Stats prove Arsenal consistency and bad luck in EPL title races

I have said time and time again in recent years that Arsenal have been prevented from winning the Premier League by some awful luck. Whether it be a string of injury problems to key players or in one specific area of the pitch at the same time, it always seems to be us that suffers.

That is not always true of course, as all the clubs in the Premier League have their own problems to deal with, but the ones who do go on to lift the Premier League trophy at the end of a long season seem to be blessed with a bit of luck along the way.

It is not always on the injury front either, but can be key moments in key games going their way, decisions of the officials or even something as unpredictable as the fixtures falling the right way. Everything seemed to go the way of Leicester last season in this respect and the same can be said of Chelsea this time.

I know that a lot of Gooners out there, especially the WOBs among you, will say that I am making excuses and I often wonder whether I am being too biased, but I saw a stat today that suggested my theory is spot on.

The stat was a chart showing the total of Premier League points picked up by the current top six since old purple nose himself Sir Alex Ferguson hung up his hairdyer and handed over the Manchester United reins to someone else and the totals are as follows:

1. Man City – 280 points.
2. Chelsea – 279 points.
3. Arsenal – 275 points.
4. Liverpool – 255 points.
5. Tottenham – 253 points.
6. Man United – 248 points.

This will be the fourth season without Fergie and it seems a bit hard on Arsenal that we are right up with City and Chelsea on points when they have both won the title in that time and we have not really been close. We have been remarkably consistent but there has always been at least one side that has done better each season.

Liverpool and even the Spuds have come closer and that does suggest that with a touch of luck our ability and consistency would have led to at least one title. So do you agree that luck has been lacking for Arsenal and does that mean we should be more tolerant towards the under-fire manager?

Bob.

13 Comments

  1. Firstly, what these stats dont show is how often we drop points against the top 6 teams. we currently sit 10 points behind Chelsea and a 2nd win would’ve made that gap to just 4 points. SAF and Mou have won EPL titles by making sure they drop the least amount of points against top 6 teams.
    Secondly, in football its often the case of you making your own luck. Last season Leicester defended set pieces with Mahrez and Vardy up the pitch – that was the risk they took but it paid as they counter attack quicker.
    Most of our dropped points this season been due to poor performance on our side and not on unlucky decisions.

  2. To me your post raises the question : would you rather win the PL one year and drop out of the top 4 another, like Chelsea or would you rather finish top 4 consistently without coming close to winning the PL? For me I would rather have the chance to win and drop out for a period than knowing we will never win.

  3. shameful article in my opinion . we are the excuse experts of the premier league. when will we ever own up and say that we are just not good enough to win the damn league title.you can have all the stats that you like , but in my near 50 years of watching the mighty arsenal i can tell you that stats have never won a single game for us , ever !.under wenger we have surely become the purveryors of fine excuses for everything . i remember a time when we , the fans of arsenal , did used to laugh and giggle about alex ferguson and his lame excuses for losing . and here we are now , the kings of the excuse !, funny what time , and , bad management , will do to a chap .

  4. Hmmmmmm, a strong case can be made that a team needs things to go their way (call it luck if you want) to win one PL title. And I suspect even Leicester’s most die-hard fans would admit that many things went their way last year (dip in other teams, no serious injuries to key players etc). That in no way takes away from a fantastic achievement.

    But I think the “lack of luck” argument loses some strength when you look over a number of years – say, oh I don’t know – 14 years. Look at Fergie’s success over his last 14 years, can’t put that all down to good luck. Equally look at Wenger’s last 14, can’t put it all down to bad luck.

    The thing with Arsenal right now is that it feels like we would need Leicester type of luck (I.e. next to nothing to go wrong) in order to win the title. Whereas other top top sides seem to be a bit more resilient

  5. Let us not even talk about bad luck. We were literally handed a victory against hull. Also, let us not forget the wins over Burnley, soton at home and some soft penalties given to us. If anything off the top 6 side we have been the luckiest .

    Truth is our mentality sucks, we are more of a bottlers than anything.

  6. Last season was our chance and we just blew it. The loss ti rashford led united still pains me. And then losing to Swansea at home was just pathetic. We are bottlers , all we do is undermine other great managers and think everything attached to arsenal is gold. More than Wenger it’s our fans that frustrates me. We have made this club a joke, a once applauded club. We make some stupid statements in social media that we have become a laughing stock.

    Look at that arsenal fan TV, I respect couple of people there but the remaining are making this club a laughing stock. I am not doubting their passion for this club but to come week in week out talk crap about Wenger is a joke and then when we win he becomes the greatest manager that some even call him better than sir alex. I look at comments made by arsenal fans in twitter , it just embarrassed me. The other day some stupid idiot compared xhaka to scholes and even went on to say he is a better player than. And what was even more embarrassing thT fans agreeing with that guy. Who talks like that. Even the most deluded united and Liverpool fans wont say things like that.

    We have to grow up and admit we have to improve from the core. Last 14 years have blinded us thanks to Wenger and the club owners.

  7. What a pathetic statistic.
    So now the AKB’s are just searching for stats to make their master look like a god.
    look at the top ten richest clubs in the world to see who has won the least amount of european trophies. yep thats right the mighty Arsenal with no ECL trophy

    This is a list of our points for each season since the invincibles. just to show you that our second place finish last year was down to everyone around us being crap, not due to our improvement.
    2004–05 83
    2005–06 67
    2006–07 68
    2007–08 83
    2008–09 72
    2009–10 75
    2010–11 68
    2011–12 70
    2012–13 73
    2013–14 79
    2014–15 75
    2015–16 71

    Take a look at our losses under mr wenger
    8-2 EPL vs manure
    6-0 EPL vs chelski
    0-4 ECL vs milan
    6-1 epl vs manure
    0-5 league cup vs chelski
    5-1 league cup vs the scum
    Any other club would have sacked him but not us, he is making the yank richer every season and we are stuck with him.
    Oh and by the way the club is now worth 1.3 billion sterling seeing as we are discussing stats!!

  8. we can win today but it will not happen because Wenger will not play the right team because he have no balls my team to win today lw Lucas Perez rw Sanchez center forward wellbeck number ten iwobi xahaka elnenny mustafi Lauren Gabriell Gibbs

    1. I thought you were having a flash back there for a second, before remembering Kos’s first name.

  9. Interesting stat, but maybe you should put a little more thought into what it actually shows:
    1 ) We have had remarkable consistency (which we already knew as we so far have finished in top 4 every year)
    2) In spite of this consistency, we have not been able to actually win, because we have not won at the right time or against the right opponents
    3) As this is a consistent year after year, it is a reliable pattern, and they very rarely are rooted in chance/luck
    So which constant remains over the years? I think you can figure it out, if you really want to.

  10. Lmao we now blame luck for our problems what a new low, y’all know the real problem of arsenal unless u just don’t wanna admit it, it might be this season next two or four seasons but surely we will get change one day

  11. Excuses, we know our problem is our manager, we will never win ucl or epl under wenger and its kinda crazy dat he is still our manager till now, he should walk away if he fails to win the epl or ucl even if we reach the semis. Part of the problem is that we fans are fickle and will support him to stay if we beat bayern Munich forgetting the problems have not gone. He should leave at the end of the season

  12. That is interesting reading. I wouldn’t have guessed it’d be that tight at the top. Chelsea last season buggered them, but I’m really surprised with us being only five behind city. Seriously surprised, it shows that we’ve been better than utd if league got stretched out over seasons. If one season is extremely tough to lead the way, which it is, well season’s would be that much tougher. It seems to be about timing, pacing, if you were to go solely by stats.

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