Arsenal fans have got used to the fact that Arsene Wenger has his own way of doing things and certain football principles that he sticks to even if it is not the best thing for his team at any particular time. That was shown again yesterday when after stating that he was not in favour of scrapping FA cup replays to ease the fixture congestion of big clubs and then saw his team forced into another unwanted game after being held to a draw by Hull City.
The Frenchman stuck to his guns after the game though, and accepted that replays are part of the competition. Wenger has always been in favour of using video evidence to make the game fairer as well, despite the widely held theory that big clubs like Arsenal are more likely to benefit from the controversial calls from a referee.
Video replays for penalty calls, sending offs and whether a goal should stand would certainly have helped Arsenal this weekend as we would have had two penalties and the game would have been wrapped up before Koscielny’s potential second yellow, but how would it have affected our race for the Premier League title?
Well a Metro report has helpfully looked at how every club would be sitting if this technology had been in use and while the theory about the lower clubs getting a rough deal is backed up by the report showing that four of the bottom five would be better off points-wise, it also shows that the officials have been affecting the race for the title in a negative way for the Gunners.
The data actually shows that we would be on exactly the same amount of points (51) as we are right now and that Man City would be three points better off with 50. But it also shows that the two teams currently above us in the table, Leicester and Tottenham would be six and four points worse off respectively.
All this means that if video evidence was being used the Gunners would be sitting right at the top of the Premier League table. So as well as being the right thing to do for the game in general, the Arsenal boss has even better reasons to want this technology introduced.