Day 1 Aftermath: what have we learned so far?

 

 

By Tony Attwood

I am not sure too many people will bother with a league table this morning, but being Untold, we’ll include one for the six clubs that have won so far in the opening game

 

1	Brighton and Hove Albion	1	1	0	0	3	0	3	3
2	Arsenal	1	1	0	0	2	0	2	3
3	Liverpool	1	1	0	0	2	0	2	3
4	Aston Villa	1	1	0	0	2	1	1	3
5	Manchester United	1	1	0	0	1	0	1	3
6	Newcastle United	1	1	0	0	1	0	1	3

 

But more to the point is Kai Havertz, who scored at a time when the main ranting of the media is that Arsenal of needing to sign a new striker.

His best season for scoring was 2018/19 for Leverkusen when he got 20 goals in 42 (0.48 per game).  He never got near that at Chelsea with 14 in 47 being his best there in 2021/22 (0.30 per game).   Last season for Arsenal in the league it was 13 in 30 (0.43 per game).

But if we look at his goalscoring over the last 18 league games he has played it is 10 goals in 19 last games – or 0.52 goals a game – better than at any time in his career (10 in the last 15 in all competitions according to the Guardian).

Last season the top scorers got 27 (Haaland), 22 (Palmer) and 21 league goals, (Isaak).

Of course, the first thing to note is that Palmer played for Chelsea and Isak for Newcastle, showing that having a top scorer doesn’t help win the league.   But since Newcastle were 7th last season and Chelse 6th we can note that it can help the lesser clubs in the scramble for Europe.

Nor come to that does having the top scorer always help the club score the most goals.  Newcastle were the fourth-highest scorers last season and Chelsea the fifth (14 goals behind Arsenal).

Of course, it might be nice if some of those people who have spent the summer saying that Arsenal need a new centre forward, and those who bleated about Arteta blowing the entire Arsenal budget on Havertz, could come forth and apologise (we would of course graciously accept the apology), but I haven’t seen such writings as yet.

But as Arteta said, “Every player needs some time to adapt and get to know everybody – the club, the relationships, the system.”

So after just one game Havertz and Saka each have a goal and an assist – which although very early in the season (2.6% of the season gone in fact) – isn’t too bad a start.   

Gary O’Neil, of Wolverhampton, said he saw “lots of positives” in his team so maybe I should try and stop blinking because that is quite a bit more than I saw.  Last season Wolverhampton let in 1.71 goals a game – so two in the first match is pretty much their level.

Football Fancast however choose to focus on Kiwior with the headline “Time to go” and the storyline that “£20m ace looks like he could never play for Arsenal.”

Footballfancast however tell us that Arsenal have been chasing Mikel Merino (the midfielder with Real Sociedad) for over a month now and they are expecting a development there.  Reedit adds “Arsenal not expected to make any further signings this summer barring a late surprise, and they come up with the same name.

So the next game is away to Aston Villa who beat West Ham away. yesterday with Julen Lopetegui as their manager – the man who was previously manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers, which just goes to show how these things go around and around.  The last we heard of David Moyes was that he was working for Talk Sport which is probably about right for him.

As for the Wolverhampton manager Gary O’Neil he was sacked by Bournemouth in June 2023, before taking up the Wolverhampton job at the start of last season.

Which raises an interesting question about how these managers go around and around.  Since 2001 Wolverhampton have had eight managers and Arsenal four (this number obviously includes temporary managers such as Freddie in Arsenal’s case).

Changing the manager, like buying new players all the time, is what the media and some bloggers scream for all day long, and yet mostly it quite simply fails to deliver improvement.  Indeed quite often it can make matters worse.

So why do journalists and bloggers and other commentators keep on screaming for more and more new players and constant change of managers?   The model of this approach must be Chelsea which saw the club score 38 goals in 38 games the season before last.  

But the desire for a new manager continues because… 

a) The journalists love de-stabilising clubs since that is easy then to write about.

b) The journalists don’t bother to read the statistics and think that managerial changes do work.

c) The journalists know exactly what they are doing and love to de-stabilise clubs.

d) Writing about a possible new manager takes no research and little effort.

I leave you to decide.