Recalling Recent Arsenal Novembers – Good & Bad News

Remember, Remember, blah blah November.

Apart from Bonfire Night and Thanksgiving (for you Americans only) what else makes November stand out? You see, it turns out that Arsene Wenger doesn’t like November. Are we going to jump on this revelation and facebook ’like it’ ?

The reasons for Wenger’s dislike of this month are down to “the volume of games” which make it difficult to maintain the fitness levels. More injuries = more fringe players come in leading to team instability. When this happens you get freaky results and the momentum created from previous months can be derailed.

The more vulnerable always seem to come unstuck this month. Last year Walcott dislocated his shoulder against Stoke on the 1st of November. Things are not so different this time around as we go into the match against Wolves with Clichy and Bendtner injured. Are Wenger’s comments on November there to instill a sense of caution within those who are fit to play?

I’ve included two tables to consider how statistically true the ‘November effect’ is. One looks at 5 years worth of November results before and including the Invincibles era (Pre). The other looks at the results after the invincibles era (Post). These focus on Premiership games only. We won’t talk about Carling Cup or European games, especially this one in Moscow where we lost 4-1 playing in a -10C temperature. Sorry but it reminds most of Arsenal in November.

PRE INVINCIBLES TABLE

POST INVINCIBLE TABLE

The Post’s defence has let in more goals than the Pre’s.
30 Goals leaked in 20 games is unacceptable for a team with title aspirations. Our defensive operations haven’t been the most solid this season so we will learn a lot more by the 31st of this month.
It is worth noting that 8 of the goals conceded by the Posts were in the 5-4 and 3-2 wins at White Hart Lane and Wigan respectively. Not to forget that last minute 2-2 draw against United. Hardly the results to indulge in negativity.

You could argue the November of 2008 was THE worst in 10 years.
We lost 3 games, joint top with the 2005 season. And the defeats were in considerably heavier margins leaving us with a goal difference of -4.
We did however conquer both United at home and Chelsea at the Bridge and this bodes well for our home game against Chelsea later this month.

Not the month to play promoted sides, especially away.
Crystal Palace got a draw in 04 whilst West Ham and Stoke defeated us in their first year back as a top flight side. Even the promoted Baggies got their only away Premiership point at Arsenal in this month.
One promoted team that we conquer was Sunderland in 2005. They were managed by Mick McCarthy who is the current Wolves manager, our first league opponents for this month.

The Post’s have lost more games.
35% of the games played in this month have ended in defeat, roughly 1 in every 3 games. Compare that to the Pre’s it is 1 in every 5 games.
Losing two more and winning two less directly brings the points difference to minus 6 points. On average in last 5 years, the difference between first and second place in the league is 6.4 points.

Like Wenger has hinted at, should we get the results right in November it puts us in a much better position for the next two months. The Premiership is notorious for its glut of matches especially in the festive period in December, a time where it is difficult to expect result after result. The African Nations Cup in January means we have to do without Eboue and more importantly Song. More about the Cameroon International on another day. As optimistic as I’d like to be, you can’t expect us to stay unbeaten in those two months.

Past record illustrates that the Posts fare best in November when we play just three league games. Guess what guys, we only play away at Wolves, Sunderland and later host Chelsea this month.

Even with a rather cautious forecast, we’ll end up with at least 5 points from these 3 games. It isn’t the best return but not the worst either. Crucially it ensures we stay unbeaten until December.