Thinking of going to an away game?

Worried about your safety?

Here’s some top tips to get the most from your away day adventure.

Do your research. Take some time to visit the oppositions blog sites and get a feel for how the home team are doing. That way when you finally arrive at the ground you will be well versed in the local banter and you will be able to judge the mood. If you can find a blog that allows guest writers then you can even test your knowledge by writing a paragraph or two about the home teams current events.

Wear suitable clothing. Avoid anything associated with Arsenal. Top tip: buy the home teams shirt before you go and wear that. You could even get a matching scarf to blend in further. So you don’t feel like you’ve wasted your money, get the shirt signed by one of the popular home team players and hang it on your wall. That way you will have a souvenir of your great away day adventure.

Mind your language. Take a few weeks to train yourself to talk to the locals. When you’re talking about the opposition with the home fans use the words ‘our’ and ‘we’ to replace ‘your’ and ‘you’. For example, instead of saying ‘your left back is shit and you are going to get hammered’ say ‘our left back looks tired and I’d be happy with a point’.

Learn the songs. Before you go make sure you research the home fans songs and memorise them. Derogatory songs about Arsenal are especially valuable. During your trip you should visit some of the home fans favourite pubs and join in with a good old song song. This way you’ll have great memories to take back with you.

Buy tickets for the home end. You’re wearing the outfit, you’ve got the banter, and you know the songs, so why not go deeper undercover and sit in the home end. To make sure you don’t get exposed as the great Arsenal fan you are you should also think about cheering when the home team score. You could even go one step further and hug those around you when the ball flies past the Arsenal keeper.

Leave depressed. This is no time to celebrate an Arsenal victory. Moan about the referee and wait outside the stadium to throw things at your fellow Gooners. Top tip: The scarf can be a useful tool here as you can use it to cover your face so as to avoid getting recognised by your friends. Once home make sure you visit the home sides blog again and join in with the depressing breakdown of the match. Maybe offer to write a match report to round off your away adventure in style.

Finally, do it all again. You can never start researching early enough so ignore the midweek home game and get ready for your next away day adventure.

Stay safe Gooners.

Written by fgg

How would you begin to compare the teams at the top of the Premier League in terms of attacking efficiency? The team with the most points is the most efficient? Yes, of course, but let’s suppose we drill down to individual players and find a means of comparing them

Let’s begin by suggesting that a player getting an assist (yep, many will just say, ‘it’s just a pass’) is on a par with scoring a goal as without the crucial ‘pass’ the goal would not have occurred. So a player who achieves an assist or goal has affected the match outcome. Therefore if we total goals and assists for each player and work out how often these occur per match, we can get a rough guide to a player’s individual attacking effect for his team

Some Terminology

Agp – Actual games played = Total minutes/90

GA/app – Goal & Assist efficiency per app  (Total goals + Total assists)/(Agp)

Next, we could rank a player’s GA/app

Range (GA/app):

0.26 – 0.75 ( goal or assist per app ) (Average)
0.76 – 1.25 ( goal or assist per app ) (Good)
1.26 – 1.75 ( goal or assist per app ) (Outstanding)

If we examine the top 5 leagues in Europe, only 4 players fall into the ‘Outstanding’ range:

(Ligue 1) Ibrahimovic (27 goals, 11 assists, 2032mins, 25apps, 22.58Agp) = 1.68 GA/app

(La Liga) Lionel Messi (22 goals, 11 assists, 2009mins, 25apps, 22.32Agp) = 1.48 GA/app

(La Liga) Suarez (26 goals, 15 assists, 2520mins, 28apps, 28.00Agp) = 1.46 GA/app
(La Liga) Neymar (21 goals, 14 assists, 2336mins, 26apps, 25.96Agp) = 1.34 GA/app

Ibra (soon to be an Arsenal player J ) is playing in the dodgy French League, admittedly, but his stats have been superb throughout his career, so aren’t to be sniffed at.

Not surprisingly Barca’s frontline has the other three outstanding players (therefore we were always going to be on a hiding to nothing against such quality).

Now taking this idea to the Premier League, below is a rough guide on the “Attack – goal & assist efficiency” for the current Top 4 sides in the PL table.

We’ve mainly included those playing fairly regularly (at least 1/3 of total PL matches, i.e. 12 or 13 appearances and more) and only attacking midfielders and forwards.

Arsenal

Midfield

Ozil (5 goals, 18 assists, 2430mins, 28apps, 27.00Agp) = 0.85 GA/app
Ramsey (5 goals, 3 assists, 2218mins, 25apps, 24.64Agp) = 0.32 GA/app
Cazorla (0 goal, 3 assists, 1204mins, 14apps, 13.38Agp) = 0.22 GA/app
Oxlade-Chamberlain (1 goal, 1 assist, 924mins, 22apps, 10.27Agp) = 0.19 GA/app

Forwards

Giroud (12 goals, 4 assists, 1936mins, 30apps, 21.51Agp) = 0.74 GA/app
Sanchez (7 goals, 4 assists, 1746mins, 22apps, 19.40Agp) = 0.57 GA/app
Walcott (4 goals, 3 assists, 1288mins, 22apps, 14.31Agp) = 0.49 GA/app
Campbell (3 goals, 2 assists, 866mins, 16apps, 9.62Agp) = 0.52 GA/app

For interest

Welbeck (3 goals, 0 assist, 276mins, 5apps, 3.07Agp) = 0.98 GA/app
Iwobi (1 goal, 0 assist, 123mins, 6apps, 1.37Agp) = 0.73 GA/app

Brief Assessment

Mesut has tended to carry to team to some extent.  The otherwise unproductive midfield has been a huge disappointment. Santi has played in the deeper role to be fair, but Rambo and the Ox have not given us anywhere near the threat they are capable of.

Our forwards have generally struggled to contribute. Giroud has the best stats but as an out and out centre forward, you would probably expect that. Theo and Alexis have struggled to hit a decent run of form and Joel has spent much of his pitch time defending.

Leicester City

 Midfield

Albrighton (1 goal, 7 assists, 2440mins, 31apps, 27.11Agp) = 0.30 GA/app
Dyer (1 goal, 1 assist, 227mins, 12apps, 2.52Agp) = 0.79 GA/app

Forwards

Mahrez (16 goals, 10 assists, 2468mins, 30apps, 27.42Agp) = 0.95 GA/app

Vardy (19 goals, 8 assists, 2723mins, 31apps, 30.26Agp) = 0.89 GA/app
Okazaki (5 goals, 2 assists, 1638mins, 29apps, 18.20Agp) = 0.38 GA/app
Ulloa (3 goals, 3 assists, 684mins, 23apps, 7.60Agp) = 0.79 GA/app

Brief Assessment

Leicester City have produced amazing conversion rate stats with Mahrez & Vardy giving standout performances throughout the season. Ulloa has proved a super sub with high figures for low performance numbers. They seem to have little of the ball, allow the opposition plenty of shots, but convert an abnormally high number of their own chances.

Tottenham Hotspur

Midfield

Alli (7 goals, 9 assists, 2128mins, 29apps, 23.64Agp) = 0.68 GA/app

Eriksen (6 goals, 9 assists, 2312mins, 28apps, 25.69Agp) = 0.58 GA/app
Chadli (3 goals, 2 assists, 869mins, 22apps, 9.66Agp) = 0.51 GA/app

Lamela (3 goals, 5 assists, 1852mins, 28apps, 20.58Agp) = 0.39 GA/app

Forwards 

Kane (21 goals, 1 assist, 2741mins, 31apps, 30.46Agp) = 0.72 GA/app
Heung-Min Son (2 goals, 1 assist, 856mins, 21apps, 9.51Agp) = 0.32 GA/app

Brief Assessment

Totteringham seem to have found a balance, with everyone chipping in. Even those we may have previously regarded as reject such as Chadli and Lamela have performed fairly well.

Manchester City

Midfield

De Bruyne (5 goals, 9 assists, 1556mins, 19apps, 17.29Agp) = 0.81 GA/app

Silva (2 goals, 10 assists, 1678mins, 22apps, 18.64Agp) = 0.64 GA/app

Toure (6 goals, 5 assists, 2037mins, 26apps, 22.63Agp) = 0.49 GA/app
Navas (0 goal, 4 assists, 1639mins, 26apps, 18.21Agp) = 0.22 GA/app

Forwards

Aguero (16 goals, 2 assists, 1785mins, 23apps, 19.83Agp) = 0.91 GA/app

Iheanacho (3 goals, 1 assist, 414mins, 20apps, 4.6Agp) = 0.87 GA/app

Bony (4 goals, 2 assists, 1030mins, 21apps, 11.44Agp) = 0.52 GA/app

Sterling (6 goals, 2 assists, 1792mins, 28apps, 19.91Agp) = 0.40 GA/app

Brief Assessment

Aguero is class as we all know. De Bruyne’s injury seemed to wreck any chance City had of winning the title everyone thought was theirs. Iheanacho has excellent figures like Ulloa’s.

How about the stats of some of the other players who’ve had good seasons in the Prem?

Would they make a good shopping list of Premiership-ready purchases for the summer?

West Ham

Payet (8 goals, 8 assists, 1952mins, 23apps, 21.69Agp) = 0.74 GA/app

Liverpool

Firmino (8 goals, 8 assists, 1570mins, 25apps, 17.44Agp) = 0.92 GA/app

Everton

Lukaku (18 goals, 6 assists, 2514mins, 29apps, 27.94Agp) = 0.86 GA/app

Watford

Ighalo (15 goals, 5 assists, 2567mins, 30apps, 28.52Agp) = 0.70 GA/app

Chelsea

Costa (11 goals, 6 assists, 2017mins, 24apps, 22.41Agp) = 0.76 GA/app

Written by JM

(Good) Friday Rant

Who would have thought that the league tables at the end of March would be such a shambles! Third place is not so bad, is it! We would not mind third place so much if the first and second were occupied by the oilers, would we! They are a bunch of absolutely despicable cheaters assembled at great expense by equally vile millionaires. Plus plenty of money to spare to entertain incompetent and bent match officials. Truth be told, the only contribution to humanity these clubs have made is the substantial depletion of black money to fund their over-inflated egos. But no, the oilers are way out of sight of the leaderboard.

One would perhaps not even mind that much if the leaders were the dirty Scousers or the smelly ManUre dumps from the recycling grounds up north. Personally, I have some sympathy for them. In their vain desperation to qualify for Champions League, they have endured starvation to try and buy success. Little did they know that class cannot be bought, it has to be earned. No, they are not the culprits either.

Instead it is the Foxes whose real home is in the jungles, and the slimy green creatures from the swamps down in N17. What foolhardy audacity! A bunch of amateurs cobbled together in the market for cheap seconds and assembled in the curry capital Leicester are threatening to win the League. Just beggars belief! And together, the over-priced collection of ego-centric incompetent bunch of jokers from N17 are pretending to upstage them. Who would have thunk! Just disaster, unmitigated disaster!!

We have been patient all along. Since December, I have been waiting for the Leicester and Spurs bubbles to burst. We have patiently tuned in to every game hoping for ROLF moments only to witness frustration progressively piled upon us. What misfortune! While we toiled away in multiple competitions, notably fighting valiantly against the best teams in the world, the Foxes have cunningly used their lack of European misadventures to string together decent performances in the League. And yes, the Spurs had some European games, but these were only against the young boys from obscure locations that do not even have postcodes. Plain injustice, I say, just a complete shambles!

Rasp compiled a vote this week on what we think of the international friendlies, and I like most others thought they were a complete waste of time. But heh, wait a minute! Surely this is a blessing in disguise! The pretenders from the land of pickle and curry, otherwise called Leicester, have 10 players on international duty, including Vardy and Drinkwater for England and Mahrez for Algeria. Injuries to two of the three will do fine. To be fair, is that not what has consistently happened to the good guys in the past? Spurs have 14 players on international duty. OK, 4 of them are in the Belgian squad, so let us perhaps cut them a bit of a slack. But injuries to two of the others will be nice, particularly Dele Alli and Kane. Mind you, not big injuries, but only smallish niggles that take them out of commission until the Euros will be good.

The international break has come at a good time, I would say. Some break in rhythm and little niggles for Leicester and Tottenham will work just fine. Three cheers for the International Break! What do you think, AAers?

Red Arnie