Written by 26may1989

A few days ago, someone called JRS put up a link to a Twitter page operated by Opta, the collectors of statistics for all matters football. See http://twitpic.com/4t9shh.  I hadn’t seen it when it was published, but it had a table showing what the Premier League table would have looked like on 1^st May had all shots that hit posts and crossbars actually resulted in goals.  And the impact was incredible.

The top six places on 1^st May were transformed from this:

…. to this:

Of course, looking at the staggering 19 additional points we would have got in this Alice-in-Wonderland scenario of shots hitting the net instead of hitting woodwork, my first thoughts were “If only”.  After all, that magnificent victory over United on 1^st May would have seen us crowned champions with three games to go.  But thinking that way, of course, is pointless; this is a completely artificial analysis and United deserved to win the title because, in the real world, they did better than us, and better than anyone else.

However, there is still something interesting about the OptaJoe table, it still says something.  Specifically, it illustrates the significance of luck in football.  Of course, skill accounts for some of the difference between shots that hit woodwork and shots that hit the back of the net.  But the sheer scale of Arsenal’s 21 hits (and Chelsea’s 20) as compared with United’s ten hits take it beyond a question of skill.  The point is only underlined when one looks at the number of goals that would have been conceded (something that must be even less controllable, since it is a question of the opponent’s accuracy): United and Chelsea would have conceded ten more goals each, but Arsenal would have conceded only two more.  Less accurate shooting is one factor but, with these margins of difference, luck must also be an ingredient in the mix.

It’s not sour grapes to talk about luck; anyone who succeeds in sport depends, to some degree or other, on luck.  Last season, United were lucky and we were unlucky, but in the years when we succeeded (remember those?!), I’m sure we got the benefit of plenty of luck as well.  And who can argue that our epic league win back in 1989 was anything other than the pinnacle of good luck?  Beautiful, dramatic, fantastic: yes.  But also very lucky.

Quite simply, there are too many variables that cannot be controlled by individuals for luck not to play a significant part in sporting success.  It is an ingredient in sport, always has been, always will be.  In cricket, there are the dropped catches or even the occasions when a ball hits the stumps without dislodging the bails.  In horse-racing, there are the horses that collapse or trip while clear in the home strait.  The hope is that luck is not the dominant factor in deciding the big issues in sporting competition.  But in the words of that titan of philosophy, Larry King: “Those who have succeeded at anything and don’t mention luck are kidding themselves.”

Many factors contributed to our abject failure in last season’s run-in: personnel, tactics, refereeing decisions and player psychology, all played a part, of course.  But what the OptaJoe table underlines is the importance of luck.  The existence, nature and sources of luck (good and bad) have been the subject of philosophical and religious debate for millennia.  Buddhists, for example, dismiss the idea of luck, saying that there is a cause behind every event, even if that cause is moral in nature (karma).  But for my money, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34^th President of the US and a five-star general in the US Army, was closer to understanding the capricious nature of luck when he said “I would rather have a lucky general than a smart general. … They win battles, and they make me lucky.”

Perhaps Eisenhower would have shown Wenger the door for being so unlucky last season.  But I’m glad that’s one American who can’t influence our club.  We need the 2011-12 season to be different in a number of ways.  Here’s hoping one of the differences is that we’re luckier.