Tag Archives: Liverpool

Arsenal’s new suit’s – A reminder of the class of The Arsenal

5 Replies

When reading about the new suits Arsenal wore before the game against Liverpool, it reminded me of something that happened over 20 years ago. The pictures that came out before the game looked great. Personally I had felt for some time that we are The Arsenal. I think they should wear them for every game as not only do they look the nuts but it a great tradition of ours.

Suits

Anyway, I was talking to a pal on Saturday about this and an incident came to mind from years back.

I have a load of pals from the same small town as an ex-Arsenal player, and needless to say quite a few of them knew an ex-Arsenal player who grew up in the area. One summer, many months ago we had a pre-season friendly. Stefan Schwarz was in the team. One of my pal’s and the former player’s dad came to London for the weekend for the games.

Anyway he got us tickets for the Saturday afternoon, we all went along had a few beers and watched the game. At the end of the game the three of us met the player outside the main entrance where he got us all into the player lounge.

At some point I needed the toilet, so I asked him to show me where to go. We were just about to start walking up stairs when he stopped, turned round to me and said “I can’t take you up there, you’re wearing jeans, no one is allowed upstairs with jeans on”

Although none of the hierarchy were in the stadium at this time, there was no CCTV, and upstairs was more than likely empty, he would not take me up there and you could see the fright in his eyes as if he got caught it would of got a roasting. It showed the respect that the players had for The Arsenal.

In the end he took me in the dressing rooms!

That shows that back then we had class and the players knew it. Hopefully the return to suits is just the start, and the current crop of players will learn to respect The Arsenal, and what it represents.

Andy

Arsenal most followed Premier League club – Full stats revealed

9 Replies

At the weekend, Arsenal passed 3,000,000 followers on Twitter, making them the first Premier League club to pass through the milestone. This surprised me when I see Mesut Ozil has over 4,000,000 and Justin Bieber has 46,000,000. I thought I would explore how many followers the rest of the Premier League have;

Premier League – 3,014,009
Arsenal – 3,005,680
Chelsea – 2,970,819
Liverpool – 2,086,130
Manchester United – 1,296,966*
Manchester City – 1,275,000*
Tottenham – 689,142
Newcastle – 304,220
Everton – 267,676
West Ham United – 228,383
Aston Villa – 221,244
Fulham – 177,848
Sunderland – 176,191
Swansea City – 171,814
Southampton – 156,853
Norwich City – 155,216
Stoke City – 148,038
West Browmich Albion – 104,770
Cardiff City – 79,997
Crystal Palace – 67,720
Hull City – 59,577

Now a lot can be made from the above data. You could argue that it is a cross-section of society and therefore indicates the level of support of each club throughout the world. But it would be ludicrous to claim that Manchester United have less supporters throughout the world than those above them – their amount of followers was surprisingly low.

What it does show is, Manchester United apart – Arsenal still have a strong world-wide supporters base, still above the nouveau clubs Chelsea and Manchester City. Although Chelsea have shown the amount of fans you can gain through success. Are they now supported more throughout the world than Liverpool? Perhaps.

What is certainly shows is Arsenal’s online presence. For a long time, it has been a belief of mine that Arsenal have the strongest online presence in the UK. We have the most and best blogs & podcasts. We eat up social media. It is why media outlets write so much about us, as they know writing about Arsenal will get more online hits then any other club.

And how does Europe compare?

Barcelona (English) – 10,438,412
Real Madrid (Spanish) – 9,318,902
Barcelona (Spanish) – 5,604,562
Barcelona (Catalan) – 3,898,654
Galatasaray – 3,238,592
Arsenal – 3,005,680
Chelsea – 2,970,819
Real Madrid (English) – 2,734,033
Fenerbache – 2,490,906
Liverpool – 2,086,130
AC Milan – 1,560,114
Manchester United – 1,296,966
Paris Saint-Germain – 900,593
Juventus – 836,397
Olympique Marseille – 774,761
Bayern Munich – 714,642
Borussia Dortmund – 611,246
Atletico de Madrid – 518,833
Inter Milan – 403,667
Valencia – 322,284
Ajax – 277,414
Celtic – 189,556
Olympique Lyonnais – 187,281
FC Porto – 134,317
Benfica – 132,109

A few things jump out. Firstly the popularity of Barcelona & Real Madrid. This clearly shows them as the two biggest clubs in the world. But also shows a fascination with both clubs outside of Spain. The fact that Barcelona’s English account is has the most followers shows the fascination with them outside of Spain, and in the UK itself. Real Madrid’s English account also being high shows the unhealthy fascination with Spanish football and El Classico within the UK.

The second thing was how high Galatasaray and Fenerbache were. this perhaps shows why the ‘Arab Spring’ spread so fast throughout Social Media such as Twitter and Facebook. Twitters popularity in the ‘middle east’ and surrounding area is interesting – and not really for a football blog – but the popularity in Turkey is likely to also be the reason why Mesut Ozil has 3,000,000 followers.

Lastly is the lack of followers both German clubs and other Central European sides have. Which shows more how little Twitter has taken off in Central Europe.

A lot of opinions can be made about Twitter, including size of football following, Twitter throughout the world, and popularity of social media throughout the world. Or you can just say this was boring and pointless.

Either way, I found it interesting

Keenos

*Manchester United also have an Official Indonesian account (93,747), Spanish (31,891) & Malaysian (9,551)
*Manchester City have an additional 9 foreign language accounts totaling 33,202
*All at time of writing, Noon on Sunday 3rd November

The Alternative Premier League Table

9 Replies

They always say the league table does not lie. They also say that should not believe the league table in the 1st 10 games. Finally, it seems they are saying that if Arsenal are top of the league after the first 10 games, you should not trust their league position until they have been tested. Despite Arsenal having played (and beaten) 2 of the top 4, we have apparently not yet been tested. so in response, I have come up with an Alternative Premier League Table.

The way it works is simple, each side is given a score based on their current league position. Arsenal are worth 20, Crystal Palace worth 1. Now based on the season results so far, the ‘points’ you get for winning a game is the score based on their league position. So Aston Villa got 20 points for beating Arsenal, whilst Arsenal got 1 point for beating Crystal Palace. If the result was a draw, both teams get 1/3 of that score (based on 1 point for a draw being 1/3 of the 3 points for a win).

Now in theory, if a team has played mainly lower league sides, their score will be lower, therefore their league position should be lower. Where as if a team played those sides worth a higher score, their alternative place league place may well be higher. A draw against Liverpool, for example, is worth the same as a victory against all 3 sides in the relegation zone. So how did the Alternative Premier League Table work out:

ALT

So what does the Alternative Premier League Table show, if it is to indicate who is in a force position based on their opponents? Well it shows Everton as having had the hardest start, whilst the next 6 have all had very similar starts, in terms of opponents. The main big difference for Arsenal is that our 5 point lead is perhaps a bit bigger that it should be.

Meanwhile, what is clear is that Liverpool have had a very easy start, as they drop 8 places based on the alternative formula. Manchester United also drop further, indicating that they truly are a club in crisis.

Statistics can be made to show anything. What this table certainly shows is that we have not had the ‘easy start’ that many claim, and that it is no easier or harder than other teams currently in the title race.

As a final thought, below is the average league position that the top sides have faced so far:

1383511080071

Make of this what you will.

Keenos