MOTD did give the expected goals stat. It was 1.63 for Manchester United and 0.29 for West Ham. Along with the other stats I reported here earlier, I’m finding it hard to accept that Manchester United didn’t fully deserve their win today.

You don’t always get what you deserve: if you did someone would have kicked Boris Johnson in the bollocks this week.

I'll have you know the EPL has the finest referees that money can buy.

Had an exchange with a Man Utd supporting person I know. Whenever Rooney's dive is brought up (and as aside despite clear video evidence they never fully admit it), they bring up Pires and Pompey.


First, the Rooney dive is clear cut. The Pires penalty is not. Second, Rooney's dive came at the end of the game. Pires' at the 28th minute. I asked him "Would you take odds that, that Arsenal side wouldn't be able to equalize over the next 62 minutes? Really? Consider Leicester has down a goal too."

A lot of 'you never knows' and 'you can't predict football' and such. But really. When we scored, we took the foot off the gas against Portsmouth. They were not a threat. We played for a draw but could have turned it on at any time.

Strange one that Armstrong wasn’t sent off for his studs to the thigh foul on Laporte yesterday. It went to var but wasn’t given. Plenty of Arsenal fans online pointing out Nketiah was sent off for something similar, and City fans pointing out Stones was sent off v Villa for something similar too.
Of course var is still the subjective decision of a referee but you’d hope that with the benefit of time to fully review that there would be more consistency and that as a ref group they have agreed what constitutes a red.
There will be plenty saying ‘if that was Xhaka’ and they’re not wrong. I can’t recall any time we’ve had a var review for a possible red and they’ve decided to keep it at a yellow or less.

Given that Rashford’s goal, an open goal tap in, would account for at least 0.9 of that xG the rest of the game ls chances would seem quite even. I watched the highlights and it does seem to be quite even, nothing clear cut for either side. A header each from a corner and a couple of shots from range from Fred and bowen- but the highlights didn’t show a single save required by either gk.
Man U deserve it because they created the one certain goal moment but from what I’ve seen there wasn’t much between the teams and it goes down as a marginal game that Man U found a way to win rather than a dominant Man U up against a dogged defence and top performing gk and they finally found a way through at the death

This is the xG map of the Man U v West Ham game. Location of shot and size of circle shows the chances of that shot being a goal (bigger is better). Lots of very low chance shots from range for Man U then one single great chance in the last minute.

I was fully persuaded by Bernard’s perspective until you posted that. Slam dunk.

Man Utd won. They pulled a last second goal out of their Arsenal. We can only control our results. We beat Burnley, we beat Tottenham when that match is rescheduled. We keep playing well. Other results become less important surprisingly.

I recall a frustrated Ferguson complaining other sides were bending over for us in the spring of 2002. I used to love hearing Man Utd fans at the pub in LA complain about how the opposition gives up early on us. As an aside, we made the same claim in Man Utd games as well...lol.

My guess is many opposition fans of our challengers would say Liverpool or Man City are 'letting us in the game' instead of we playing well.

We have Burnley, Woves, Brenford (at home), Watford, Leicester (at home), Villa. Tottenham in there somewhere or later. But this squad is more than capable of beating the aforementioned home or away. The effort I saw away at Liverpool would beat any of these sides if we take each seriously enough.

Tottenham are still in the FA cup. Man Utd are in both the FA cup and CL. This obviously works to our advantage. We are in a very good position. There are other variables that could affect things (transfers this month, injuries, red cards, etc.) but right now, we have the advantage schedule wise.

I hope Arteta has re-built the confidence of the team after so many massive disappointments
Lost to City despite playing so well
Lost to Championship side in FA Cup
Lost SF to Pool

Watching Everton and seeing their run of results just emphasises how bad that performance was to lose to them. Their only win in about 15.

I recall a similar one v Southampton when they beat us 4-0 in a run of 15 or so other winless games

Win today and we go 4th

If the goal was 0.9 of the expected goals, without it their expected goals would have been 0.73. West Ham’s was 0.29. I suppose the best thing you can do to translate expected goals into actual goals is to take the expected figure to the nearest whole number, as there’s no such thing as a part goal in actual results. The closest whole number to 0.73 is 1, and the nearest whole number to 0.29 is 0. So would 1-0 still have been about right? I suppose the difference between the expected goals is 0.44 if your 0.9 for Rashford’s chance is right, which is nearer to 0 than 1.

But Rashford’s chance was created and therefore, as you say, Manchester United deserved the win. However, it does sound a dreary game even if they deserved to win it.

Saw a documentary that said Ian Brady, the Moors Murderer partner of Myra Hindley, had an IQ of 170. So what, you may say. What I found interesting was them revealing it was actually higher than that of Albert Einstein, who had an IQ of 160.

I see how well we played for large parts of the game against City and Liverpool and wonder how we lost to Man Utd.

What seems evident to me is when we come to play we can beat anyone below City and Liverpool and give those two a good run for their money. The turnaround is astounding. We couldn't beat eggs the first month.

I harp on it because I think we take it for granted just how much of a turnaround we are going through during this season. The work now is to maintain it and get the points.

Even without that big one it looks like very much in United's favour. Pretty much nothing for WHU.

Looking at that bench we’re mighty close to having to call this game off. I wonder if the media will look at our bench and make any headlines showing that we are doing what we can to play games, probably putting out the least experienced bench and youngest bench in the league this season….

Why would the media take such a view? We have no Covid cases. We spent more than any other PL club last summer. We have Torreira, Guendouzi, AMN, Saliba, Balogun, Bellerin and Mari out on loan. Our first choice midfield is missing because of fully justified suspensions. There is no hard luck story here.

Dire...........

That scum player Aaron Lennon still playing football, eh?

Might be a long afternoon for Vieira.

sideways and backwards

I'm not talking about hard luck, I'm talking about the numerous references to how Arsenal should have been putting out youth team players and the similar number of references to Leeds doing just that against us.

The Burnley subs look a bit of a worry. Not looking forward to when they come on.

Martin Atkinson
Stuart Attwell
Mike Dean

Finally, some action from us. We need to show more urgency. Don't like the casual attitude.

Good chance for Ødegaard, but I think it would've been ruled off for offside had it gone in

Yawn

We look a little bit off the pace physically, which isn't strange. All these players bar Holding played three days ago

Can we put that Westwood yellow card in to the 'If Xhaka did that....' category?

Westwood gets clean away with a tackle on Gabriel similar to the bone 4hat Gabriel his 2nd yellow against City.

I’ve been 30 minutes and still haven’t scored !! WHY

Of course the premier league is about the first goal. Solid start, if they keep this up it’s coming

Totally agree. This is years and years of bad squad building.

Until this summer we spent millions trying to plug holes in the first team for a short term fix.

There were too many Mhikitaryans and not enough martinellis

Another example of a player who is given the benefit of the doubt when on a yellow against us. I'm not saying Partey deserved any benefit of the doubt midweek as it was a very poor tackle but there have been plenty of occasions when we dont get that final warning as other teams do.

This is poor.

Burnley are obviously aware that we played in midweek and they've been resting since sometime in mid-September, they're pressing quite hard. Hopefully we have something left in the tank for the second half, long rest after this game with the international break.

We need to get the ball out to Saka and martinelli more quickly. Too much sideways and backwards passing at too slow a pace.

Burnley did this same tactic to us and poached a late winner.

Since Jan 2019
Games played
Arsenal 114 Burnley 111

Fouls
Arsenal 1131 Burnley 1111

Red cards
Arsenal 14 Burnley 0

Arsenal have accounted for 11% of all prem red cards over the last 3 years

Crosses into the box in the air aren't finding anyone. Saka has his man in his pocket. Martinelli is being doubled up on. They are more fearful of him. We having a few of us in the box with sublime through balls is causing them problems or the Saka pull backs.

We gotta do something though. Burnley is happy soaking it all up. Had they had better quality they might have nicked one already.