Arsenal FC a very promising story

[Ledders]

Only if Wenger and Gazidis choose to be.

Henry was on boatloads more than every other player at the club during his prime.

Citing the wage structure is just an excuse to lose your best players and keep the accountants happy.

[arbboy]

With China being a major competitor for talent now (Oscar etc), looking to acquire "trophy assets" via marquee players at packages that on't make a great deal of sense from an economic perspective, is Arsenal more at risk than the other major UK clubs given the wage structures?

Tevez gone for £600k+ a week as well to the Far East.  Are these contracts water tight and the clubs actually good for paying them 100%?

[Karabiner]

I'm not sure why people still say that Ozil has no pace when he is in fact one of our quickest players.

[TightEnd]

With China being a major competitor for talent now (Oscar etc), looking to acquire "trophy assets" via marquee players at packages that on't make a great deal of sense from an economic perspective, is Arsenal more at risk than the other major UK clubs given the wage structures?

Tevez gone for £600k+ a week as well to the Far East.  Are these contracts water tight and the clubs actually good for paying them 100%?

many of the clubs are state sponsored, and prestige/marquee is everything. There are official government decrees that China "should become a global football superpower" Clubs have spent £800m on players this year alone

Reading the Oscar stuff there is no economic justification for it at all, its about establishing the game domestically whatever the cost. Furthermore Shanghai might lose the F1 Grand Prix and the Shanghai region wants all the toys and quickly within its football team to "compensate" for the loss of prestige if F1 relocates

this sums it all up http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/oscars-60million-chelsea-deal-leaves-chinese-media-fearing-transfer-bubble-a3422396.html

my question is the same really. if chelsea and others are losing players, what hope have Arsenal got with their (sensible) financial management when China comes calling?

[Karabiner]

I have a question for people who support other Prem teams, mainly the top 5:

When you play us and see Sanchez on the opposition team sheet you understandably feel a little shiver in your spine.

How do you feel when you see Ozil's name there?

don't support a top 5 team but will answer

like watching him when he is "on" but nowhere near the "you must account for him" threat that Alexis is, whether Sanchez plays up top, in behind out wide, desn't matter, he is a match winner.

i watched the match yesterday, where Ozil was "missing". City were there for the taking for 45 minutes and Arsenal faded badly in the second half. is that a fitness/conditioning issue, perhaps? if not, what is it?

Ralph bit my head off when i mentioned this last time but its a fascinating stat: Since Aug 2012, Arsenal have been 4/6 or bigger for 54 P.Lge matches. If you were on each one at 7/2 (to level stakes), you'd still be down.

You say "4/6 or bigger" and then "if you were on every one @ 7/2".

They seem like pretty random statistics to me and moreover I can't make any sense of them or their relevance.

Perhaps you could enlighten me.

[TightEnd]

Yes

its a stat from Arsenal fan Alan Alger, now a betway rep. @alanalger on twitter

the point is that he perceives Arsenal to be flat track bullies, winning when short priced favourites but rarely winning at prices 4/6 and above (which they will be in all the big games, as yesterday)

he contends that even if you took all those games and backed them to even stakes at 7/2 you'd still be down

it is, i think, an interesting take.

[POWWWWWWWW]

They're not "losing" Oscar though, they're selling him for about triple his actual value. He's bench fodder and every Chelsea fan is delighted to be selling him so this much from what I've read. You've only got to start worrying when they are paying so much over the odds for wages and transfers and top class players are willing to move to effectively retire. They're going to have to come in with nosebleed figures for the likes of Ozil/Sanchez and they are going to have to be willing to move. Can't see it happening anytime soon.

[arbboy]

Yes

its a stat from Arsenal fan Alan Alger, now a betway rep. @alanalger on twitter

the point is that he perceives Arsenal to be flat track bullies, winning when short priced favourites but rarely winning at prices 4/6 and above (which they will be in all the big games, as yesterday)

he contends that even if you took all those games and backed them to even stakes at 7/2 you'd still be down

it is, i think, an interesting take.

I think he said somewhere that the average price of that sample was just a shade of odds against (vast majority of these games are when they are away to mid table sides in the EPL and at home to the top 6) just to give an example of how far behind EV they are in this reasonably large sample size now over 5 years given you would still be showing a loss if you backed them around the 7/2 mark (this was a mythical price AA plucked out of the air to illustrate how far 'behind the spread' they are in 'big' games)

Arsenal are probably only bigger than 9/4 3 or 4 times a season (away to the fellow big 4/5/6 clubs) and never bigger than 6/4 at home to anyone in the EPL.

[DungBeetle]

Please can China come back for Ighalo!

[Archer]

the arsenal stat quoted today in the RPost since 2012 by the betway PR man was incredible if true.  50 something games at 8/11 or bigger since 2012 in the epl and they only won 9 times at an average price of 5/4.  Even if you backed them at 7/2 you would still be losing.  Just added to that awful stat today.  Thought it was just at Stoke away they couldn't get it done around the 5/6 mark not everywhere!

Flattrackbullies.com.  If they could just run to EV verses the top 10 they would have won a couple of titles surely since 2012?

Very much flat track bullies.

I was in an argument/debate elsewhere yesterday about Arsenal's weak spot against the better teams in the league away from home. Yesterday was more of the same.  They have won just 1 away game in each of the last 3 seasons against the 8 other teams that finished with them in the top 9:

13/14  W1 D1 L6
14/15   W1 D 2 L5
15/16   W1 D 5 L2

3 wins in 24 games there and most if not all would be included in the 50 games at 8/11 or above as per your 50 game stat. Those results are shocking and by far the worst record compared to the other big teams.


On similar lines and in games involving the Big 6, home and away, Arsenal are consistently off the pace. Points per game average since the start of 2011/2012 season:

City 1.60
United 1.50
Chelsea 1.47
Liverpool 1.31
Arsenal 1.13
Spurs 1.06

Quoting the above from a month ago because it links into the nice betting stat and the Arsenal "problem".

The horrible results against the tough away games against top 9 teams continues:

13/14  W1 D1 L6
14/15   W1 D 2 L5
15/16   W1 D 5 L2
16/17   W0 D1 L2 

That is an overall record of P27  W3 L15  and 18 points at 0.66 points per game. Arsenal are miles behind the other big6 teams in comparable games. For example Liverpool have 42 points from their 28 games and a huge 24 point advantage over Arsenal.

Does this fall on Wenger?


As for the City game, here is the MNF analysis from earlier:

[acegooner]

Haha, I've made some serious points in my previous posts that by and large seem to have been ignored. If this is an AKB thread just be honest and let me know and I won't bother any more.

This video perfectly emphasises my point. Unless the players learn that winning the premiership involves hard work as well as quality we will never win it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_qJm243irA

Gary Neville might be a naff manager, but he actually cares about us. He was quoted as saying if Man Utd couldn't win the league then he would want us to win, but you could tell the fustration on his voice in that second half and he's not even a fan!

[acegooner]

.

[Karabiner]

New Xmas song from Arseblog and Gunnerblog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5-yI1yu1Qk&feature=youtu.be

.

[Karabiner]

.

It's sometimes tough to get a bite on here when BigAdz is hibernating.

Merry Xmas

[Karabiner]

Well at least someone agrees with me about us missing Mustafi, none other than Tim Stillman:

http://arseblog.com/2016/12/pressing-concerns-for-arsenal/