70 percent possession, 100 percent of the goals. Arsenal saunter through
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By Tony Attwood
There was a comment recently on this site from Nittram that I thought was so very apposite, and I’d like to re-use it here:
Writing of the media and I guess bloggers too he said
“Winning ‘trophies’ is all that matters. Right up until we do, then of course it means nothing.”
How very true. And it made me think of other things we could count but which is not done because it is realised the counting says something in Arsenal’s favour. Then I found an example…
This example is not one drawn from detailed historical data but from today’s Guardian which is running the story about the 100 best male players in the world. It is unleashing more of their opinion (although to be fair if you click on the player’s picture you do get some data, although not too much) for it is little more than opinion with just a handful of statistics reported, (and even those can easily be missed if one doesn’t click on each picture individually). They are revealing the answers day by day. Today they have got to Best male players in the world 11 to 100. I presume the top ten will be revealed tomorrow.
Naturally being an Arsenal fan I had a look for Arsenal players and was quite content to see eight in the top 89. Here they are with their positions…
Bukayo Saka 13th
Martin Odegaard 18th
William Saliba 28th
Declan Rice 34th
Gabriel Magalhães 57th
Kai Havertz 78th
David Raya 86th
Riccardo Calafiiori 97th
Now this is a bit of research done across the whole of the world, as the title says, so not just England, and I wondered how many players other Premier League clubs have listed here – remembering of course the counting will change when the top ten is revealed presumably in a day or so. And of course it is just opinion, nothing more…
So here are the totals by club, for the best male footballers in the world numbers 11 to 100, according to the Guardian.
Arsenal: 8
Real Madrid: 8
Manchester City: 8
Liverpool: 7
Barcelona: 6
Bayern Munich 3
Chelsea: 2
Tottenham Hots: 2
Nottingham Forest: 0
I thought I would include Nottingham Forest as they are currently fourth in the League and obviously have mighty ambitions what with the signing of Edu and all.
Among the more interesting listings I thought were just two ex-Arsenal men that I noticed, both of whom had disciplinary issues before they left Arsenal: Emiliano Martinez of Aston Villa at 23rd in the list (he played 15 games for Arsenal and was sent on loan to Oxford I think), Granit Xhaka at 26th (who you may recall was extensively booed by a section of Arsenal fans, with much media encouragement).
So we wait to see what the final totals will bring tomorrow. But meanwhile we do now know thatArsenal will play Newcastle at Emirates Stadium in the first leg of their tie before the second leg at St James’ Park.
The draw also sets up what the newspaper calls “the tantalising possibility of a North London derby in the final of the competition.” I am not quite sure why it is tantalising, since of the last eight games between the two clubs, Tottenham Hots have won one game, there has been one draw, and although my maths can be a bit sloppy I think that means Arsenal have won six. Which I think is 75% in terms of victories. Or 88% of the games in which Arsenal have avoided defeat.
The games will be played in the weeks commencing 6 January, and 3 February.
In the meanwhile, the Guardian is telling us about 10 things to look out for this weekend and in doing so they included a thought that I think some people missed about the way Palace played the last game, noting that, “part of the plan for Palace was to leave three players up the pitch to give their opponents something to think about on the break.”
Yes it was an interesting trick, but of course Arsenal will be aware of that now, and will also have Saka on the pitch from the start in tomorrow’s game.
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70 percent possession, 100 percent of the goals. Arsenal saunter through
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