring midfielders to compensate.

So that’s what I think should happen. Not that many signings actually, just three. I’ve always maintained that our squad is big enough, but the numbers are concentrated in the wrong areas, and some areas lack quality. But it’s not something that will require half a team to be bought or replaced, and I think with a few key purchases, we will be up there fighting for the title next season again. By this time Monday, we will at most be 7 points away from the Champions. 7 points (or as little as 1 point, if both Man Utd and Chelsea lose and we win) compared to the 21 point difference in 06/07 and 24 points in 05/06 should be considered progress. Let’s build on this progress and win something next season!

Sorry for the long delay between posts. I had somehow gotten the idea that my posts might be jinxing Arsenal, and as any true Arsenal fan would do in the same situation, I stopped posting. But it turns out our season peaked and the crashed many months after I stopped posting, so it looks like it has nothing to do with me at all. I’m as surprised as you are!

What can I say about this season. The less said the better. I know in my last post I said that we shouldn’t get carried away and that the season will have many twists and turns before it ends. Not the type to blow my own trumpet, but it looks like I was right. Who would have thought that with just over two months left to go after beating AC Milan at the San Sior, and 5 points on top of the league, that we would not only blow the lead, but also lose 9 additional points and end up in third spot and out of the Champions League … all within a month! That’s football for you, I guess. Or more precisely, that’s Arsenal football for you!

Anyway, the season is still not over and we could, however unlikely, still get second spot. It’s not impossible for Chelsea to draw or lose against Man Utd and then draw one of their remaining two games (the away game against Newcastle might be the one, since Newcastle are starting to play well again). I think the hardest part is actually us winning all our remaining three games, but if we can do it, then we have a chance at second. And second place is great considering where we are right now, and it does come with some tangible goodies such as automatic qualification and increased Champions League revenue for next season. Plus we would also finish above those blue nosed cunts, and that can only be a good thing.

As for what happens in the summer. Well, at the moment, it looks like it’s going to be a horrible one. Apart from not spending money again thanks for Arsene’s faith in the kids, it looks like we might lose a bunch of “experienced” players too. Lehmann and Gilberto are as good as gone I think, although if Gilberto wants to stay and play a more secondary role, then that’s good enough for me. Hleb looks to be on the way out too, and to be honest, I’m not too sad about it. It’s a shame to lose any player, but Hleb is not first team material and he’s been given several seasons to show us something, and he hasn’t really set the world on fire.

The most worrying is Flamini. I really hope he stays because Arsenal need more committed players like him, not less. If he does leave, then it’s probably not due entirely to money (I think we’ve offered £ 50,000, but Juventus has offered &poundl 10,000 more - not a huge difference in the grand scheme of things), and it will have something to do with taking advantage of current interests and moving to a club he’s supported as a kid (he’s half Italian, in case people didn’t know). I hope he stays and realises that it’s not always easy to go to a new club and to win over all the fans, particularly after coming from one big club to another - the expectations particularly from Italian fans, will be enormous. I get the feeling that he’s still a season away from proving that he’s an essential part of this team. Yes, he’s had a great season. And yes, he was great at left back a few seasons ago. But that’s still just one good season in his preferred position, and I would like to see another just to make sure he can put in the same kinds of performances consistently.

With half the team gone, the boss will have to do some shopping. Otherwise, we wil waste all the improvements we’ve made this season. If Hleb and Flamini stays, then I think we need three signings. A centre-back (Gallas/Kolo doesn’t work, and Senderos is not the answer), a winger (we don’t have any) and a striker (Eduardo, as much I wish he can come back, is not someone that we should rely on next season). I won’t do a FM style “who should we get” list, as I’m sure you’ve all heard the names being brandied about by various blogs, but if we want to challenge for the title next season all the way, and not just until March, then we need to learn from this season’s mistakes and re-enforce our squad.

The end is near!

The end of the year, that is, but not before a marathon December that will separate the challengers from the pretenders. But Arsenal come into this hectic period in a good position, although we could do with a few less injuries. We are currently top of the league by 4 clear points, having played all the “Big Four” sides except for Chelsea next week (pray for Cesc and Hleb to recover by then), and we’re through two of the three-in-a-row away games with 4 points out of 6, not too bad at all. And hopefully, we can grab that top spot in our Champions League group as well, and if not, never mind.

I don’t think any Arsenal fan, even one as optimistic as I am (I always think we will win everything at the start of every season), would have imagined our current position in the league, not in a season where Henry and Ljungberg have left, where boardroom shenanigans dominate the news and when at the start, even Wenger’s future at the club was uncertain. From that doomed position at the start of the season, everything seems to have turned around into this ultra-positive things, where everything has gone our way, driven by the player’s desires and the team’s unity. Even when the odds are against us, like having Hleb, Cesc, Van Persie, our three best players, out injured, we have battled on and got results. Hopefully, our injury situation will clear up as you can’t miss this amount of quality and not get caught forever, no matter how numerous in numbers our squad is (imagine Man Utd without Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez, or Chelsea without Drogba, Essien and Lampard). It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality.

We will certainly know more about our title chances by this time next months (although I think it’s still too early to call it either way, unless one side has a 10+ point advantage). If we can get all our players back, I think we can get through this period with positive results.

But let’s not get carried away whatever the outcome, because even after this period, there’s still plenty of games left in the season to turn things around if things didn’t go our way (or for a good thing to turn bad). The team that will win the title is the team that has the most points come May, that’s the only conclusion we can draw right now or in a month’s time.

An update to my last blog, it appears that Alan Gardner at The Guardian has written something similar about the ex-Arsenal brigade which is well worth reading. Last weekend’s results really highlighted what our ex-Arsenal players are capable of in the top division, with goals from Bentley and Stokes proving decisive for their new teams, not to mention a certain Larsson with a certain 92nd minute goal against a certain rival of ours. You’ve got to laugh sometimes …

All of this anti-foreigner (and hence, anti-Arsenal) rubbish spewing from the mouths of people like Ferguson, Mourinho and Gerrard is slightly more than a bit annoying. The former two are really in it just as an attempt to rile up Sir Wenger, but Gerrard, who plays for a club full of foreign players, was just talking rubbish (I imagine they must be thrilled that their captain thinks everything that is wrong with England is their fault).

England have a team full of big profile players that few other national teams can match, yet they do not perform as well as say, Greece or Croatia. Is it because the England players do not have the right attitude? Perhaps it’s because McClaren is a shit manager who doesn’t really know what is the best formation and lineup to use? Or maybe it’s because while all other national teams are eager and willing to promote youth players to the senior team, England overly relies on “star” players like Lampard and Gerrard even though everybody knows they don’t work well together? The England U-21 recently got to the semi-finals of the U-21 Euro competition, finally losing on penalties 13-12 to the eventual winners Holland, and they have some good players (or at least players willing to put in a bit of effort, unlike those of the senior team and the one U-21 player that refused to go citing tiredness). Why not give them a try? But no, it’s all those nasty foreigner’s fault, because when the English league had no foreigners, England won everything, right?

The young players, while spirited, might also not be as technically proficient as their European counterparts. In a recent interview with the U-17 boys, when asked “How do England play compared to Arsenal?”, Rhys Murphy answered:

Arsenal have their own style, which we are used to, it’s the way we are taught here and I think it’s different to every other club. In a way that works against us when we join up with England, because we are used to playing the Arsenal way.

But getting away from the “Why is England rubbish” debate, somehow that all of this is Arsenal’s fault is not only wrong, but exactly the opposite of reality. In reality, Arsenal provides the top division and the England national teams with more than its fair share of players. Of course, not all of them are still playing for Arsenal, but they are still playing at the highest level of football and are ready for England if needed. Did you know that for the recent U-17 World Cup, no club provided more players for the England squad than Arsenal? And did you know that the U-21 squad, there are no Chelsea players, only one Manchester United player, and only one Liverpool player who they don’t even want anymore (Scott Carson). There are, however, two current Arsenal players in the squad (although Hoyte might be too old now, so there is only Walcott plus maybe Mark Randall when he steps up to the U-21s after just turning 18).

And it’s not just English players, there are players of all countries who have either gone through the Arsenal youth system (not necessarily academy), or have been part of the first team. Below is a list of some current ex-Arsenal players in the Premiership that have all been part of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal in some way (asterisk indicates a graduate from the Arsenal academy system):

Played in Arsenal Youth Teams:
Ashley Cole (England, Chelsea)*
Jermaine Pennant (England, Liverpool)
Steven Sidwell (England, Chelsea)*
Fabrice Muamba (England, Birmingham)*
Sebastian Larsson (Sweden, Birmingham)
James Harper (England, Reading)*
David Bentley (England, Blackburn)*
Anthony Stokes (Ireland, Sunderland)*
Stuart Taylor (England, Aston Villa)*
Matthew Upson (England, West Ham)

Played in Arsenal First Team Only:
Kanu (Nigeria, Portsmouth)
Freddie Ljungberg (Sweden, West Ham)
Sol Campbell (England, Portsmouth)
Lauren (Cameroon, Portsmouth)
Richard Wright (England, West Ham)
Luis Boa Morte (Portugal, West Ham)
Moritz Volz (Germany, Fulham)

And the list above isn’t even a complete one, since there are many more players and many more who are in the Championship or outside of England.

So far so good in all competitions. Still unbeaten (setting a new club record on the way), qualified for the knock-out stage of the Champions League with two games to spare, and top of the league (albeit only on “goals scored”).

If there is a cloud on the horizon for Arsenal (other than a horrible set of December fixtures, 6 away games, 2 more at home and one of them is against Chelski) it’s the selection problem Wenger is having for every game. Not all players are happy at being left on the bench (or not included at all), but why should they be? We certainly don’t want good players that are just happy to sit on the bench and pick up pay cheques (did someone mention Cudicini?).

It’s certainly a nice problem to have compared to our usual “oh dear, all our of 9 left backs are injured” one, and I don’t think the increased competition is that harmful to team spirit, apart the rubbish coming out from Mad Jen’s lips (although to be fair, he was always a bit of a loner even when he was playing). Here are some of the selection problems Wenger faces every match:

Goalkeeper: Mad Jens vs Aluminium vs Wookash
Jens won’t be around come February I think. Almunia, while I think he is a good keeper, is not world class (maybe world class at shot stopping, but his decision making is a bit dodgy at times). Fabianski is an interesting one … he’s at a good age, with a good reputation, and you would think he is being groomed as our long term number 1. But I think Almunia will finish off playing this season (bar any serious injuries or stupidness), with the Wookie taking over next season after gaining good experience in this one. If Lehmann leaves in January, we will probably bring someone experienced in (another Poomster?).

Central Defence:
We don’t have much depths here - just three players for 2 positions. Kolo will be gone in January for the ACN, but Djourou will be back - so that’s 3 players again. Song or Gilberto at CB makes me extremely uncomfortable. So Wenger’s job here is easy - just pick the best 2 out of 3.

Full-backs:
Clichy and Sagna have made their positions their own. Traore and Hoyte will have to wait patiently. Eboue is now playing as a winger, but not a really good one to be honest. Diarra can play at RB, but all the positions he plays seems to be occupied by lots of people - perhaps Diarra for Eboue on the wings?

Central Midfield:
This is where Wenger has his work cut out. Cesc, Flamini, Gilberto, Diaby, Denilson, Diarra, Song … only two of these players can be happy, three at best if we play 4-5-1. Diaby and Denilson may put up with waiting and playing in the cups, but Gilberto and Diarra will want to play every game. Song, well, I think he should find another club that has a place for him instead of being our 7th choice CM and 5th choice CB. Cesc and Flamini seems to working, and one thing you should never do is to break up something that is working. Diarra I would like to see more of, and I think he can control the midfield quite well.

Wingers:
We don’t have any and apprently, we don’t need any either. (alright, that’s not true. We don’t have “true” wingers and Hleb, Rosicky, Eboue and Walcott are doing alright, but a new signing in this position will improve us tremendously)

Forwards:
Adebayor seems to be first choice now. And when Van Persie is fit, he will play. So Eduardo, Bendtner and Walcott will have to wait for their chances and take them. To be fair, they’ve all taken some of the chances given to them and they’ve all done enought warrant a place on the bench at least. Eduardo, I think, can be our secret weapon for the latter part of the season once he acclimatises to the Premiership and starts scoring goals.

A few weeks ago I posted some crap about paintings and such, and I alluded to the fact that Sepp Blatter is a cunt.

The master painter has enemies too, at home and abroad. One of which wants to impose some kind of nationalistic view on how a painting should be composed, to perhaps use colours that best represent the country, rather than the best colours for the painting. Perhaps French paintings should only contain red, white and blue in equal portions, maybe only orange paintings for Dutch masters, and green ones for the Irish. The Mona Lisa shall have red hair, a white complexion while wearing a green dress. Will this advance art as we know it, or will it simply bring down the level so that even average paintings can masquerade as masterpieces.

Blatter is in a long list of people who have something to gain from reducing the quality of club football. Everybody knows International football is played at a much lower level, for many obvious reasons, and is no longer that entertaining. Club football is where it’s at, to use the current vernacular. You can add Michel Platini, friend of Blatter, to the list too. He has had a go at Wenger for buying too many teenagers. The French asshole said:

I do not like the system of Arsène Wenger. In France, Italy and Spain it is easy to buy with money the best players at 14, 15 or 16. I don’t like that. If the best clubs buy the best 15 or 16 players, [then it] is finished for all the clubs in Europe. If my son is playing at Millwall and at 16 Manchester United come in for this player, then when will Millwall have a good team?

So if your son is indeed a talent, he should rot away at Millwall and not enjoy Manchester United’s state of the art training facilities and modern training techniques, not to mention miss out on the experience of playing with seasoned professionals and improving his overall game? It’s true that Millwall might make more money if Platini Jr. is sold on at a later age, but that’s assuming Platini Jr.’s career hasn’t been damaged by not training with a big club earlier. Would Fabregas be where he is if he stayed playing in the Barcelona reserves? Would Messi be the current world’s best player if he had stayed in Argentina?

And why question only Arsène Wenger? Surely, the biggest exploiter of signing even pre-teen players is Barcelona and its academy. They sign kids as young as 10 from all over the world, and these kids basically live with Barcelona. Talent such as Giovani dos Santos, for example, came to Spain from Mexico when he was only 12. In fact, Lionel Messi signed for Barcelona as an 11 year old, because his old club in Argentina could not afford to pay for his medical expenses (he has a growth problem that require hormone therapy). So according to Platini, Messi should have stayed in Argentina to live the life of a little person? Barcelona’s practices are somewhat controversial, but it’s not as if they steal kids from their parents - and those kids that don’t make it are still given a good education, football and non-football too - something that may not have been possible if they had stayed in their home countries.

In the end, it’s about improving football and improving the quality of players. And that’s what clubs like Arsenal can do for youngsters. And inevitably when some of the kids don’t make it, they still have had a great education that they wouldn’t have received at clubs like Millwall (no disrespect to them, of course), and while they are not good enough for Arsenal, they are still good enough for many other clubs, including Millwall. And that’s when Millwall will have a good team, Monsieur Platini, that’s when.

So another week, another two victories. What can you say about our 7-0 win over Slavia? Seventh Heaven? The Magnificent Seven? Arsenal in Theoven Nil Rout? Heh, and all this from same media that said we won’t finish above 5th just two months ago.

I think sports journalists just really don’t know what to make of this Arsenal team. At the beginning of the season, it was easy to brand us as the one “Big 4″ side that will drop out of the top 4, and make way for their other creation, Top Four Tottenham (haha, I bet Sp*rs fans would even settle for being Bottom Four Tottenham right about now). It’s a story that they could run with to sell papers, so that’s what they did.

Now, Arsenal are winning game after game, and journos have split into two camps about us. Those that say that we are the new Invincibles despite us not having gone anywhere near winning anything yet, let alone do it unbeaten. And then there are those that seeks to belittle our little run by saying we’ve only played easy teams (and then go on to say “but they can only play the teams put in front of them” so to cover their arses in case we do beat the “hard” teams). Both camps are right and wrong though.

As I posted two weeks ago, yes, we’ve had the easier fixtures compared to the other sides. Most of our games are at home, and we’ve played bottom of the table teams more often than not. But at the same time, we’ve also played back to back UEFA Cup champions Sevilla, albeit at home. And we’ve also played 3rd placed Man City, 5th placed Portsmouth and 6th placed Blackburn, but again only Blackburn away from home and we didn’t win that one (thanks a lot, Jens). Tottenham, West Ham and Steaua Bucharest away, while looking like easy games against poorly performing teams, have traditionally been hard games for us. Even Bolton is usually not a straight forward victory for us, although we never seem to lose to them at home. It’s like us versus Reading last season - we beat them twice, but the other “big” teams failed to do so. So does that make them an easy team or a hard team? They were certainly easy enough for us. This is why you can’t just say, this team is top or bottom of the table and therefore it should be a hard or easy game. The easy games are the ones you win easily, the hard games are the one that you don’t - no matter which team you are up against. All you can say is that we’ve had a more generous fixture, but the teams we have beaten so far are the same types of teams we dropped the most points to last season.

As for football from another planet, it only matters if we end up winning something at the end of it, because beautiful football and no trophies is still a failed (and ultimately, frustrating) season. To be honest, apart from the 7-0 and a few selected games, we haven’t played as good as I know we are capable of. Even last season, some of the football we played were the best I’ve seen, but the result didn’t always reflect the performance. In fact, I think we played just as well against CSKA Moscow last season at home as our 7-0 from Tuesday, and we didn’t even score a single goal in that game. We’ve always been creative, but end product has been inconsistent. This season, we’ve been very clinical without being overly creative at times which just goes to prove that the result, not the performance, is everything. So no, this is not the best Arsenal side ever, but it’s definitely more efficient than last season’s team.

Anyway as the media would say, our next two games will determine our season. Our first real tests. Games that will decide our chances for the title. Pundits have already said they will only back us to win the title if we can beat both Liverpool and Man Utd. Really? You mean if we beat all the easy teams like you say we have so far, and then beat the two hardest teams and our main title rivals, then we might have a good chance to win the league? Wow fellas, don’t stick your neck out too far. I’m going to expand on that and say that if we win all our home games and then win all of our aways games, we just *might* win the league!

Another round of boring international football is over. England are looking more and more unlikely to qualify for Euro 2008. Henry broke Platini’s goals for France record. And of course, tons of injuries for a host of players, and not just Arsenal ones.

For Arsenal, Senderos has a back problem that may rule him out for 2 weeks. Gallas was said to have suffered a set back in training for France, but did play 90 minutes for the French in midweek. Rosicky was left out of both matches for the Czech Republic and looks unlikely to start for us this weekend. And the most disconcerting news of all was what looked like a very nasty knee injury for Van Persie which may rule him out for 4 weeks to several months. Fuck!

International football sucks because it consists of teams limited by nationality and played by a bunch of people who haven’t really played together for much time. For other sports, this may be fine, but for a competitive team sport, it just takes the competitive and the team element out of it. This is why it is boring and this is also why the level of football on show is so low that you wonder if a second division club team might just be able to beat the national team. About the only thing that gives International games some excitement is the patriotic fervour that it may stir and give matches a bit of an edge, but that’s just a breeding ground for nationalism and racism (see Easter European football “fans”). And don’t even get me started on International friendlies (also known as money generating events for FIFA - and don’t get get me started on FIFA, also known as …).

Anyway, thank goodness club football is back (albeit minus the players injured during International week, such as Terry, A. Cole, Robben, Van der Vaart, Anelka, Mellberg, Nuno Gomes, Nicolas Burdisso, Van Persie, Rosicky, Senderos …).

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 …