Adam and Scott get together to chat about the latest news in the Arsenal world. That of course, means we get to chat about the injury to Gabriel Magalhães.
How does the club cope with him out?
Is it Kiwor next man up or something more exotic?
How much blame does the club have for this and the other hamstring injuries?
Hamstring Injuries in context:
Arsenal are a bit above average (3.8 and 3.5 median) this season with there 5 total injuries. 3 of Arsenal’s have been to the level that they decided to go to surgery but it is one of those where we can’t really say with confidence that these were grade 2 or 3 injuries here.
Then, there is the other big news with fresh links to Viktor Gyökeres. This has been a more divisive link than many I remember in recent times and that means it makes for excellent fodder for conversation.
He has been a topic of our writing previously, which is linked here:
The big topics here are about the relative quality of the Portuguese League and how that translates for a player like Gyökeres, because there is no doubt that what he has done there is mighty impressive.
The major part here is that the difference between the top teams in Portugal and England is noticeable but it really drops off after you get past the top 4 teams. Elo ratings aren’t perfect here (they are also backed up by the Opta team ratings) but it is one of those things where the level is much closer to the Championship than the Premier League.
This is backed up by the wages that these teams have as well. Sporting laps the League with what they can pay and then it drops quickly. These are sums that are less than most teams in the Championship.
Viktor Gyökeres goals against the top Portuguese teams (in the league):
Benfica - 270 minutes, 1 goal
Porto - 247 minutes, 4 goals (1 penalty)
Braga - 263 minutes, 1 goal
0.58 Non-penalty goals over 8.7 90s played.
This dosen’t mean that players can’t translate from Portugal to the Premier League; I think it just means that it is important to have more skepticism about what the numbers mean and to have larger error bars with an expectation is adjusted down.
Here is how the adjusted numbers look compared to Havertz:
Thank you for listening!
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