Arsenal News » 14 extra points, 22 more goals and a better defence. That’s this season compared with last.

Below is an article by Walter Broeckx, but before that, a quick editorial, as it were…

I am still not sure if the correspondence following the post on 31 December was the funniest thing or the saddest thing I’ve ever seen on this site.

Even after the top of the article was changed to make it plain that it was all a joke at the expense of the doom and gloomers we still got loads of comments treating it as a serious piece of writing.

Except many of those were written by regular correspondents who were having fun by adopting the tone of the article and having a laugh at those who didn’t seem to get it…  In the end it became impossible to tell who was who.  Tragedy, comedy, the two merge…

But just in case you are still confused, the note at the top of the page is still true.  We support the Lord Wenger in all he does, and yesterday was just one of the more bizarre moments in the history of Untold Arsenal.

And now, back to reality…

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14 extra points, 22 more goals, and a better defence.   By Walter Broeckx.

Half way through the season and here I am back with another round in my comparison of our current season.

As before I take the same game from this season and just compare it with the corresponding game from last season. When I did this the first time after an international break some people said I was too soon to be comparing this season with the past one, but I still think it is a good thing to do this exercise a few times in a season and certainly when we are half way in the season.

One small point: for the new teams I just took the games from the teams of last season that went down. It’s not perfect but it is the best we can get in my opinion.

So for the new teams I compared them with the following fixtures : for Birmingham I took WBA, Wolverhampton replace Newcastle and Burnley replace Middlesbrough.

The observant reader will notice that there is no game included against Bolton. This to the fact that we still have to them for the first time this season.

So here we go:

Everton – Arsenal last year 1-1 draw and this year 1-6 victory.

Arsenal – Portsmouth last year 1-0 win at home and this year 4-1.

MU – Arsenal last year a 0-0 and this year 2-1 defeat.

In September first came the away game at Man City – Arsenal last year 3-0 defeat  and also this year 4-2 defeat.

Last year we won the game Arsenal – Wigan 1-0 and this year 4-0. The defeat from last year in Fulham – Arsenal 1-0 was put right with this year 0-1 win.

Arsenal – Blackburn were easy wins last year 4-0 and this year 6-2.

Last year we played WBA and won 1-0 but I compare them with Birmingham this year which we won 3-1. Last year we won the away game West Ham – Arsenal 0-2 and this year was a 2-2 draw.

We had to put something right against our rivals from North London after the 4-4 result last year and so we won comfortable with 3-0.

For the game Wolverhampton -Arsenal I compared this with Newcastle where we won there 1-3 and this year 1-4. Then came the trip to Sunderland and last year 1-1 draw could not be repeated as we lost 1-0. The 1-4 defeat against Chelsea at home from last year was almost repeated but it was 0-3 this year. The low point of the season.

Last year in the game Arsenal – Stoke we won 4-1 on the last day of the season and this year 2-0. Our most remembered match from last season at Liverpool when we played 4-4 was forgotten with our 1-2 victory this season. We then went to newcomers Burnley and I compared them with Middlesbrough  where we had a 1-1 draw and we did the same this year.

Then came the revenge for the 1-2 defeat against Hull and we send them home with a 3-0 in our favour.

Another game that hurt us last year was the home game Arsenal – Aston Villa which we lost 0-2 and this year we won 3-0. And finally game number 19 against Portsmouth where we won 0-3 last year and this year 1-4.

If we put all this  together we got 30 points with 29 goals for and 25 against in 19 games last season.

This season we got 41 points with 51 goals for and 21 against in the corresponding games.

So we did far better in the points won and also we scored a lot of goals by doing this. In fact we scored 22 goals more than last year. Also our defence has improved and let in 4 goals less.

We have an average of 2.68 goals per game and halfway the season we have 51 goals. Not that bad at all I would say.

Last year at the end of the season we came 18 points below first place. This year in the first 19 games we have got 11 points more.

If we also keep in mind the fact that we started the season with a front three with the likes of Arshavin – Van Persie – Bendtner and that 2 of those 3 are out almost since the end of October  and are still out these numbers are even more impressive.

And then add the fact that we did lost some points because we lost those 2 players and had to adapt our personnel and our system a bit.

I think these numbers are also stunning especially if you think of the many injuries we suffered during the season so far.

Walter Broeckx