Where do Tottenham get battered?

Would you rather… support a team that wins every game 5-4 or every game 1-0?

Not seen reported but MTA statement (original Hebrew, not BBC excerpts) explained why they’re rejecting tickets for Villa. One reason was “fear of external extremists who have despicable views joining with their supporters (a thinly-veiled reference to Tommy Robinson). MTA don’t want to be linked.

As an Arsenal fan who does Euro aways and has no interest in violence when I watch football, I’d love a crackdown on all violent ultras but until that happens I don’t think it’s right to be selective. I think we are starting to see movements towards this though which is a positive!

OTOH, if the decision is due to worries about MTA fans, isn’t it a coincidence it was made two days after viral lectures from Birmingham Imams urging locals to “show no mercy”? Most Euro teams have horrible ultras but Israel’s treated different. Here’s one article www.memri.org/tv/asrar-ras...

TNT commentator referred to Atletico Madrid as “the Spaniards” against Liverpool. Is nationalising allowed in club football? Most of the team aren’t Spanish! Is there a less Spanish team than Simeone’s Atleti? You won’t catch them playing tiki taka! Which clubs most suit their national associations?

Have Arsenal learnt from Zagreb last year… or will they keep Kairat Almaty at Cat B prices?

I asked ChatGPT to compare world leaders to managers. Putin was Mourinho (Siege mentality, highly media-aware), Xi Jinping was Sir Alex (absolute control, internal discipline) and Trump was Warnock (bombastic, thrives on confrontation and division). Have you got anymore? Milei/Bielsa?

How much of a thing has to happen for history statistics to be relevant? Anticipating commentators declaring “Kane is the top Club World Cup scorer of all time” even though it’s in its first iteration… in current form… follow up - history stats from same competition with wildly different formats?

That would be 44.6%/23.9%/31.5%

Astonishingly close to a study of 5,301 matches which produced 44.9%/25.4%/29.6%!

Not bad for your sample size.

Assuming you wanted “Home wins”, based on a quick skim you were quite unlucky! Do you have the stats of Home/Away/Draw?

Compared with 2111 in the europa league quarters last year (using last years ELOs from that website). That’s quite the drop off! To show it a different way - last years average quarter finalist ELO is equivalent to Napoli and this years is Olympiakos!

I wonder how the average strength of teams compares between the carabao cup/fa cup and the europa. Eg are the ELOs of the round of 16s/quarters significantly higher in the domestic cups now that champions league teams don’t drop down. Would suggest domestic cups are now harder to win!

I wonder how the average strength of teams compares between the carabao cup/fa cup and the europa. Eg are the ELOs of the round of 16s/quarters significantly higher in the domestic cups now that champions league teams don’t drop down. Would suggest domestic cups are now harder to win!

MOTD commentator described being behind as “unfamiliar territory” for Newcastle as they’d won 8 of their last 10 matches. In my mind, losing 20% of your last 10 matches means they’d be relatively familiar with losing positions. How often does something have to happen for it to become familiar?

In light of Arteta’s yellow card and subsequent suspension for the final game of the season, how do teams statistically fare when their manager isn’t on the touchline? Do we see points per game significantly decrease compared to average (granted small sample size for any team)?

This headline is from Saturday night whilst City were in fourth. Can you make a late push for something you’re already on track for? (5th will get CL this year so they even have a cushion!)

Leeds were described as invincible at the end of their win against Sheffield United on SKY. On the one hand, they were on a 16 game unbeaten streak in the league but they’d also lost three games this season so certainly won’t be invincible and have lost in the cups. Is the invincible tag justified?

@arseblog.com @gunnerblog.bsky.social #arsecastextra. Goodly morning. Spent the weekend with the new Merino chant stuck in my head. What are some Arsenal chants that spent far too much time on loop in your heads over the years?