STAT ATTACK - issue 2

Just a short one this time.

Ahead of Newcastle v Arsenal on Sunday, I thought it might be worth having a look at how we've fared against them in the Premier League era.

Not well overall, is the answer... we've played against them 63 times and lost 40 - that's a 63% loss ratio, which isn't good at all. However... a lot of that is to do with Arsenal's Arsène Wenger period during which they never finished below 4th... and, of course the 14-year tenure of a certain Michael Ashley. 17% won, 19% drawn over the full Premier League period.

During the first 14 years, though, we only lost 50% of games against them (winning 25% and drawing 25%) which, considering what a force they were over large periods of that time, isn't that bad. That said, we only put more than one past them 6 times in 32 games. They did it 14 times to us in the same time frame so we were certainly second-best back then, too.

Then, during the horrible Sports Direct era, things got much worse. Arsenal won a whopping 23 of the 28 games they played against us, scoring 4 or more goals on 5 occasions. Of course, on one of those occasions, we scored 4 too, but shipping 63 goals across 28 games is shocking. That's 2.25 goals a game let in... when you consider that we've scored 1.84 per game this season, a high-scoring season which will likely be our highest finish since 2003, it's a horrible statistic. Almost as horrible as the fact we've lost 18 of our last 21 matches against Arsenal in all competitions.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. Since the takeover, we've won one, drawn one, and lost one. The one we lost was only Eddie Howe's 6th game in charge and we were rock-bottom of the league with 6 points from a possible 39. Eddie's mags beat Arsenal 2-0 in May 2022 and then, the following January, earlier this season, we were the very next team to keep Arsenal from scoring in the league, when we drew 0-0. In Arsenal's last 36 league games, we are the only side to have shut them out twice. Everton have done it once as well, but that's it - they've scored in every other league game they've played.

That, plus the fact that Arsenal have only won 1 of their last 5, has made us narrow favourites to win with the bookies. Now, I'm not saying that's what's going to happen, but I'm sure they consider us something of a bogey team at this point and, with Man City very likely to overcome Leeds tomorrow afternoon, Arsenal could have a huge mountain to climb to stay in the title race, if they don't beat us for what would be the first time in 3 meetings.

Both teams have scored in only one of the last ten meetings, so recent statistics suggest not betting on that. Before the 0-0 in January, there hadn't been a draw between the sides in 20 games, and there's only been three games in the last 21 in which 4 or more goals were scored, so it's likely to be a low-scoring affair too.

So... 4-4 anyone?

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