Have I mentioned I hate most football stats? I think I may have. Mostly they are meaningless tosh that have no bearing on anything. Whenever someone tweets a stat onto my twitter timeline like this one:
I think ‘Meaningless stat’. Then I start singing in my head, ‘Meaningless stats in very high voices’, because the phrase reminds me of the Bee Gees parody ‘Meaningless Songs In Very High Voices’ by the Hee Bee Gee Bees. Angus Deayton and Philip Pope were both in the Hee Bee Gee Bees, and they also sang a Police parody called ‘Too Depressed To Commit Suicide’ and a very accurate Status Quo one called ‘A Boring Song’, among others.
I digress. Here are some stats pertinent to today’s match against Fulham – if by ‘pertinent’ you accept they have absolutely no bearing on what will happen.
- Arsenal average 2 points per game exactly in home games against London opposition in the Premier League era; against Fulham they average 2.45 points per game
- In home Premier League Matches Arsenal have a record against Fulham of P11 W8 D3
- Arsenal have scored 24 goals in their home PL matches against Fulham, and conceded 7
- Fulham are the only London club that Arsenal have never lost to at home in the last 20 years
- Arsenal have scored six fewer goals than Fulham in the League this season
- Santi Cazorla has created 35 chances this season, of which three have been scored
- Fulham have 9 points from their last six matches; Arsenal have seven points from theirs
- Arsenal have conceded the fewest goals in the Premier League this season
- Opposition teams have taken only 31 shots against Arsenal at home this season, 18 fewer than any other side can boast
- Arsenal have had more possession overall than any other Premier League team this season
- Fulham are unbeaten in their last three away games; they haven’t managed four unbeaten for over two years
- Fulham have scored in their last 7 league games in a row for the first time since 2007
- Arsenal and Fulham’s top scorers both have three goals this season – but Fulham have four players on that mark and Arsenal only two
- Both teams also have identical league records this season: W4 D3 L3
- And of course the pièce de resistance stat: ARSENAL HAVE NEVER LOST AT HOME TO FULHAM IN A COMPETITIVE MATCH – EVER! IN ANY COMPETITION! SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME!
So the stats prove that it is IMPOSSIBLE for Arsenal to lose this match. That’s what stats do, right? Give you proof of stuff. Must be, cos otherwise why would so many people keep banging on about them instead of watching the damn game!
Twitter: @AngryOfN5
angryofislington 
For one who hates stats, you make a very good posts out of them meaningless data
Anyway, knowing we have never lost to Fulham at home, makes me feel SO CONFIDENT today
In the other hand, Arsene’s team had a nasty habit of late, of rewriting our negative records or spoiling the good one. So …..
Arsenal 3 Fulham 3 Stats don’t lie do they ? A penalty shoot out win years ago ! Time now that club management at every level is taken to task. This is not a knee jerk reaction to recent results,,it is a considered response to years of inept, rudderless leadership . A time epitomised by greed and a desire for power unprecedented in Arsenal FC history . Millionaires with agendas that had nothing to do with football engaged each other in a game of chicken , the bastards are still at it . The club became a property development company, and let nobody use the Emirates Stadium as an example of the results of good governance . Arsenal is about football , its about the fans who week in week out spend their hard earned money supporting their team . This fact has been forgotten by those in charge with the result that money has been diverted into property projects that have enriched certain individuals to the detriment of the football club. Arsene Wenger cannot manage a team with the strap of greed and profit tying both of his hands behind his back. Nor can any group of people plan any plausable path forward while those who are supposed to support them undermine their every move by selling the clubs best players because its good business. The game is not a game anymore. Its all about exploitation . Its about greedy people extracting as much money as they can both for themselves and for the most part, the average , unimaginative players they represent. I don’t know what to do or suggest , apart from demanding a clear out of the board , but what then ?
What a rant Noel……….but it isn’t the BoD or Wenger who is on the field, it is the players our manager and his coaches train day in and day out. Fulham is a decent and hard-working team and can cause many a top 4 Club some serious trouble. We lack what we have always lacked since the Invincibles:
1) The killer instinct to finish off a game,
2) The defensive calmness to defend a lead and
3) an injury-free season.
The rest we have kept from the Invincibles…..your rant is all about the supposed ¨greed¨of Kroenke and others on the BoD or associated with the Club but you have 0 proof of anything you excreted above….try convincing others who are more gullible.
Phil………..stats are useful for predicting trends, analyzing variations in psychological experiments and other scientific approaches, such as Physics and, of course in mathematics. As Harry Truman said, ¨there are liars, damn liars and then statisticians¨! My take on using stats is simple, they are a reliable if rather one dimensional,limited tool to help those who need to make decisions about 2 or 3 possible outcomes or observed events but they cannot tell anyone very much about reality. Reality is always multidimensional and needs far more thought than a simple statistical note can bring.
My favourite anecdote is about Mitt Romney being told, half way through election night, that he had the election in the bag, based on polls and stats supplied by his supporters leaving the poll boothes across the country. By 11 pm that same night it was evident that he would lose…he asked his campaign manager what happened and he supposedly replied that Obama had bought off all the statisticians and pollsters in order to confuse the Republicans. Apparently Romney believed him!!!
Your point is very valid…its the feet on the ground that decide an outcome,NOT some egghead in front of a computer.
I’m sorry that you thought my post was a rant Weedonald but your entitled to your opinion and thats fine. But you like me are an Arsenal fan and regardless of our opinions we’re on the same side. The fact remains however that the BoD are responsible for the financial policies that the club adopt, The manager then has to work within these confines . Arsene Wenger and his coaching staff have had to look on as his teams have been dismantled by the sale of his best talent . To talk of “killer instinct and “defensive calmness” merely supports my assertion that we do not have the players who have those qualities. Your suggestion that I have no proof that board members are greedy is a moot point, But the fact is we have not won a trophy for years and are unlikely to do so in the near future. This is because the people who run the club have not made the necessary finance available to the manager. I do not , nor never would condone the spending of money for the sake of it But every business needs investment to keep developing and moving forward . The Arsenal BoD have been consistantly wanting in this regard. Finally gullibility like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Noel, if it’s any consolation I echo your view: our Club’s dismal decline is due mostly to the greed of the former major shareholders (Danny, Lady N, Richard Carr) and Stanley, the current major shareholder. The Wee One is lost somewhere in the Land of Make-Believe where brave men with spears win battles against cowards with machine-guns. As to what needs to be done, make life so uncomfortable that Stanley is forced to give way to Usmanov. And if Usmanov turns out no better than Stanley – then get rid of Usmanov.
Englandsbitch….it is you who is trapped in a myopic hatred of the BoD without ANY proof that what you claim is true. Do not confuse yourself with someone whose opinion the Board cares about. Your idiotic idea of ¨forcing¨ Kroenke out and replacing him with Usmanov and if he isn’t any good then out he goes to is risible! You suffer from delusions of grandeur thinking you have any influence in determining the makeup of AFC’s management….get a life mate and stop fantasizing like a kindergarten retard.
Noel, do you really believe this: ¨Your suggestion that I have no proof that board members are greedy is a moot point¨? It is the essential requirement if you are to have any credibility. I can say whatever I like if I’nm not constrained by a necessity to prove my claims….you say the BoD are a greedy bunch of profiteers….I say, show me absolute proof and I’ll believe you…otherwise you are simply a fabricator.
The Board ditched the ideas of plurality and custodianship in favour of profit. Sounds like profiteering to me.
Phil……….what makes you say that the BoD actually ditched plurality and custodianship by bringing Kroenke in? The BoD is still very custodial and has plurality but just majority ownership with Kroenke and a pain in the butt with Usmanov but little else has changed. Isn’t the principle of a business sports franchise like AFC to produce a saleable product that eventually produces profits that reward the investors. Even AFC has to address this aspect of running a Football Club and the profit motive is as good a motivator as silverware (they are not mutually exclusive).
The Board ditched plurality of ownership. Now everything (apart from things that need a 75% vote, such as rewriting the articles of association) is at the whim of one man. Arsenal has NEVER been in that situation before in its history. The likes of Hill-Wood and the Carrs got their shares free from their parents and sold out for vast profit. Even Dein and Fiszman, who I admire and respect in many ways, bought cheaply, got lucky with a boom and sold out.
You can run a club perfectly well without a majority owner – three of the four clubs in the world with the biggest turnover are run that way.
You can say little has changed, and in some ways that’s true, but it could all change today or tomorrow on the whim of one man. That could never happen before, because the Board used to believe, as I do, that Arsenal is too important to be owned by one person.
Phil….are you sure about the power Kroenke could excercize as a majority shareholder? However, just because 3 of the 4 big clubs don’t have one majority owner means little when you look at the variety of ownership models in Football. It is always a risk with a majority owner-if we look at Abramovich at Cheatski, we can see what a terrible owner he makes- the thickest book in the EPL is the one listing Cheatski’s revolving -door managers! that said, Kroenke seems to respect and support the sustainable model that AFC have always had and also seems to keep his nose out of AFC and Wenger’s business, trusting their integrity, football nous and management skills to run the Club soundly and securely….I’d rather have him than Usmanov and maybe plurality ownership is a distant dream we’ll have to shelve for awhile.
My hope is that one day the supporters will have majority ownership, but with the fan splits we have now and the Usmanov Machiavellian treachery and machinations trying to vampirize the Club. , it is definitely NOT the right time for this model.
Fair point Weedonald . I have to admit that I don’t have any proof that profiteering is a problem at the club and I apologise to you or anyone who may have taken offence at my remarks. Like most fans I get my info from the media. Of course lots of whats said and printed is mere conjecture and depends on individual interpretation . For my part the last number of years have been terribly frustrating. Trying to decipher truth from rumour and fact from fiction as to why the club has failed to win a trophy for so long has led me to blame the people in charge . Who in truth is to blame is open to debate but something positive needs to happen on the field or something very negative may happen off it . How long will it be before someone loses their job, what will be the reaction of sponsors and fans if their is a split at board level ? These questions are not meant to be points of argument just points of interest. I don’t want to cause more trouble by being inaccurate in what I say !