1570 seconds – Arsene Wenger’s Red-Tinted Version Of The Truth – Post 11

“I hope [Cesc Fabregas] will not exchange shirts with players who try to kick him for 90 minutes and then say ‘Please can I get your shirt?”

After Sunday’s defeat at the Emirates, Anthony Pilkington reacted angrily about Cesc’s refusal to swap shirts with him, and a little media-furore has kicked up around it. For me, I couldn’t care less whether he swapped shirts; I think Djourou’s a better player, and his is the shirt I’d try and get (though he didn’t play on Sunday, of course). It’s the dismissive and disrespectful tone of Arsene Wenger that grates, and his wholly inaccurate summation of what happened.

 

Firstly, and most importantly, Fabregas was not kicked for 90 minutes. He didn’t feature in the game until (according to the official Arsenal site’s commentary, its 69 minutes)

67 minutes 43 seconds into the game, which was ended after 93 minutes 53 seconds – 26 minutes and 10 seconds¹.

During this 26 minutes, 12 free kicks were awarded – that’s an average of 1 every 130.8 seconds; just over two minutes. That’s quite a high figure, but it was towards the end of quite a tight cup tie, and both teams were pressing forward. Arsenal committed 5 of these, and Huddersfield 7 (including the penalty from which Arsenal scored their winner). So, Arsenal, during this 26 minute period, were fouled once every 224.3 seconds – almost once every four minutes.

This 26 minute period alone contained half of the fouls Huddersfield committed during the game; that must support Mr Wenger, surely? Cesc played for around a quarter of the game, but 50% of the Arsenal free-kicks were in that quarter-game. Arsenal committed 12 fouls during the game, which balances favourably with Huddersfield’s 14, but there isn’t a vast difference. It wasn’t a dirty game, by any means.

Of the seven fouls committed on Arsenal players during the 26 minutes of Cesc’s involvement, the player who was fouled is as follows.

Fabregas (68:54, 83:48, 93:53)

Rosicky (69:49, 89:27)

Koscielny (90:12)

Bendner (85:53)

Fabregas, then, the player who was dictating the play, ‘pulling the strings’ as the Arsenal website would have it, was fouled 3 times in 26 minutes. Once every 523.3 seconds – once every 8.72 (every 8¾ minutes). Now, if I was pushing on to a tired team, trying to pull strings and guide my team through to the fifth round of the FA Cup, I’d expect to bumped, bashed and kicked every time I touched the ball, as my opposition tried to stop me by fair means and foul.

By contrast, Alan Lee was involved in lots of free-kickery during the whole 90 minute period (he also scored). Here’s a summary of his involvement.

FKs conceded    (00:19 – Koscielny, 57:24 – Koscielny,

FKs awarded      (39:26 – Squillaci, 73:39 – Koscielny, 76:41 – Gibbs, 82:30 – Koscielny).

So, Arsenal conceded four free-kicks for fouls on Alan Lee. That’s one ever 23.5 minutes give-or-take. Note the 50/50 split of fouls by and for Koscielny and Alan Lee. ‘True centre-forward duel’ is probably how that would be reported.

I’ve established, then, that Fabregas was fouled more often in his 26 minutes than any other player, but one foul every 8¾ minutes isn’t ‘kicking someone off the park’ in anyone’s book.

The other factor that Arsene Wenger mentions is to specify that one particular player has been kicking Fabregas off the park – the one who asked him for his shirt, one Anthony Pilkington. Pilkington’s contribution to the disciplinary record of the game is as follows.

FKs conceded    (30:09 – Gibbs)

FKs awarded      (90:12 – Koscielny)

I think we can tell from those figures that Anthony Pilkington wasn’t kicking Cesc Fabregas off the park. Pilkington’s booking was unsporting behaviour, not a foul, and any contact he had with Fabregas, and any Fabregas had with him, was judged to be legal.

Arsene Wenger, then, probably needs to modify his statement.

“I hope [Cesc Fabregas] will not exchange shirts with players who don’t foul him once during 26 minutes 10 seconds and then say ‘Please can I get your shirt?’ after being booked for the same reason as he has”.

¹I will round this figure down to 26 minutes for reference’s sake, but anything worked out statistically will use 26’10, or 1570 seconds.

7 – FA Cup 2nd Round: Post 3.

This afternoon, Huddersfield Town played a second round FA Cup tie against Macclesfield, which was negotiated with no little panache, ending in a 6-0 win for the Terriers. Macclesfield are a division below Town, so I was never over-concerned that Town wouldn’t be able to beat them, it was just a case of making sure they played to their full ability, and three goals in each half suggests it was just that. So kudos to Macclesfield, but well done to Town, too.

As much as Town’s abilities this year points to a home game against a team a division below them being relatively easy to negotiate, history points to a similar thing. Town have lost in the 2nd Round of the FA Cup only 7 times in their history. In over 100 years of FA Cup entry, the 2nd Round has only cost Town a 3rd Round appearance on seven separate occasions, and only twice of those seven were at home; one in 1990 and the other in 1913. None have ever, incidentally, been in November.

Town’s only second round defeats (and hopefully promotion will ensure this statistic stays the same for a long time to come) are as follows. Note the strange 3rd December two years on the bounce, and note also the game between 1914 and 1973, when Town were largely in the top two divisions, which accounts for a large reason for this statistic. I have also, I ought to add, never seen Town lose in the 2nd Round of the FA Cup.

01/02/1913 - Huddersfield Town 1 - 2 Swindon Town;      17,585
31/01/1914 - Birmingham City   1 - 0 Huddersfield Town; 45,000
15/12/1973 - Chester City      3 - 2 Huddersfield Town;  3,296
10/12/1990 - Huddersfield Town 0 - 2 Blackpool;          6,329
03/12/1993 - Port Vale         1 - 0 Huddersfield Town;  8,602
03/12/1994 - Lincoln City      1 - 0 Huddersfield Town;  4,143
08/12/2001 - Mansfield Town    4 - 0 Huddersfield Town;  6,836