Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Does anyone care that Arsenal are playing tonight?

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Genuinely, is anyone really that bothered that Arsenal are playing tonight?

We are already guaranteed to go through top of group in the Europa League. We are playing a bunch of Bulgarian (or somewhere in Eastern Europe) farmers who will probably do a shift on a building site in London today- or they would if they had CSCS.

Whilst BATA Borislav do have something to play for – 1 point splits the three awful teams in our group, from an Arsenal point of view, it is a meaningless game.

Occasionally when we play these sort of dead rubbers, the excitement is that we will get to see a few of the youngster who we have been hearing about. But we have been playing the likes of Ainsley Naitland-Miles and Reiss Nelson throughout the group stages. So there is little excitement surrounding these players.

Arsene Wenger could pull a rabbit out of the hat and play a complete XI of youth players, but the reality is the likes of Per Mertesacker, Mathieu Debuchy, Mo Elneny, Jack Wilshere and Olivier Giroud will start.

The game is expected to be the lowest ever attendance at the Emirates. I would be surprised if there are more than 40,000 people at the game. 30,000 would be my nearer estimate.

I myself am not going. Liam Gallagher is playing at Ally Pally Thursday night and I am going to that.

No one wants my ticket. Not even for free.

It is the type of game where you have to think the club need to do something about the ticketing. Even though mine is just £15.0 so price is not the problem, the demand is not there. Maybe the club give season ticket holders the option to donate and those tickets can go to the clubs foundation partners, such as the Willow Foundation, or to local schools.

My hope is that Arsenal do put on a performance, score 5 or 6 goals, make it worthwhile for the fans who have got themselves out of their warm abode. Do not do a repeat of Red Star Belgrade. A dull 0-0 in the freezing cold.

Personally, I m buzzing for LG.

Keenos

Pointless Statistics

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am a stats man and many do have their place in football. I do follow the money ball theory and have read countless books on statistical analysis on football. But you can go too far with football, and as media outlets attempt to find the new thing they can end up inventing a statistic that is simply pointless.

Recently the BBC have created (or adopted) a statistic called “Expected Goals”. The idea being that it shows how many goals should have been scored against how many were scored.

This is pointless as all the matters is the goals actually scored.

Against Manchester United, Arsenal were expected to have scored 4.6 goals based on the chances. Manchester United 1.9 goals. Ignoring the fact that you can not score a decimal point of a goal, Manchester United scored 3 goals, and Arsenal 1.

Now I understand the stats surrounding chances created, shots on target, etc, but how the analysts decided Manchester United should only have scored 1.9 goals when all 3 of their chances were fairly routine is beyond me. It is a baffling statistic.

I have even seen a league table of expected goals – ie how the table would look if each match went to the expected goals rather than the actual. It is like those league tables which are altered to show results if shots that hit the woodwork went in. Or that Chelsea one from years ago which took out all goals by black players.

It is pointless.

At the end of the day, there is only one statistic that really matters, and that is the score at the end of the game.

Keenos

REVEALED: Who is Arsenal’s most influential attacking player?

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Quiz time: Which Arsenal player has the most combined goals and assists this season?

OK, it is a trick question as there are two players that currently lead the way.

Alexandre Lacazette has 8 goals and 1 assists – 9 in total. Alongside him is Aaron Ramsey with 3 goals and 6 assists.

No Arsenal player has more Premier League assists than Aaron Ramsey this season. An incredible statistic considering he does not take corner and free kicks.

He comes in for a lot of criticism, and it is often justified. He has had an up and down career at Arsenal, but his good form this season has gone under the radar.

Now you could argue that his job is to not get goals and assists. That by him bombing forward, getting into advanced positions, leaves a hole in behind him that Granit Xhaka has struggled to fill. But then he also leads the way in tackles and interceptions per game (excluding the defenders).

His problem is that he is not a naturally defensive player. He needs someone in behind him who will cover the ground, someone like N’Golo Kante would have worked perfect in tandem with Ramsey.

For much of his career, Ramsey has been a square peg in a round hole. Expected to do a defensive role in the team, when he actually wants to bomb forward and get involved.

His assist for Alexandre Lacazette against Manchester United was a great example of his ability to make perfectly timed runs into the box. His awareness to head back to the Frenchman was world class.

With both Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil to leave, maybe the time has come for Ramsey to move further up the field – his more natural position where he plays for Wales.

When I see that someone like Leon Goretzka is available on a free transfer, it makes me think that we should go all out for him to play central midfield, and move Aaron Ramsey further forward.

It is not about being cheap, it is about being sensible. Goretzka will become one of the best central midfielders in world football, and Ramsey has proven what he can do in more advanced positions. It would also leave us even more money available to buy someone to partner Ramsey behind Lacazette in the future.

Aaron Ramsey’s good form is probably a surprise to you all.

Keenos