Untold Arsenal site is down: but the worse the clubs were last year, the more they travel pre-season
By Tony Attwood
I’m sorry to say that the Untold Arsenal website is down again, and just at the moment when our IT consultant is away for a day or four. So I’m publishing the article I would have published on Untold Arsenal, here.
But there is some celebration to be noted, concerning France getting into the semi-finals of the Olympic football competition, because, well, you know, Thierry Henry is manager. Good for him I’d say. (There is also some hiding and I will come to that in a moment.)
Oh yes and we might notice that the Scottish League has kicked off. Here’s the table
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hearts | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2 | Motherwell | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | Rangers | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 4 | Ross County | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
All the other teams have scored nought points since they haven’t played, so this must be the first and will be the only time a table can be published in which every game was a goalless draw.
And we know that Real Madrid have signed Kylian Mbappé on a sort of but not quite free. Nothing goes to his former club but he got a €125m signing on fee.
The Guardian notes that, “Tottenham need an overhaul after running out of steam last season, and have already brought in Swedish rising star Lucas Bergvall”. Well, good of them to note that the club “ran out of steam”.
And perhaps this is a moment to bring in the last 10 games of last season as a guide to how teams might be doing. After all “running out of steam” seems to suggest maybe the last three or four games of the season.
Chelsea as you will see below were third, and Crystal Palace fourth. It seems hard to believe Palace will be able to keep up that sort of form (their +14 goals was only two behind Arsenal) but it was quite a final run for them. Liverpool as we know faded, but it is interesting to see just how modestly the three promoted clubs this season, ended last season across their final ten games.
Ipswich you will notice were sixth, Leicester ninth and Southampton tenth, and those were of course games against Championship sides. All three clubs will need a really big shake up if they are going to survive in the top league.
Manchester United being 12th in the last ten games, is no surprise, they were shocking towards the end, but notice that Aston Villa dropped to 14th across their final ten games when they were really trying to make sure of a top four finish.
AlthoughTottenham were even worse in 15th while trying to secure something, anything ,in Europe. Brighton had a total collapse and that dragged them down to 11th, They were seventh after 10 games on the same points as Newcastle with both looking for climb higher.
The table comes from The Fishy
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man City | 10 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 33 | 6 | +27 | 28 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 10 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 5 | +16 | 25 |
| 3 | Chelsea | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 28 | 16 | +12 | 23 |
| 4 | Crystal Palace | 10 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 24 | 10 | +14 | 20 |
| 5 | Newcastle | 10 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 26 | 14 | +12 | 20 |
| 6 | Ipswich | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 19 | 10 | +9 | 18 |
| 7 | Liverpool | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 21 | 15 | +6 | 18 |
| 8 | Everton | 10 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 11 | 12 | -1 | 17 |
| 9 | Leicester | 10 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 17 | 10 | +7 | 16 |
| 10 | Southampton | 10 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 14 | 16 | -2 | 14 |
| 11 | Brentford | 10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 16 | 13 | +3 | 13 |
| 12 | Man Utd | 10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 18 | 19 | -1 | 13 |
| 13 | Bournemouth | 10 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 13 | 15 | -2 | 13 |
| 14 | Aston Villa | 10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 17 | 20 | -3 | 13 |
| 15 | Tottenham | 10 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 15 | 19 | -4 | 13 |
| 16 | Fulham | 10 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 15 | 17 | -2 | 12 |
| 17 | Nottingham Forest | 10 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 15 | 17 | -2 | 12 |
| 18 | West Ham | 10 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 15 | 25 | -10 | 9 |
| 19 | Brighton | 10 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 18 | -13 | 6 |
| 20 | Wolverhampton | 10 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 8 | 21 | -13 | 5 |
What we might also recall from last season is that the three teams that went down, were the bottom three after just ten games – and indeed virtually the whole season. AFC Bournemouth did sink down to one from bottom after seven games but pulled themselves together to end up 12th. Otherwise, we pretty much knew who was going down from the start.
We might also notice that Tottenham lost at home to Bayern Munich in their latest pre-season game. There was a certain amount of talking up of the club with its previous pre-season games but these by and large involved beating Heart of Midlothian, Queens Park Rangers, Vissel Kobe, and a few other lesser teams. (Incidentally, quite a few websites seem quite reluctant to give details of some of Tottenham’s games – it is as if they have been relegated to “not quite as important as we liked to make out last year when everyone was still excited by their stadium.”
In fact it is interesting to see the contrast between clubs in the pre-season. Ten of the Premier League teams have been in the United States, which tells us quite a lot about how matters are going to pan out in the issue of having league games played there. Three went to the Far East.
The three biggest travellers (perhaps by chance or perhaps out of desperation to escape) are the three clubs that underperformed for part or all of the season after being greatly talked up by journalists. Manchester United have travelled 13,000 miles to escape the journalists, Chelsea and Tottenham are not far behind on over 12,000 miles.
It shows just how aware these clubs are of how awful they are. And how annoying journalists can be.