Unlike my more erudite colleagues at PA, my role is to inform and explain the sometimes boring but always unbiased data that serve as predictors of the competitive future of our club.
Due to the longevity of our great manager, we have 20 years of data covering 760 Premier League games that allow us to identify certain long term trends which are repetitive and predictable. Unlike the mainstream media and most of our colleagues who blog, podcast or tweet we do not have to resort to cheap sensationalism to make our point. A review of two very important developments will illustrate my point.
Wenger20
The celebration of Wenger’s 20 years as manager of the club was marked by a massive orgy of hyperbole and bogus platitudes by the mainstream media that must have left the manager bemused. After all, less than six months ago the self-same media, led by serial phone-hacker Piers Morgan, were eagerly fanning the flames of discontent and provoking demonstrations by fans to drive Wenger Out.
I therefore feel great empathy for our own Pedantic George when he vented in the Comments section of the blog last Saturday:
“Seeing a shower of absolute bastards, currying favour on the back of Arsene’s 20th anniversary, is turning my stomach.”
Unfortunately there is nothing that either George, I, or you the reader can do that will change the behavior of these “bastards”. It is totally consistent with my “greed and despair” paradigm to which I frequently refer. (More details here.) They are simply “sensationalizing,” preying on emotions. Notice that every member of the commercial media in England and on this side of the pond (i.e. NBC which has the Premier league broadcast rights) is doing a special on Wenger proclaiming how great he is. It makes commercial sense. Arsenal fans in particular are drawn to it in droves and those eyeballs online mean money especially for those newspapers who are bleeding readership, because the public has increasingly lost faith in them thanks to their mendacity and bias.
Yet six weeks ago, in mid-August, I did a blog showing that in the collective wisdom of nearly 40 pundits from both ESPN and BBC, Arsenal under Arsene was predicted to come 3rd in the league, in direct contradiction to the historical data. It defies reason that most journalists, pundits or bloggers within weeks, sometimes days, of declaring Wenger no longer fit for purpose, write such voluminous paeans and odes of praise to his greatness.
Unlike the mainstream media and the majority of vacillating, wavering Arsenal bloggers, we have cold hard data to justify our firmly held conviction that Arsene is not only the greatest manager this club has ever had but he is set to continue indefinitely. A contract is already in his hands and I am sure the board will be anxious as kittens until he signs. Like the bankers who demanded he agree to remain as manager for five years after moving into the new stadium, we rely on past performance, not sentiment.
“Consistency, thou art a jewel” – Shakespeare
What is undeniable, from the graphic above, is that under 20 years of Arsene’s management the club has recorded the joint second highest average points per season (74) among all clubs, despite being massively outspent by United, Chelsea and City and at times, Liverpool. Despite the over one billion pounds invested in Chelsea by Abramovich in the past 12 years, the gap between them and Arsenal is negligible. (Note the graphic is generous to City whose average is calculated over 16 years by excluding the four seasons they were in the 2nd and 3rd flight of English football.) Also observable is the considerable gulf between between the Gunners and its North London rivals, in the order of 20 points. Of all his rivals Arsene is yet to overhaul or match Manchester United, a realistic prospect in the first ten years until the club decided to focus its resources on building a new and bigger stadium.This is a handy segue to doing what is now standard in my analyses which is measure Wenger’s consistency in the pre-Emirates versus the Post-Emirate years.
Pre-Emirates
The graphic and figures are crystal clear. Even though Wenger did not have the capacity to make record transfers in the magnitude of Ferguson at United, he had sufficient resources and the managerial nous to be on average only three (3) points inferior to the biggest and most successful club in England (80 vs 77 points). Despite inferior finances Arsene/Arsenal was able to capture three EPL titles including the singular honor of an Invincible, two doubles including the Invincible year and four FA cups. In contrast, Manchester City, without the financial resources of the Abu Dhabi group, had in the same ten-year span spent four years outside of the top flight generating a piddling season average of 23 points, less than one-third of Arsenal’s.
Post Emirates
With the austerity brought on by the stadium move, as well as Chelsea and City becoming the unprecedented beneficiaries of deep-pocketed sugar-daddies, Wenger was simply unable to compete in the transfer market. Nonetheless Arsenal remained consistently among the top-three clubs in points earned with the season average dropping by six (6) to 71 points. It is notable that despite the hundreds of millions spent by Chelsea, their season average is no better than Wenger’s 77 points during his first ten years. Similarly, a big spender like City, with ten years to get a run at a financially crippled Wenger, is still three (3) points behind in current season average. Liverpool, despite the constant churn of managers, players and owners remain in-situ. That is not a comforting statistic if the scousers ever hope to catch and surpass Arsenal.
Now that Arsene/Arsenal is able to consistently spend on top-top quality players as well as patiently develop those coming through the academy, only the rabid anti-Wenger WOBs and weak-willed fans who allow themselves to become victims of groundless doom-mongering by the media, would bet against Wenger at least regaining the ground lost over the past ten-years. If he is as competitive as his brother Guy disclosed in that recent newspaper interview, Arsene will be dying to prove he has the same, if not more longevity, than his older sibling who retired at 70. How many of you, dear reader, are willing to put up a wager?
Unto Burnley
Despite the whingeing and whining in various quarters that Arsenal was not as fluent, not as free-scoring as in prior games vs Chelsea and Basel, the most important piece of data from the Burnley game is the winning streak continues. The club is now 5 wins without a loss. In contrast, the previous leader in this statistical category, Manchester City, saw their winning streak end last Sunday at 6 wins. What should hearten every Gooner is the comprehensive nature of City’s loss to Spurs, who missed a penalty by the way. Prior to this loss, the media and some Arsenal fans were noisily trumpeting Pep Guardiola as their genius manager who automatically made City presumptive champions of the EPL, a full eight months before end of season.
Legend: Crimson – MUFC, Yellow – AFC, Blue- CFC, Light Blue – MCFC, Red – LCFC
In my last blog I highlighted data showing that the key to Arsenal winning previous titles under Wenger was going on substantial winning streaks. The average winning sequence in those 3 championship years was 11 games, ranging from a low of 9 to a high of 13. The clear implication being that victorious Arsenal teams tend to be consistently dominant throughout a season. One may argue that the data set is too small to draw any conclusions but during the past 20 years the average longest winning streak by a PL winning club was 8 games. The maximum run was 13 games by Arsenal in 2001-02 versus a minimum of 4 games by Manchester United in 2010-11. See the graphic above.
The data in my opinion is crystal clear.
For us to confidently predict a title win, this Arsenal team must attain at least an 8 game sequence of wins. Maybe this is the streak or it will be attained later in the season.
As positively realistic fans, we will patiently wait on the data.
Positively Arsenal 
Here’s to our next 32 games setting a new record. Thanks Shotta. Good data.
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Great read Shotta but I’ve got to stop reading your articles first thing in the morning, the data does my ‘ed in!!
Those that George reasonably and sensibly describes as ‘bastards’ will be judged by history as ‘idiots’, in my view. This is on account of their singular failure to absorb any kind of understanding of Arsenal’s 21st century history despite the evidence of the resurgent developments at the club over the last couple of years, and all the trends now so evident to the majority.
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Morning Shotta and thank you for another crisp shaking of the numbers – as a minor aside I have a feeling that around the mid 00s that the PL winners, us, the Red Mancs and the original Chelsea of Ranieri then the Portuguese twat were ‘better’ football teams, each of which could go on. 12-15 match unbeaten run with no bother.
It’s much more rare now – is that because the opposition is better or the core of the top clubs is less resilient ?
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Interesting question Andrew – personally I have no doubt that even the ‘worst’ PL teams are playing substantially better football than their predecessors of, say 15 years ago.
Their issue, I’d suggest, is less of skill and ability but more consistency which, of course, is the challenge of all sportsmen and women in all sports.
In practical terms it means that on their day, even the bottom-placed sides can frustrate or even beat the top teams on a semi-routine basis. So it’s dropped points galore. I’ve noticed that the lower teams seem to struggle to motivate themselves against the mid-placed sides; it always feels, for example, that we get world class displays from visiting goalies who then can’t catch a cold the rest of the season.
But I could just be imagining all this.
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One indicator of quality in the PL during the 00s was that promoted teams would be favourites to go down, and often two of the three would be straight dow after one season.
My impression is that happens less now and some clubs who traditionally have been strugglers and yo-yo’ed up and down, Palace and Watford as examples, and newcomers like Bournemouth seems much better prepared to establish themselves.
They seem much more able and willing to play football than clubs at the foot of the PL table than those there ten years ago – maybe that is what has changed?
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Anicoll
I like that question. I’ll go for there being at least a bit more quality. Main factor for me, however, is the emergence of ultra defensive football. Teams get pretty good at playing that way if they work on it for a considerable period of time.
I don’t think it’s actually any better for points accumulation than the same quality of work being put into becoming a passing, footballing side- Swansea were the shining example of that- but as the stronger team you’re probably likely to come unstuck against ultra defence more often than you would against smaller teams who play positive football well.
The way Swansea played on their arrival in the prem was the result of working on and sticking with a positive style of passing football for about 4 seasons before they made it there. A defensive style takes much less time to implement.
Basically, as a bigger club, if ten teams play well-organised ultra defensive football against you there’s a fair chance they’ll succeed on 1-3 occasions, more if you’re not playing that well yourself.
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Ha, Ha, Ha. Posted this blog after 12 midnight local time in my neck of the woods and somehow felt that I had a relatively provocative headline that would spark some passioned debate. Six hours later I am underwhelmed. Afterall data does not have 100% predictability. In school I learnt that a 97.5% probability is as good as statistical certainty. Ha, Ha, Ha.
On a more serious note I note A5’s comment of having “a feeling that around the mid 00s that the PL winners, us, the Red Mancs and the original Chelsea of Ranieri then the Portuguese twat were ‘better’ football teams, each of which could go on. 12-15 match unbeaten run with no bother.” The data is not as conclusive. Chelsea in 2006-07, their best ever year, had 29 wins, 8 draws and 1 loss. Based on memory they won almost all their games at home but tended to play for draws away especially vs the big teams. Only Arsenal and to a lesser extent United have a history of massive winning streaks in their championship years.
PS: I struggled all weekend to master google charts so as to present interactive graphics only to discover late last evening WordPress does not permit java script. In desperation I found a workaround or this blog would never have seen the light of day.
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I think the bar charts are the bollocks mate – well done
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Brilliant again Shotts
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Brilliant again Shotts
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I’ve become a big fan of the harsh white light that Shotta’s excellent analysis uses to illuminate the world of Arsenal. It’s a very curious objective reflection on a subjective world but I’m quite happy that it reinforces my instinct that Wenger gets it right most of the time.
The constant factor of Wenger’s 20 years at the helm, provides an excellent platform for Shotta’s research & analysis. On the other side however, the managerial instability at the other clubs must skew their data, especially when compared to the Arsenal. We look at pre and post Emirates because of the major disruptive effect of our new home, so surely, the dozens of managerial changes must make the comparison of Arsenal data to other clubs a huge challenge?
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Mallen: I hope you are not turning Wenger’s consistency into a negative. It is exactly the instability and disruptive effect of constant managerial changes at other clubs that is associated with their under performance relative to the money they spend. The owners, directors and bankers who influence or make strategic decisions at Arsenal emphasize consistency over simply desiring change for change sake. The media and blogs hate consistency as it provides little material for sensationalist headlines preying on the emotions of the public.
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The bar charts are excellent, Shotta. I gave up in dismay when I tired something similar once.
Another neat one in the series would be longest winning runs in a season for any team versus champions’ longest winning run each year. Wild guess I’d bet the champions have the longest run 6 or 7 times out of ten.
Could be a case of happiness writes white as far as the shortage of debate goes. I can happily talk football in any circumstances, but when the going isn’t so good feel more of a ‘need’ to talk football. I tend to think this is mostly about trying to defend the club against the tide of shite that flows after any bad result, but there’s probably more to it than that.
I think the moaners and malcontents are genuinely having a hard time of it getting their emotions up right now, partly because they know they can’t rely on enthusiastic support from their audience at the moment.
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@Shotta: I didn’t mean to come across as negative in my comments, on the contrary, I am chuffed to bits that we’ve had the loyalty of Arsene for 20 years – it’s a HUGE positive imho. It would have been far easier for him to have gone elsewhere and attain success with the seemingly limitless budgets of Real, PSG, etc.
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MAllen @ 3:33 pm – I was only asking for clarification. I must admit gratuitously using the opportunity to make the point that consistency is not very sexy. Take for example my blog on the transfer of Lucas Perez; thousands of views here and tons of retweets on twitter. Yet this is a significantly more factual blog requiring hours more of research and the reaction is meh. “Houston we have a problem.”
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People are hunkering down for the looooong international break Shotta – Italy v Spain and Germany v Czech look ok as does the Dutch v France
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on the question of why the top teams or league winners no longer seem to go on ten game winning runs anymore, well for me its simply down to parked bus tactics that is now rife among BPL clubs. ten to twenty years ago, even relegation threatened clubs would, at least when at home, actually play to win, but now they play not to lose. and when away now, in the most part they park two buses. We even have the spectacle now of many of the lesser teams refusing to change from their parked bus, even when losing.
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A5 – They would be all over the internet in droves if we had lost on Sunday. The majority of our fans see a disaster behind every adverse result. Additionally, it is now unpopular to publicly trash Arsene Wenger. The dyed-in-the-wool WOBs and malcontents are not so stupid as to misread public opinion.
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The Scarfists are baffled – but for the hiccup against the Scousers our momentum has built up, our quality of football has improved. Strangely I reckon our draw in Paris was a real turn of the corner. On the night Kosc and Mustafi were fully tested but withstood that battering – and since then our defence has been monostrously good.
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Monostrously ?
Good word
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Thanks Shotta.
Here is another stat to mull over –
Arsenal have played 7 league games, 4 away and 3 home.
Normally our home form gives us more points from the 18 home games, plus we have one of the best away records of any club around.
Man Utd. and Spurs have played 7, but 4 home games and 3 away.
I would say that their current points differences will soon melt away.
Liverpool are the outlier, having played only two home games due to their stadium development running late. That may give them a huge benefit later in the season.
http://www.soccerstats.com/homeaway.asp?league=england
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Some of October’s fixtures for rival teams:
Chelsea vs Leicester
WBA vs Totts
Man City vs Everton
Liverpool vs Man Utd
Wilshere FC vs Totts
Liverpool vs WBA
Man city vs saints
Ex Jose vs new Jose
Man Utd. Vs
Totts vs Leicester
Man City vs WBA
Man Utd. Vs Burnlet
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http://dailycannon.com/2016/10/theo-walcott-emerges-as-arsene-wengers-longest-serving-player/?
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All, just to thank you for consistently being the voice of sanity and reason in this increasingly volatile, hostile and juvenile world. And for the high quality of statistical analysis provided and dare I say the word: information. We have greater access today to information than ever before and yet many act as if they were in the Stone Age. And worse still appear to take pride in their ignorance. Indeed they revel in it. Shame on the many Arsenal fans for failing to recognise how well our club is run from top to bottom. We have forged an identity that few if any can emulate and should be proud and thankful for that. There is no god given reason for our being one of the most successful clubs in world football. It could easily have been so different. Just ask Leeds or Sheffield Wednesday to name but two. And we know the reason for that don’t we. One man and his intelligence, loyalty and vision. This site is a constant source of inspiration and matures with age. Here’s to the next 20 years.
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Don’t get too discouraged Shotta; most blog sites get a fraction of the views PA routinely enjoys, and there are some perfectly good ones that don’t ever seem to attract all that many comments.
I think PA has a ‘critical mass’, in terms of visits which are centered around games – Match Day and Match Day +1, as a rule. But there can be a ‘traffic’ tail-off for mid-week games also. Interlulls and the summer break are somewhat barren spells overall.
Largely because I’m so bored with the puerile attacks on the club and the odious nature of a number of our actual opponents, these days I’m happy to have a break from football from time-to-time and I feel I’m not alone in this. I keep half an eye open for football developments using Twitter.
Your recent articles have been first class and I’ve enjoyed each one very much. My suggestion would be to give consideration to publishing a full 24 hours before a game to achieve maximum exposure and responses. Thanks to the sterling efforts of Andy & Stew, we all know we are all going to gather around PA for their superb ‘book-ending’ of our games so perhaps ‘guest’ posts would do better in a Match Day -1 slot? Just a thought.
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Superb again Shotta.
I first read this piece close to when you published, having awoken on da couch.
Then I read again, and again. I think I’m a bit awestruck by this particular piece. Slightly more than ‘thought provoking’, sometimes I don’t know what to write.
Fortunately, this doesn’t apply to everyone here, and there are ‘quality’ replies (incl. your own).
Personally, I think your articles are well timed – giving us a chance to consider other aspects of Arsenal-ness, inc. Data. It’s the ying to the yang, perhaps.
The main thing is that you write. ‘It’s good for you’.
And delightful for me. (banned insanely smiley thingy).
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I’m not disagreeing with anything AA has written in the post above mine, by the way.
Ta for the link to the Walcott piece. I listened to the tune and found it as fascinating now as I did then:
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Excellent analysis as always Shotta. Thank you.On the subject of thanks, just to thank everyone on this blog for remaining the voice of sanity and reason in this increasingly febrile, hostile and juvenile world. What you consistently provide here, in addition to impassioned views on the love of our club, is information and reasoned analysis. This is a rarity. We have greater access to information than ever before and yet many act as if they were in the Stone Age, and make comments commensurate with that. And worse still appear to glorify in their ignorance. Shame on the many Arsenal fans for failing to recognise how well our club is run from top to bottom. We have forged an identity that few clubs, if any, can emulate and we should be proud and thankful for that. There is no god given reason for our today being one of the most successful clubs in world football. It could easily have been so different. (Just ask Leeds or Portsmouth to name but two.) And we know the reason for that don’t we. One man and his intelligence, loyalty and vision. This site is a constant source of inspiration and like fine wine matures with age. Here’s to the next 20 years.
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Great comment, Stephen P.
Gf60, Thanks for your match review. Superb title: “It Was 1-0 To The Arsenal And That Is Never Wrong”. (And you may have saved A5 adopting Arsene’s “I didn’t see it” re pure outrageousness from ‘da middle (diddle) man’.
The following .gif file shows how our players are sometimes injured, (accumulation), and how refs who clearly see the incident, eagerly throw their arms in front of them, indicating “play on”, then somehow forget to at least caution the player. This was one of Burnley’s most successful “one-two’s”:
Great comment, Stephen P.
Gf60, Thanks for your match review. Superb title: “It Was 1-0 To The Arsenal And That Is Never Wrong”. (And you may have saved A5 adopting Arsene’s “I didn’t see it” re pure outrageousness from ‘da middle (diddle) man’.
The following .gif file shows how our players are sometimes injured, (accumulation), and how refs who clearly see the incident, eagerly throw their arms in front of them, indicating “play on”, then somehow forget to at least caution the player. This was one of Burnley’s most successful “one-two’s”:
https://gfycat.com/BrokenBewitchedHerring
Seeing it’s interlull an’ sh*t, I’ll post a link to the ref review from the Burnley match, from Untold. Readers are now able click on highlighted “wrong decisions” and see .gifs like above. But if you read at all, and don’t like scouring the detail, you could just scroll down and read the summary. I think the review adds Context to the match we saw/heard about.
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Ref Review Burnley – Arsenal: at least he got that one right
http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/56601
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Southampton and Swansea were the obvious promoted teams that chose to ignore the plundits mantra and their favoured business partners and specialists in wanting sign players from special agents.
Last few seasons even the Swans have pitched up in n5 lined up with two rows of line outs like Burnley at the weekend. Add in the greater physical and technical* ability of the players, IMO it’s tougher now.
*Danny Rose, Gary Cahill etc. notwithstanding etc.
It’s a good thing the Arsenal don’t do tactics and players like Rosicky and Alexis don’t know who to target eh?
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Don’t worry Ranty we all know the deal if some choose to understandably follow the club and keep a stiff upper lip.
Fascinating interview with Arsene, think it was the NBC one where he fairly obviously uses the word “cheats” whilst satisfyingly implying that he is not one. All said and done, there it is: he said it.
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< even if
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Here it is if you haven’t all already seen it
https://youtu.be/eAGQ8OLyvqc
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Spot on as always, Fins.
That’s a great intvw above.
Blackpool played footy but must’ve P’d off some in high places, what with a West Country accented manager out-wit(terring) others, and then there’s “allegations” re their chairman, which I can’t be bothered to remember. I remember the 6 – nil though.
(And us getting a dodgy goal even though the annual thing of trying to spoil our season was in full flow).
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*getting a dodgy goal even [in the away match -towards the end of the season]*
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Thanks for the kind comments by Stephen, Ranty and AA. To AA in particular, I wasn’t complaining about my slot, which btw is very convenient as I have the freedom of the week to consider which theme I should focus and to assemble the data, but rather on the very predictable lack of enthusiasm among Arsenal fans for hard data and a preference for emotionally driven pieces sparked by a poor result or a potential transfer. As you correctly observe, we are fortunate at PA to have a core community which is open to analysis and opposed to drivel. That is why George set up this site after it was impossible to use similar analysis to express our support for Arsene and the club elsewhere.
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Shotts
Brilliant as ever, thanks.
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Shotta , sometimes you can produce a post that just well.. to good. If people read sections of a post and disagree with parts then you will get loads of comments, it’s basically why the media try and be controversial all the time. The trouble with your post was I couldn’t disagree with any of it. I read it and thought how fantastic was that I’ll use those stats in the future thanks very much. You are undoubtedly very much appreciated in here.
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Shotta great stuff you write some of the poetry around.
As for the malcontents :-
Maybe we need to get some of those super soakers, with anointed water.
Seemed to scare the B’jesus out of Matthew.
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That is best poetry
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http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20161005/-i-only-ever-saw-you-lose-it-once-
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Arsenal Fixture News @AFCFixtureNews Oct 2
The Emirates Cup will return for the 2017/18 season with Saturday 29th July and Sunday 30th July pencilled in as the likely dates.
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Shotts
This series of articles was not only well timed in terms of countering this Summer’s crumbling counter factual foundations (other summers we’ve had such memorable and timeless classics as “Bellerin doesn’t count as a first team player/defender”, these articles are a treasure.
Thank you.
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http://youtu.be/tlA9gev0Wv0
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I knew you weren’t complaining Shotta, my comments more based on observation of ‘traffic’ to the site. I once blogged something towards the end (or possibly just after) the season, picked the wrong day of the week and got about 12 comments in three days! Happily for all I then retired myself from blogging efforts having decided I’d lost my touch completely. But as already remarked, all your ‘data-driven’ contributions are collectors’ pieces that many of us will return to time and again for factual back-up/refreshers!
Looking forward to the next one!
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ArseStat @Arsestat_ 11h11 hours ago
Danny Welbeck is back running in 2 weeks. 4 weeks away from light training. 6-8 weeks away from joining the 1st team. #DatGuy!
Lucas Perez has been back in training since Tuesday, Debuchy is also back in full training.
Giroud and Ramsey expected back on Friday/end of this week.
Carl Jenkinson has been upping his training regime, could make his 1st appearance in the EFL cup vs @ReadingFC.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Au1PwFx26A&feature=youtu.be
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thanks Shotta-i havent been able to write,as i dumped a load of tea over,my laptop,+the keyboards dead and now i only have on screen keyboard- one click typing-10 yrs to write a few words.Grrr!
nice interview fins-the one with wright sol+gallas.
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Ehab J Johnson @EhabJohnson 15h15 hours ago
@Liveorangejuice @Arsenal people look at Simone acting like a clown and go:”that’s passion!” That’s not!That’s animation! Don’t mix them up
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