As the graph shows fig 3 Man Utd have a better mean score through out 7 seasons. Manchester United mean points score was 80.14 closely followed by Arsenal who finished 2nd with a mean score of 73.85, a difference of 6.29 pts behind.
As you can see in Fig 1 some teams don’t have any points next to them. This is simply because they didn’t finish in the top ten. This is why their mean score will either be over or under estimated in the table, than teams that have finished in the top ten seven seasons consecutively. For example Aston Villa had mean scores of 56.35, the score is obviously greater than Ipswich Town, who only finished once in the top ten, with a mean score of 66. This tells me that the mean score may not benefit me if teams have not finished in the top ten over seven seasons consecutively.
Past meetings/ head to head
Arsenal and Man Utd are probably the top two teams in the F.A Barclaycard Premiership. In Fig 4 I'm now going to show you the past scores between Arsenal and Manchester United starting from 1992. I will now put this data in a table to show, wins, draws, losses, goals for, goals against, goal difference and points.
Table from fig 4
From this table I can work out the percentage of Arsenal beating Man Utd at home and away, I can also work out Man Utd chances of winning at home and away.
As you can see Manchester United have six points more the Arsenal, this maybe because:
- Manchester United have played at home once more than Arsenal have
Arsenal’s chances of winning at home against Manchester United, based on past meetings is 45%. Man Utd chances of winning at Highbury is 27%, this is an 18% diffference.
Manchester United chances of winning at home against Arsenal F.C based on past meetings is 50%. Arsenal’s chance of winning at Old Trafford is 17%; this is a 27% diffference.
Arsenal home (5/11) x100 = 45% difference = 19% higher chance of winning
Man Utd away (3/11) x 100 =27%
Man Utd home (6/12) x100 =50% difference =33% higher chance of winning
Arsenal away (2/12) x100 =17%
To do this you must (wins/played matches) x 100 = percentage chance of winning
This show that Man Utd have a better chance of winning at home against Arsenal than Arsenal winning at home to Man Utd. These stats may not be correct because other factors including referees, injuries and crowd attendance are all differing variables.
Predict league table for season 2003/04
Using fig 1 I am going to predict the premiership top ten tables for season 2003/04
- Manchester United
- Arsenal
- Newcastle United
- Liverpool
- Chelsea
- Leeds United
- Everton
- Aston Villa
- Blackburn Rovers
- Tottenham hotspurs
I haven’t put these teams in the top ten because they are not in the premiership table for season 2003/04
The teams;
- Nottingham Forest
- West Ham United
- Sheffield Wednesday
- Wimbledon
- Leicester City
- Derby County
- Sunderland
- Ipswich Town
The position of the teams may change for these reasons: Buying of new players, new management, injuries and the referee’s bad decision-making.
The importance of the top scorers from Man Utd and Arsenal
W>L: Number of games which, had the top scorer not scored would have been lost instead of won
W>D would have been drawn instead of won
D>LWould have lost instead of drawn
As you can see the table shows that Thierry Henry has scored more goals up to yet in the season. He also has a better average of scoring. Both players have scored once in seven matches but Henry has scored twice more in the “games scored two goals”. Ruud Van Nistelrooy has put three goals in one match bringing up his importance to Manchester United. Nistelrooy has scored 4 inside the 6-yard box, 10 inside the 18-yard box and none outside the 18-yard box. Henry has beat Nistelrooy by scoring twice outside the box; this show that Henry can score anyway on the pitch as Nistelrooy can only score in the 18-yard box.
The importance of the goals scored by both players are high Henry has saved 14 points for Arsenal but Nistelrooy has got 24 points for Man Utd, which means he is more important to man Utd. This maybe a bad thing because if he was to get injured the team may not be able to score goals, resulting in not many points obtained.
Conclusion
In this piece of coursework I was going to find out who were better Arsenal F.C or Manchester United. I started by doing the mean points they have scored throughout the seven seasons. I found out that Man United have obtained a better mean score than Arsenal. I then moved onto past meetings between the two teams. Man United also beat Arsenal by six points. I then moved onto the importance of top strikers to their teams. Man U had the more important striker, but I thought this could be a negative thing because if the player got injured the team may not score that many goals resulting in lost points.
I think that I have disproved my hypotheses because Man Utd have beat Arsenal more times than Arsenal have beat Man U, and Manchester Utd have a better mean score throughout the years.
Extension work
Fig 5 show that Arsenal F.C are catching up on Man Utd
Improvements
The way I think I could have improved my coursework would be to compare it with someone else coursework to get a clearer answer. I also think I could have done value of players and crowd sizes.
