Liverpool just get all the breaks don’t they. Having cruised to an easy Leicester win, they play West Ham tomorrow on two days rest riding the confidence wave.
Meanwhile Arsenal are made to wait two extra days to face Brentford with the corrupt league hoping we lose our momentum.
Two days rest? Thursday to Sunday is the most common program for teams participating in Europe identical to a Wednesday into Saturday. And they get to play 2 of the worst teams in the league.
You conveniently not mention that we'll play against Brentford on Jan 1, three days after Liverpool's game against West Ham, yet we'll still play before them our next game on Jan 4, a fucking tough visit against Brighton.
Meanwhile, Liverpool will get a full week rest between West Ham (Dec 29) and Man United (Jan 5).
Brentford - Arsenal is also shit luck for the players because it's the only game on Jan 1, meaning the players of the two teams are the only ones that will not be allowed to have a proper party with their families for New Years. All the other teams will get to have a proper New Years with their families.
Liverpool players will even have a full week for a mini vacation to go and celebrate New Years wherever they want to.
Tom, please don't shoot yourself in the foot. If your plan was to give me a subtle hint about how fucked Arsenal are again and how Liverpool are the golden boys of the FA, good job.
Game was too late for me. I gather we should’ve scored more and ofc 1-0 at home to Ipswich is not what you’d go into the game expecting or hoping for but I also think considering this week EVERYONE apart from pool dropped points, it’s more important that we ground out a win and jumped to second.
I expect us to play well and win a large majority of the games and complain when we don’t, but there are certain games where you do just have to take it for what it’s worth and walk away happy
we were pretty open against palace, could have gone down 2:1 due to saliba‘s brain fart, conceded I don‘t have the stats but something like 10 shots. we scored 5, great, but we don‘t constantly win games like this
today we were rock solid, scored one and should have at least one more from gabi‘s header and everyone screams how bad we are
we are in full control of our games. this control obviously leads to less goals and real attempts but we don‘t concede which means we can easily grind out 1:0 wins
I may be the only one here but I like this way more than having some kind of shoot out winning two games by 3, 4 goals margin but drawing and losing others due to being too open at the back. big picture will this help us way more than our palace game
Kofi I see your point but reality is we drew against Fulham and Everton playing that solid style so it’s not necessarily true that we can easily grind 1-0 wins. And when we loosened up a bit the GD has jumped markedly
still looking at the numbers in those games. we had similar xG to our win against forrest where we scored 3 and didn‘t manage to score one against everton
against fulham we had about the same xG as chelsea had against tottenham scoring 4!
in all honesty and objectivity - we did enough in both games to win it which sums up our season a bit. data shows us being 2 points off pool instead of the current 6 so we should be closer but we tend to underperform our xG as well as our xGAs hence we are the only top5 team having less points than expected.
I’m not a big believer in xG stats so I don’t read much into those, good or bad - unless they’re really extreme.
Like if xG is 4+ fair to say it’s indicative that you probably should’ve scored plenty. If xG is tiny (sub 1) you probably created few chances. But I wouldn’t trust the computer to accurately tell me what the differences is between a 1.5 and 2.2xG. It’s a pretty basic indicator
true and it doesn‘t account for some important factors as well
however it does give you a general idea whether you are better or worse off than you should be - as normal with probabilities the higher the ‚n‘ the more accurate the value. chelsea and forrest are outperforming their xG big times - I am comfortable saying they will at some point fall back where they belong. pool outperforms their xPoints by 3 points, so less than 10% that isn‘t too significant. what‘s interesting with pool is luck outside the on pitch topics - they won leicester easily and don‘t get me wrong but they were missing their main striker, no1 midfielder and goalkeeper. west ham today misses soucek through suspension, antonio, kilman and fabianski through injury. those are their number ones in their positions as well. they didn‘t play everton in their arguably best weeks. they have this outside luck
Anyway, only way we can challenge LFC is if they drop off; I don't think our brand is enough to carry us through considering the amount of games across all competitions.
Those are lovely stats but wenger used to top the calendar year table semi frequently during patches of winning nothing and you were on here saying that’s not enough.
These stats will be meaningful only if we use them as a spring board to close out this season with big silverware
Again this means fuck all in the long run if it doesn't bring silverware, it doesn't always have to be about being negative, it's about the need to kick on from this "statistical victories", this squad NEEDS to win something
We all want to be positive. But we haven't won the league. And we are playing very safe football that might cost us.
Did you love tonight’s performance?
We had 13 shots and 5 on target at home to Ipswich. We need to do better if we want to catch Liverpool. They will see tonight and feel we won't catch them anyway.
Gabriel missed on open goal. Odegaard shot punched over the bar. Rice volley in the 2nd half. Havertz missed the ball from a clear chance (0.45 xG big chance). Merino dribble + shot.
How many times do we say this? We've seen this movie before bro. We have to stop looking for stats under the rocks. The amount of investment that's been put up warrants a trophy. Right now, I'd take the carabao cup coz these lads need medals around their necks. Saliba, Saka, Ode, Big Gab won't care about most goals in 2024 when they continue going trophiless
Like really badly. He isn't half the player he used to be a year and half, two years ago. He barely beats his man now. On his day, I used to see him cook his fullback to death. It isn't just the finishing, it is the intensity at which he goes at it.
Watch an old Martinelli clip and you will see how much he is off it.
He has no ideas or tricks in his locker and definitely not the player of a couple of seasons ago and I am not including goals in that just his general play. I too remember him absolutely roasting fullbacks week in week out.
I'm not 100% sure but I heard this is our highest scoring year since the 1960s. But we be moaning for playing defensively.
Entitled fans think we should be doing way better. Red cards/disgraceful refereeing + key injuries are the reason we aren't sitting on more points. Plus Liverpool have absolutely everything going their way.
No. Stop with the endless excuses and demands for everything to be perfect for us to win a major trophy. Saka out and red cards. Revert to Process Phase 1. In the meantime ….. Liverpool. For fucks sake. We are where we are based in large part because of the decisions we have made not because of some cabal-against-us.
Rap, there is some truth in your comment, but does our football really pass the eye test for you, as all I see is slow sideways football with no one brave enough to hit those risky forward passes, the ones that make goals
Zero trophies for that beautiful goal scoring feat which is great in isolation but again, end of the day, no one remembers all that of you don't win anything
We won't win the league playing like this. When one of Arteta's key cogs in Saka and Odegaard are out we change the way we play entirely. The attackers aren't playing well especially wingers. But we have to find a way to be a bit expressive.
Trossard created our goal but mostly he is awful in general play. Martinelli has been the same too. We badly need attackers who can beat their men with regularity.
Liverpool just get all the breaks don’t they. Having cruised to an easy Leicester win, they play West Ham tomorrow on two days rest riding the confidence wave.
Meanwhile Arsenal are made to wait two extra days to face Brentford with the corrupt league hoping we lose our momentum.
I’m surprised raptora isn’t all over this.
Two days rest? Thursday to Sunday is the most common program for teams participating in Europe identical to a Wednesday into Saturday. And they get to play 2 of the worst teams in the league.
You conveniently not mention that we'll play against Brentford on Jan 1, three days after Liverpool's game against West Ham, yet we'll still play before them our next game on Jan 4, a fucking tough visit against Brighton.
Meanwhile, Liverpool will get a full week rest between West Ham (Dec 29) and Man United (Jan 5).
Brentford - Arsenal is also shit luck for the players because it's the only game on Jan 1, meaning the players of the two teams are the only ones that will not be allowed to have a proper party with their families for New Years. All the other teams will get to have a proper New Years with their families.
Liverpool players will even have a full week for a mini vacation to go and celebrate New Years wherever they want to.
Tom, please don't shoot yourself in the foot. If your plan was to give me a subtle hint about how fucked Arsenal are again and how Liverpool are the golden boys of the FA, good job.
mini correction - to my knowledge the schedule is done by FA but the game times are mainly decided by TV. we are loved around the world :p
Did I read that correctly, West Ham are one of the worst teams in the league?
Yeah. They've conceded the 5th most goals in the league.
We beat them 2-5 at their stadium.
They are lucky to be 13th. Even Southampton outplayed them last game.
Thanks for correcting me raps.
Obviously you are all over this.
Good man.
Game was too late for me. I gather we should’ve scored more and ofc 1-0 at home to Ipswich is not what you’d go into the game expecting or hoping for but I also think considering this week EVERYONE apart from pool dropped points, it’s more important that we ground out a win and jumped to second.
I expect us to play well and win a large majority of the games and complain when we don’t, but there are certain games where you do just have to take it for what it’s worth and walk away happy
it is pretty interesting to read the comments
we were pretty open against palace, could have gone down 2:1 due to saliba‘s brain fart, conceded I don‘t have the stats but something like 10 shots. we scored 5, great, but we don‘t constantly win games like this
today we were rock solid, scored one and should have at least one more from gabi‘s header and everyone screams how bad we are
we are in full control of our games. this control obviously leads to less goals and real attempts but we don‘t concede which means we can easily grind out 1:0 wins
I may be the only one here but I like this way more than having some kind of shoot out winning two games by 3, 4 goals margin but drawing and losing others due to being too open at the back. big picture will this help us way more than our palace game
Kofi I see your point but reality is we drew against Fulham and Everton playing that solid style so it’s not necessarily true that we can easily grind 1-0 wins. And when we loosened up a bit the GD has jumped markedly
true
still looking at the numbers in those games. we had similar xG to our win against forrest where we scored 3 and didn‘t manage to score one against everton
against fulham we had about the same xG as chelsea had against tottenham scoring 4!
in all honesty and objectivity - we did enough in both games to win it which sums up our season a bit. data shows us being 2 points off pool instead of the current 6 so we should be closer but we tend to underperform our xG as well as our xGAs hence we are the only top5 team having less points than expected.
I’m not a big believer in xG stats so I don’t read much into those, good or bad - unless they’re really extreme.
Like if xG is 4+ fair to say it’s indicative that you probably should’ve scored plenty. If xG is tiny (sub 1) you probably created few chances. But I wouldn’t trust the computer to accurately tell me what the differences is between a 1.5 and 2.2xG. It’s a pretty basic indicator
true and it doesn‘t account for some important factors as well
however it does give you a general idea whether you are better or worse off than you should be - as normal with probabilities the higher the ‚n‘ the more accurate the value. chelsea and forrest are outperforming their xG big times - I am comfortable saying they will at some point fall back where they belong. pool outperforms their xPoints by 3 points, so less than 10% that isn‘t too significant. what‘s interesting with pool is luck outside the on pitch topics - they won leicester easily and don‘t get me wrong but they were missing their main striker, no1 midfielder and goalkeeper. west ham today misses soucek through suspension, antonio, kilman and fabianski through injury. those are their number ones in their positions as well. they didn‘t play everton in their arguably best weeks. they have this outside luck
Saka had surgery. Well write him off for 2 months at the very least according to Arteta. 3 months according to rumors.
Now it is clear we need a Winger badly.
If it’s true that Saka required surgery for his hamstring tear then that’s a grade 3 tear which will take at least three months, at the minimum.
Even when he comes back they have to ease him in very slowly
If there’s any good that may come out of this debacle, it’s that it came in December, not In February, when the window had closed.
Anyway, only way we can challenge LFC is if they drop off; I don't think our brand is enough to carry us through considering the amount of games across all competitions.
No signing will come in Jan too. That's for sure
Arsenal in the Premier League in 2024:
Most wins (26)
Most points (85)
Most goals scored (89)
Least goals conceded (25)
Best goal difference (+64)
Let's go to LeGrove and Twitter to moan about winning by just a goal.
I’m throwing a celebratory Arsenal - champions of the 2024 calendar year party.
Everyone’s invited.
Those are lovely stats but wenger used to top the calendar year table semi frequently during patches of winning nothing and you were on here saying that’s not enough.
These stats will be meaningful only if we use them as a spring board to close out this season with big silverware
Again this means fuck all in the long run if it doesn't bring silverware, it doesn't always have to be about being negative, it's about the need to kick on from this "statistical victories", this squad NEEDS to win something
Rap
We all want to be positive. But we haven't won the league. And we are playing very safe football that might cost us.
Did you love tonight’s performance?
We had 13 shots and 5 on target at home to Ipswich. We need to do better if we want to catch Liverpool. They will see tonight and feel we won't catch them anyway.
Liverpool won against Leicester just yesterday.
Liverpool (1.90) 3 - 1 (0.22) Leicester
And they played great?
But we
Arsenal (2.16) 1 - 0 (0.08) Ipswich
did bad? Something doesn't add up.
And where are Liverpool in the league? And how many points ahead are they? With a new manager. We need to do better.
Watch that Liverpool game. They hit the post a few times. Leicester had to make last ditch tackles multiple times too.
How many shots troubled the Ipswich keeper?
https://arsenalist.com/arsenal-vs-ipswich-town-highlights/
Plenty in here.
Gabriel missed on open goal. Odegaard shot punched over the bar. Rice volley in the 2nd half. Havertz missed the ball from a clear chance (0.45 xG big chance). Merino dribble + shot.
Not too shabby.
Now do one for trophies
Only thing that's been missing. It's not for the lack of trying and giving it our absolute best. Which is all I could ask of the club.
How many times do we say this? We've seen this movie before bro. We have to stop looking for stats under the rocks. The amount of investment that's been put up warrants a trophy. Right now, I'd take the carabao cup coz these lads need medals around their necks. Saliba, Saka, Ode, Big Gab won't care about most goals in 2024 when they continue going trophiless
😂
What did Sterling do to Arteta to be treated like this?
Injured picking up cones or what? This transfer is up there with Kim Kalstrom
He took and scored a penalty in an FA cup…
Fun fact: Kim Kallstrom has more FA Cup winners medals than Harry Kane
Goodness me Martinelli has regressed so much it's painful to watch
Like really badly. He isn't half the player he used to be a year and half, two years ago. He barely beats his man now. On his day, I used to see him cook his fullback to death. It isn't just the finishing, it is the intensity at which he goes at it.
Watch an old Martinelli clip and you will see how much he is off it.
He has no ideas or tricks in his locker and definitely not the player of a couple of seasons ago and I am not including goals in that just his general play. I too remember him absolutely roasting fullbacks week in week out.
Someone new required unfortunately
Need some fresh blood up front in January, someone who can run past a few players
I'm not 100% sure but I heard this is our highest scoring year since the 1960s. But we be moaning for playing defensively.
Entitled fans think we should be doing way better. Red cards/disgraceful refereeing + key injuries are the reason we aren't sitting on more points. Plus Liverpool have absolutely everything going their way.
No. Stop with the endless excuses and demands for everything to be perfect for us to win a major trophy. Saka out and red cards. Revert to Process Phase 1. In the meantime ….. Liverpool. For fucks sake. We are where we are based in large part because of the decisions we have made not because of some cabal-against-us.
Rap, there is some truth in your comment, but does our football really pass the eye test for you, as all I see is slow sideways football with no one brave enough to hit those risky forward passes, the ones that make goals
I was told that's what The Messiah Odegaard brings to our team...
Zero trophies for that beautiful goal scoring feat which is great in isolation but again, end of the day, no one remembers all that of you don't win anything
Indeed. It's not for the lack of trying, though. Which is all I've asked from the club. To try their best. Can't blame them.
You can cherry pick stats to make you sleep well Rap
Is there a new trophy for that meaningless stat?
Shame on you for that stupid “entitled fans’ crappola
In relation to us playing defensively, Spanish Pulis etc.
How are we defensive but we've scored the most goals in almost 60 years?
Or you're the type of fan who bitches no matter what.
Arsenal are the first top-flight side in English football history to score 5+ goals in six different away games in a calendar year.
But we won just by a goal today. Time to moan...
You're being delusional as per usual.
It’s going to be a long season without Saka
If we do this at home to Ipswich then expect lots of scruffy
Such a shit performance. But we take the win. Arteta has to find a better way to attack than this without Saka.
3pts in the bag but that was awful against relegation fodder. It's going to be a long 2nd part for the season
We won't win the league playing like this. When one of Arteta's key cogs in Saka and Odegaard are out we change the way we play entirely. The attackers aren't playing well especially wingers. But we have to find a way to be a bit expressive.
Looks like we are hanging on to a fantastic 1-0 lead
Hope we stay focused and get the job done
Trossard created our goal but mostly he is awful in general play. Martinelli has been the same too. We badly need attackers who can beat their men with regularity.