Well, it makes a nice headline, but don’t get too excited about it.

This is one score line that we would much rather be on the other side of – and it goes a long way to explaining the relative fortunes of the two North London clubs this year.

It’s the score in long term injuries to important players. Tottenham have suffered three such blows this season so far. Arsenal have suffered nine.

The three Tiny Totts affected are Gallas, Dawson and Sandro*.

The mighty horde of Arsenal’s non-walking wounded comprises Wilshire, Vermaelen, Diaby, Santos, Gibbs, Jenkinson, Sagna, Mertesacker and Djourou.

Bear in mind that by ‘long term injury’ I do not mean three weeks out for a hamstring, or missing a few games with some knock or other. A long term injury is one that keeps a player out of action for a month or more. Sadly, in our case, it’s usually more.

Let’s examine the impact on the two clubs by looking at their five most important players.

I’m sure many of you will want to quibble with my selections for each club’s five crucial individuals, which is fine, but I’m writing this so it’s my opinion you’re getting. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. I have not included goalkeepers.

Arsenal’s Top Five: Van Persie, Wilshere, Vermaelen, Sagna, Arteta.

The Spudders’ Top Five: Bale, Adebayor, Modric, Van der Vaart, Dawson.

Added together, the total number of EPL appearances for Arsenal’s five is 67. For the Spuds’ top five it’s 85. That’s a significant difference.

If you hone it down even more, to the three most influential players on each team, the tally is: Spuds (Bale, Modric, Adebayor): 60 appearances; Arsenal (Van Persie, Wilshire, Sagna): 32.

In others words, the shabby shower from Riot Central have been able to field their very best players twice as often as we have.

If the statistics had been reversed (and Bale had been out for the entire season so far while little Jack had played every game) I suspect the league table would be looking very different and the Spuds would be outside the top four.

They are obviously a much better outfit this year than they have been for a long time. They have always had he ability to play good football at times, but this season they have finally added some consistency, but partly this is down to the exceptional good luck they have had with long term injuries to their best players.

Many of us hoped that the injury curse that has dogged us for years would finally ease up in the coming weeks, with the return of some fullbacks and even the possibility of a Wilshire reappearance on the horizon.

But the freak injury to Mertesacker on a pitch that looked as if it had just hosted the Horse of the Year Show soon disabused us of any optimism.

The BFG had slowly (particularly slowly on the turn) established himself as a key element of our defence – as his absence away in the San Siro helped demonstrate. For my money he is an automatic starter with one of Koscielny and Vermaelen alongside him, but now we probably won’t seem him in an Arsenal shirt until next season.

The injuries have all come in different ways so it doesn’t seem as if any blame can be laid at the feet of the club’s medical staff.

In any case, ever since the club invited journalists and bloggers to view its new medical facilities (in a move with more than a hint of “come to North Korea and see our happy smiling famers” about it) the sting seems to have been drawn from that particular issue. A rare example of a PR initiative by the club actually achieving its desired effect.

But the loss of so many key players for months at a time (including the loss of an entire speciality – full backs – for weeks and weeks) has clearly had a big impact on our ability to get a consistent run of form going.

There is an argument that our reinforcements are not up to it, but not many clubs have someone of the quality of Wilshire sitting in the stiffs, or third choice full backs who can come in and do a job at the highest level.

For me it is one of the biggest factors in the way we have functioned this season and I can’t blame anyone except that evil old hag, Lady Luck.

The club may have made a mess of its summer transfer business, and there is a very strong case for saying we could have done more in January, especially to ease the full back crisis, but no club could have suffered the extent of injuries that we have and still have achieved consistently good results.

RockyLives

* Apologies if I have missed any – I had limited research time. But I believe the overall point is valid. Certainly when you focus on the very best players for each club it is unarguable.

OK it’s been a bad week but let’s put our disappointments behind us and put our focus on what’s ahead. We have a very exciting run in for 4^th place, and a spot in the 2012/13 Champions League, with four teams involved – Arsenal – Chelsea – Liverpool and Newcastle. For the purposes of this item I’m going to make the broad assumption that it’s most likely to be either Arsenal or Chelsea that wins the 4^th spot even though both Newcastle and Liverpool are also in with more than a good shot.

There are 13 games left in the season and an analysis of our final 13 games in each of the 19 EPL seasons (shown below) shows that we have achieved an average of 26 points with a high of 39 points in 2001/2 and a low of 14 points in 1994/5, and last season we had only 18 points.

So it’s all down to the final 13 games to determine which team is most likely to win the 4^th spot. Both teams have been below par this season and both are in jeopardy of being knocked out in the last 16 of this seasons Champions League after Arsenal losing 0-4 to A.C. Milan and Chelsea 1-3 to Napoli.

Currently we are tied with Chelsea with 43 points each, we have the same goal difference of 13, and we are only in 4^th place by virtue of having scored more goals our 48 to their 44.

In the history of the EPL it has taken an average of 68 points to gain 4^th place, the highest being 76 points in 2007/8, the lowest being 63 points in 1995/96 and last season we achieved 4^th with 68 points.

I’ve compiled a chart (below) showing the final 13 games of the season for both teams and I’ve also filled in my personal predictions for each game – I have Arsenal beating Chelsea by 4 points.  I recognize that I’m being very optimistic as we would have to get  30 points in our last 13 games and we have not achieved that amount since 2004/5.

Play the prediction game yourself – How do you see the season ending?

Written by GunnerN5

The recent sacking of a very promising young manager by the name of Lee Clarke got me thinking about how difficult it must be to manage at the top level these days. After all, this is a manager who had got his Huddersfield side up to 4th in the table, and only 6 months previous, had gone on a run of 43 games unbeaten!

I spoke to my best friend, who happens to be a Terrier (Huddersfield supporter, not a dog!), and he told me that he was happy to see the back of Lee Clarke and in his own words said “he can take his 43 game run with him, most of them were draws anyway!”.

This shocked me a bit, and got me thinking about our own esteemed manager and how his previous exploits seemed to hold little weight when it came to our team’s relatively poor efforts this season. In Arsene Wenger we have a manager who has given us 2 domestic Doubles, a UEFA Cup Final, a Champions League Final, a state-of-the art stadium and some of the greatest players ever to play the game. Yet none of this seems to matter to certain sections of our support who would like nothing more than to see the Frenchman cleaning out his locker.

Is Wenger a victim of his own success?

Or do certain sections of our support fail to see the bigger picture?

Well personally, I believe it’s a bit of both. Wenger is a thinker of the game. He doesn’t live in the here and now when it comes to becoming a super club, he thinks about the future, and how he can BUILD a footballing force. Take Fabregas for example, Arsene saw something in him that he knew would make him into a future star. He saw the talent at 16 that we all saw at 23.
Or look at the move to the Emirates, Arsene knew that building a 60,000 seater was needed for the club to compete in future.
So what’s your point, I hear you cry!?

Well my point is this. Wenger’s downfall is due to his inability to satisfy the fans of the present. So many of our fans seem unable, or unwilling to look further ahead than Today. They don’t care if Wilshire is going to be the next best thing, or if Arsenal are going to dominate in 20 years time. They want trophies now, and Wenger’s inability to satisfy this greed could be his undoing. Fans don’t seem to realise or accept that Fabregas’ departure put paid to a plan that Arsene had been building for 5 years. A new team cannot be built overnight, espescially if you don’t have £500m to spend. Wenger has now got to build a new plan, and it takes time.

If you are one of these fans who see’s nothing but trophyless cabinets, and has no interest in what Jack will be like in 5 years time. Think about this:

In 2001 Leeds United were losing in a Champions League semi final. In 2012 they sit in 11th position in the Championship.

In 2011 Rangers won the league and cup double. They are now entering administration, uncertain of what the future holds.

In 2008 Portsmouth were lifting the FA Cup trophy. In 2012 they are trying to lift themselves away from relegation into League 1 after a 10 point deduction for going into administration.

Now I may not know anything about Arsenal’s bank accounts or financial stability, but I know for a fact that if they wanted to they could go into any bank in the world, borrow half a billion pounds, buy some of the world’s best players, and maybe win a few trophies in the next 5 years. If that happened, as fans of the here and now, we would lap it up. But how would we feel in 10 years time when the winding up order is sent out and we find ourselves struggling to survive?

Arsène Wenger isn’t a saint, and his tactics are leaving a lot to be desired at the moment, but next time you think about wanting to have a go at the Frenchman after a poor display, maybe just take a moment to look into the future, rather than just thinking about the present.

If you can’t do that, then ask a Rangers, Pompey or Leeds fan if they would give up their moment at the top for the future of their beloved clubs. I guarantee that, given the chance, they would start all over again.

I would love to see us give Arsène the chance to put together a new look Arsenal, built around the likes of Frimpong, Coquelin, Wilshire, Szcsesny, Ox etc, but if the Huddersfield situation is anything to go by then I can’t see it happening.

Arsène could be in the firing line at Arsenal FC, and it’s the fans who held him aloft as little as 7 years ago who will be the ones pulling the trigger. Fans who care not for the past, or the future, but the right here, right now.

Written by SlimGingerGooner

Arsène Wenger has never seen so much pressure from his own fans. His ability to manage this Arsenal team is being questioned, and according to some,  he is losing his grip on the modern game. But is he the only one to blame?

The year 2006/07 saw a major introduction into the Arsenal unit. No, it wasn’t the Emirates, it was the introduction of 2 billionaires. One was a Russian called Usmanov, the other an American by the name of Kroenke.

Have a look at this. Arsène Wengers stats prior to Kroenke and Usmanov make fantastic reading:

Matches between 1996/06

Games: 615, 356 won, 144 drawn, 115 lost

57.8% won, 23.4 % drawn, 18.6% lost

Matches since Kroenke and Usmanov came in 2007/09

Games: 244, 140 won, 54 drawn, 50 lost

57.3% won, 22.1% drawn, 20.4% lost

Matches in the last 2 seasons between 2010/12

Games: 97, 53 won, 19 drawn,  25 lost

54.6% won, 19.5% drawn, 25.7% lost

As you can see, Arsène’s record as Arsenal manager has dropped in the last 6 seasons. But is that his fault? Or are the major shareholders to blame? Prior to 2007 and the arrival of Kroenke and Usmanov,  Wenger sold players when he decided was best.

The likes of Overmars, Petit, Vieira, Ljungberg, Henry, Wiltord, Campbell etc were all moved on after we had seen their best years. Since the introduction of major shareholders, we have lost the likes of Flamini, Hleb, Clichy, Nasri, Toure, Adebayor and Fabregas, all at their peak.

Has Wenger had his hands tied, or as an Arsène supporter, am I clutching at straws? To be honest, until the club tell me something new, I may never know. But the reason I split the post Kroenke, Usmanov era in 2 is this: Fans are slating the club for a massive drop in form and ability over the last 2 seasons. Fans claim the club has been dumbed down in terms of ability and quality.

But do the stats REALLY show this? Yes, they have dipped slightly, but should a 3% swing in wins to losses really be deserving of the grief that Arsene is getting right now? Surely one of the reasons for this swing has to go down to the fact that this is probably the most competitive Premier League since it was launched.

There are now 7 teams fighting for a top 4 finish, and that doesn’t even include playing away games at Everton, Stoke and the like. And maybe the move to the Emirates has forced Arsene to look at options that he would have previously disregarded. Either way, if it came to a choice over Arsene, Kroenke and Usmanov, I know who I would rather have at this club.

Written by SlimGingerGooner