As I write this in the warm after glow of a hard fought won over a very good Leeds United team watching the other scores from the other matches come in – there is something wonderful about doing this when you’ve already got your three points in the bag – I find myself wondering what the pundits on Match of the Day are going to make of it, obviously as most people of my vintage I shall be watching it tomorrow morning!
Stats, stats and more stats
Now as many of my tiny number of regular readers know, I am a complete Arsenal anorak. However what I’m not bothered about is match stats. I imagine that whatever ex-pros are on the MOTD panel tonight/tomorrow will be full of praise for Leeds’s excellent first half and the general opinion will be that Daniel Farke’s team were unlucky to leave the Emirates empty handed today. I’m sure that they will search through the plethora of stats available and published these days possession, touches in the opposition box and (my particular bugbear) xG etc., they will find some data to back up their opinion. But at the end of the day, when the final whistle is blown, you’re walking home from the match or the pub, there is only one statistic that matters – AGS!
Actual Goals Scored
Any football fan will know deep down that no matter how the match as played out, whether you’ve spent 89 minutes behind the ball and score a last minute winner or you’ve battered the opposition all game and come away with a three or four goal victory, in reality the only thing that is going to really make you have a good weekend is the win! and the only way to get a win is to have a higher AGS than your opposition.
Winning is everything in football
I would imagine that my colleagues Kris and Niall, who both write superbly, on Leeds All Over will take a number of positives away from today. particularly given the aggregated 0-9 scorelines that we inflicted on them last season , but I can guarantee that they would have rather had a point or three to show for the work that their team’s excellent performance possibly deserved. There will be many people who disagree with this view and talk about wanting to watch the beautiful game being played with style and panache. But this is sport, not entertainment; I’ve said this many times before, but if you want to be entertained go and buy a ticket to a Robbie Williams concert.
It’s what Champions do
At the end of the season, we’ll know how important the frankly awful no show at Brighton turns out to be and whether the result of tomorrow’s genuine Super Sunday match at Anfield has any relevance to who wins the League, but May is a long way off and we have stared well and as long as we keep getting a better AGS stat than our opposition we will undoubtably be there or thereabouts.
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