Fair Play – Why the Arsenal fans need to improve!

Opinions are always divided especially when it comes to statistics. Selective usage of them can prove anything. Wenger’s background in economics means that he too heavily relies on statistics to make a certain point.

Some look at our Professor and suggest that he sounds more like a Politician than a manager of a football club these days. And you know what a politician sounds like when he is grilled by the opposition party. Yes, Crime has increased by 0.5% but few of the MP’s have now resigned so I expect that percentage to drop a little. (I made that up by the way, not the bit about the MP’s, that my friend is true).

In a country where Maths and Statistics are treated as the green vegetables that you know are healthy but would rather not touch because they aren’t as tasty as a kebab takeaway, numbers can sometimes create panic or conversely calm. Yeah, I know the metaphor sucks, your alternative suggestions are always appreciated. And so I came across the fair play league for the team and a league for the fans on the Arsenal website.

What did I find? Well, Arsenal finished 3rd in the Fair Play league (players). Only Fulham and Chelsea (remember Drogba didn’t play a few games) finished above us. This included points awarded for showing respect towards referees and only Fulham did this better than us. So for me, I look at those statistics and think our players did a good job in terms of their behaviour which is somewhat surprising because…

in the Public Fair Play League, we, the fans, finished 11th! Now I think us fans as a collective unit have to take responsibility for this. We expect our players to top the tables for almost everything and yet we fans aren’t in the top 10 ourselves. I suppose, the damage was done when a select few decided to boo the team when we were drawing games comfortably.

A slight disclaimer here, I do not believe completely in this table. For instance, Liverpool came 2nd and I distinctly recall the times when there was a negative vibe at Anfield. Still, we finished above Spurs so we aren’t as bad as their mob and certainly not as bad as the Villa fans who finished 19th. Champions League you say eh? More like Championship style support, Villans.

Not too long ago, number crunching revealed that Denilson was having a much better season than perceived by some of the Arsenal fans. And then statistics even went to suggest that he was the 16th best player in the Premiership. The truth for me is somewhere in between and like Tim Vickery said the use of statistics can only go to prove so many things. This is just an extract from that blog post,

“Witnessing the match stats being compiled has made me acutely aware of their limitations. Football is too fluid for the rigidity of the statistical mind. Has the ball been used well? This depends, surely, on the situation of the game, the zone of the pitch – on considerations that cannot be reduced to a statistic.”

That might indeed be the case, but one thing is for certain. Arsenal fans have to be more positive because 11th place in any league is simply not impressive. It is true, isn’t it?

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