So, when I get up in the morning (ridiculously early I may add), the first thing I do is grab a cup of coffee, do my imaginary exercises, and sit down to read the hundreds of comments that came in after I closed my PC yesterday.
Normally their are a few disputes to be policed, but today was a good day and everyone seemed reasonably polite to each other for a change!
But one comment caught my eye, from Dan Kit, which read: “Arteta’s win rate at this moment in time reads 52% which is what Im interested in, and if im not mistaken is pretty poor. I stand by my opinion that he is the worst manager to rock up at our club since 1988, stats back me up.
So I thought that this statement needed to be fact-checked in the interests of fairness, so I decided to do some research.
So i started at Soccerbase, and checked Arteta’s record to date, and here it is…
Mikel Arteta
TEAM …..FROM ……….TO…. GAMES WON DRAWN LOST
Arsenal 23 Dec, 2019 Present 115…. 61… 22…… 32
So, Dan was not far off as that works out to 53% Win rate and (if my maths is correct) a 59.33% points haul.
So, now on to Arsenal’s other managers. Dan specified 1988, so I am starting with George Graham who was in charge from 1986-1995. Here is his record (The rest of the figures are taken from earlier research done by the excellent Bergkampesque).
George Graham 1996-1995
GP, 364 W, 167 D, 108 L, 89
Win % 45.88% Pts % 55.77%
Bruce Rioch 1995 – 1996
GP, 46 W, 22 D, 13 L, 11
Win % 47.83% Pts % 57.25%
Arsène Wenger 1996 – 2018
GP, 828 W, 476 D, 200 L, 152
Win % 57.49% Pts % 65.54%
Unai Emery 2018 – 2019
GP51, W25, D13, L13
Win % 49.0, Pts% 57.5
So, I am afraid that the facts do not back up Dan’s assertion that 53% is the worst win-rate recorded by any Arsenal manager since 1988. In fact the only coach with a better win rate was, unsurprisingly, our greatest manager of all time….
We also have to accept that Arteta may still be with us for many years to come, so it remains to be seen as to whether he can improve those figures in the future…
CASE DISMISSED!
Admin Pat