Interesting...

No sense crying over spilt milk

Arsenal should not worry about Thierry Henry’s absence — they are better off without him. Since he arrived at the club in 1999, they have averaged 2.03 points per game in the 230 league matches he has started compared with 2.08 in the other 51.

Surely he has tended to miss relatively easy games, which have allowed his team-mates to fare well without him? Not so. Almost two thirds of the matches he has not started have been away from home. In addition, the 51 opponents in the games he has not started have been of average strength overall: their average finishing position in the Premiership in that season (or the present position of the four opponents Henry has not faced this season) is eleventh.



(From Today's Times)

The same nonsense 'statistics' argument was used by Bayern fans last season, after Ballack left them. Problem was: Their staff actually believed that also.

The result of that can be seen this season.

blutgraetsche wrote:
The result of that can be seen this season.

They beat a quality team in Europe for the first time in god knows how long?

Not that long ago actually. They beat Arsenal 3-1, for example.

But they've got beaten by end-table teams a couple of times this season already. Ballack was the man for the important goals, and they clearly miss him. With Ballack, Bayern would not have lost against Hannover or Wolfsburg.

blutgraetsche wrote:Not that long ago actually. They beat Arsenal 3-1, for example.

Arsenal are a chocolate tea-pot in Europe though.

But are very inconsistent in the league and clearly lack a leader on the field.

The issue is rightly made that Henry tends to miss the lesser games, although if he is carrying an injury there is no way he should play.

He hasn't seemed in top gear so far this season so I say givbe him a rest until he is fully recovered

Snowbispo wrote:
Arsenal are a chocolate tea-pot in Europe though.

Don't let the Arsenal fans read that.

Oh well, they'll storm this thread soon anyway I guess.

Edit: There they come....

blutgraetsche wrote:The same nonsense 'statistics' argument was used by Bayern fans last season, after Ballack left them. Problem was: Their staff actually believed that also.

The result of that can be seen this season.

Yeah nothing to do with the fact ze roberto also left, and hargreaves has been out injured basically the whole season.

It's a very interesting stat, if only because Arsenal fans love stats

I'm used to obispo's comments so now I just ignore them as you would a hobo being sick

It's an interesting stat but the performance without Henry is 2% worse than the performance with - a pretty marginal difference. By comparison 11th is 2.5% worse than mean final table position of 10.5th.

I think that you could also argue that for much of the period since 1999 there have been other 'big' players who the club could rely on, Henry is now the senior player. That may or may not have a bearing on the figures now.

However, i can remember similar stats about our performances with and without Steven Gerrard. I'd be interested for someone else to do the analysis for other high-profile players at big clubs.

L r d wrote:
Yeah nothing to do with the fact ze roberto also left, and hargreaves has been out injured basically the whole season.

It's a very interesting stat, if only because Arsenal fans love stats

Ze Roberto was actually injured often last season. But yes, losing him hurt them also. Hargreaves is missed also, of course.

But Bayern have good replacements on both positions, e.g. Schweinsteiger and Ottl. But in the central midfield, Ballack definitely is missing. They didn't replace him, and that has hurt them most this season, there is no doubt about that. Not just because he is a good footballer, but a leader as well.

Bayern are worse without him... but Chelsea are worse with him... Hmmmmm....

Roger_Hunt wrote:Bayern are worse without him... but Chelsea are worse with him... Hmmmmm....

Give him a couple of months before you judge him. Knowing him, I think that he will do everything not to fail, because he knows that back home, there is a ton of journalists and Bayern fans just waiting for that to happen, so they can jump on his back again.

agree with Blut but Ottl has not been that good since his MOM performance against Inter.

Ottl is a very young player, so it's only normal that he lacks consistency. Demichelis can play there as well, and he usually does a good job there also.

blutgraetsche wrote:

Roger_Hunt wrote:Bayern are worse without him... but Chelsea are worse with him... Hmmmmm....

Give him a couple of months before you judge him. Knowing him, I think that he will do everything not to fail, because he knows that back home, there is a ton of journalists and Bayern fans just waiting for that to happen, so they can jump on his back again.

I'm kidding

He needs time to settle.

But I still think he is too similar to Lampard for them to really play well together - and Lampard seems undroppable.

blutgraetsche wrote:Ottl is a very young player, so it's only normal that he lacks consistency. Demichelis can play there as well, and he usually does a good job there also.

He needs to add some attacking threat to his game too but you are right is young.

Yes, that is a problem indeed. It's less of a problem than the Lampard-Gerrard case for England (under Sven) though, because Chelsea have excellent holding midfielders. They just lack width, but even if they want to stick to their diamond formation, they can provide width with a new, more attacking RB, for example.

Threads that are nothing to do with Henry, turn into an Henry debate, a thread about Henry, turns into a Ballack debate

Lets turn it into a Liverpool-Man U argument.

18:5

How many times you won the premiership?

Or a debate about how Arsenal have suddenly become BIG game winners this season.

Man Utd 0 - 1 Arsenal

Arsenal 3 - 0 Liverpool

Yeah, in fairness though you can't count beating us 'cos we've been shit in the league so far this year.

Boro 2 - 1 Chelsea

Boro 1-2 United

Fletcher goalscoring superstar.

had to cheat

We didn't score from the freekick though?

cheaters

Bad goalkeeping.