Top of the league going into the first international break of the season. We all would have taken that at the back end of last season.
But some naysayers – mainly opposing fans, Arsenal-incels and the media – have continually made the point that “Arsenal have not played anyone yet”, rather than give us the credit that we deserve.
Firstly, you can only beat who is in front of you.
As I saw elsewhere, better to lose every game agaunst our “Big 6” opponents and win the other 28 games (84 points) than win every Big 6 games and lose every other (30 points).
But is it really true that Arsenal have not yet played anyone?
To establish who has had the most difficult to easiest start to the season, we have invented the She Wore A Yellow Ribbon Premier League Difficulty Matrix™ (SWAYRPLDM for short),
Our complex algorithm takes into account the current position of the opponent (O), whether the venue (V) (Home = x1, Away = x1.5) and how many games the team has played (G).
SWAYRPLDM = (O x V)/G
The results make interesting reading:
Leicester City have had by far and away the toughest start to the season, followed by Crystal Palace and Fulham.
At the other end of the table are Manchester City, who have had the easiest start to the season according to the SWAYRPLDM. Tottenham and Chelsea have had the 2nd and 3rd easiest starts.
Arsenal sit 14th, Manchester United 9th and Liverpool 7th.
So whilst we have not had it as tough as others, our games 64% harder than Manchester City’s and 53% harder than Tottenham’s.
To take things a step further, we also have xSWAYRPLDM.
xSWAYRPLDM is your SWAYRPLDM mutiplied by your total points (P):
xSWAYRPLDM = SWAYRPLDM x P
A sides xSWAYRPLDM is important as this measures the total points you have gained against the difficuly rating.
Arsenal top the xSWAYRPLDM table as well as the Premier League table. This would indicate that Arsenal are on par against their difficulty rating.
Meanwhile Manchester City are 2nd in the league but 6th in xSWAYRPLDM. That tells us that they are currently performing below their xSWAYRPLDM – as in they should have taken more points from the games they have played in comparison to how difficult those fixtures were.
Tottenham are also underperforming against the difficulty of their fixtures whilst fulham and Manchester United are overperforming.
So the next time someone tells you “Arsenal have not played anyone yet”, take a moment to explain to them that we have a SWAYRPLDM of 12.14 and are currently hitting our xSWAYRPLDM, whilst our rivals are performing below their xSWAYRPLDM.
Have a good Saturday.
Keenos
Note: Yes, this is a load of bollocks that I have just made up due to international break boredom. But the math is real!
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
What an absolute crock of shite that can only have been made up by a bunch of absolute wasters. How is playing villa and Fulham at home a harder start than Chelsea and West Ham away. Keep making shit up you bellends next you’ll be saying Arse**l TV is the best rated show in the world
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Ooh, listen to Mr. Angry! I think it’s brilliant. Good work!
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This is a good exercise work! Well done.
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You have absolutely NO sense of humour. I cannot believe you are an Arsenal fan. Fans love a good story every now and again.
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Nice work and appreciate anything that helps alleviate the borefest that is international breaks. Think your logic is a bit off though. In effect you are measuring the performance of everyone else rather than Arsenal but then attributing the resultant metrics to Arsenal. On reflection not sure my comment makes any sense?
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