Bottling It

If Arsenal fail to win the title did the bottle it? I guess it depends...

If Arsenal fail to win the Premier League there is going to be a subset of rival fans that say that Arsenal bottled it at the end.

We know how it will go, ‘Arsenal had an 8 point lead with 10 matches to go of course, they couldn’t handle the pressure and bottled it.’

There will certainly be some people that won’t be open to any sort of discussion and we should let them be and move on but for those that want to actually try and understand it could be an interesting conversation. For those people, I wanted to start laying the groundwork of understanding what it would mean for Arsenal to actually bottle the title this year.

I think the first place is looking at the actual expectations of the team coming in. Manchester City have been on a historically great run under Pep Guardiola putting up some of the best points totals in Premier League history. Arsenal on the other hand are coming off a 5th-place finish that was preceded by back-to-back 8th-place finishes. At the start of the season, City were favorites to win the title (90 points projected) while Arsenal was viewed as a team that could finish in 4th (68 points projected).

If you are a normal person you have taken this into account all season, waiting for Arsenal to regress back towards the initial expectations while expecting Manchester City to methodically pick up points. As the season has progressed Arsenal have defyed the gravitational pull back towards the chasing pack, holding strong as the solidly second-best team with their performance on the field.

It hasn’t been smooth sailing for Arsenal dealing with injuries to key players (the biggest losses being Gabriel Jesus after the World Cup and currently William Saliba) but overall the team has maintained remarkable consistency to pick up points.

I think this boils down to Arsenal are a very good team, they are deservedly at the top of the table (even if that means they have had some good fortune along the way) but they are still being chased by a historically great team where getting surpassed shouldn’t be all that surprising.

On the latest Stats Guy and a Civilian, Paul had a good idea of having me go and look up the final 10 matches for each of the Premier League winners to gauge what the typical run in performance looked like.

What I found is that teams on average picked up 23 points, winning 7 matches, drawing 2, and losing 1. Only three teams have gone perfect over the run in (Manchester United in 99/00, Arsenal in 01/02, and Manchester City 18/19) and only one team has failed to pick up more than 18 points (Manchester United 00/01, who went 4-2-4 picking up 14 points).

I think this helps to provide a baseline for actually bottling it. If Arsenal pick up less than 18 points (13 from the remaining 7) I think it would be fair to say that they bottled it, that’s just 4 more wins and a draw and if this team can’t do that they will have earned the title.

If they can match the average points haul of the Premier League winners, they will also be able to call themselves that.

Matchweek 32 Odds

The matchweek stats with Arsenal against Southampton on Friday night. This is the easiest match on paper left for Arsenal and is a great chance to right the ship after two tough draws.

The rest of the weekend is shortened with the FA Cup postponing matches. Saturday starts with a relegation battle and one of the few teams that has nothing left to play for.

The 7am (3pm kickoffs) feature the battle for the 8th best team (Brentford vs Aston Villa) and three matches with relegation implications.

I don’t have a strong preference for any of these matches so I will probably watch Goal Zone and which ever one is the main focus as we get glimpses of all the matches happening.

Hopefully St. Totteringham’s day doesn’t matter for Sunday but it could also potentially happen with a loss in this match.

Yee Haw!