behind the numbers - 125 years of arsenal

8/3/2019 Behind the Numbers - 125 Years of Arsenal

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Behind The Numbers: 125 yearsof Arsenal

As Arsenal prepare to celebrate their 125th anniversary, ourstatistician Josh James takes a look at some of the overall stats from

the Club's history.

Arsenal have used 803 players and played 5,174 matches in their 125-

year history.

Of those 803 players, 83 (10.3 per cent) played just once, with more than

half (409) falling into the two to 49 appearance bracket. At the other end of

the scale, 198 players (24.7 per cent) have so far made it into triple figures,

while an elite band of just 20 players went on to play 400 games or more.

Theo Walcott looks set to become the 100th Arsenal player to reach a

double century of appearances he is just six away from the milestone.

Leading the way overall is David O'Leary, who played 722 times between

1975 and 1993.

Collectively the top nine appearance makers had 5,289 games under their

belts - that's enough to have played every single match in the Club's

history between them. Indeed O'Leary himself featured in 13.9 per cent of

the Club's total games.

ALL-TIME APPEARANCES

League FA Cup League Cup Europe C/Shield Total

David O'Leary 558 70 70 21 3 722

Tony Adams 504 54 59 48 4 669

George Armstrong 500 60 35 26 0 621
http://www.arsenal.com/first-team/players/theo-walcotthttp://www.arsenal.com/first-team/players/theo-walcott


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Lee Dixon 458 54 45 57 5 619

Nigel Winterburn 440 47 49 43 5 584

David Seaman 405 48 38 69 4 564

Pat Rice 397 67 36 27 1 528

Peter Storey 391 51 37 22 0 501

John Radford 379 44 34 24 0 481Peter Simpson 370 53 33 21 0 477

More than half of Arsenal's all-time players (471) found the net at least

once, with 205 (25.5 per cent) of the 803 reaching double figures or more

in the scoring charts. During the 125 years, Arsenal have scored a total of

8,745 goals, meaning each player netted an average of approximately 10.9

goals in his Gunners career (with a margin of error for own goals).

Bumping up that average considerably are the 17 members of the 100

Club. Just 2.1 per cent of all Arsenal players have reached triple figures,

yet between them they account for more than a quarter (26.2 per cent) ofall of Arsenal's goals.

Thierry Henry, with 226, is top of the pile, while Robin van Persie (113) is

the only current player with more than 50 to his name.

ALL-TIME LEADING GOALSCORERS

League FA Cup League Cup Europe C/Shield Total

Thierry Henry 174 7 2 42 1 226

Ian Wright 128 12 29 15 1 185

Cliff Bastin 150 26 0 0 2 178John Radford 111 15 12 11 0 149

Jimmy Brain 125 14 0 0 0 139

Ted Drake 124 12 0 0 3 139

Doug Lishman 125 10 0 0 2 137

Joe Hulme 107 17 0 0 1 125

David Jack 113 10 0 0 1 124

Dennis Bergkamp 87 14 8 11 0 120
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Of the Club's 803 players, 172 (21.4 per cent) of them played under

Arsne Wenger. Twenty-five of those (14.5 per cent) made just the one

appearance for the boss, though this includes 'active' players such

as Chuks Aneke, Daniel Boateng and Nico Yennaris, who may yet add to

their tally.

At the other extreme, Patrick Vieira was the only player to break the 400

barrier of games under Arsne.

Our current manager has taken charge of 872 games (16.9 per cent of the

Club's total), yet he has masterminded 20.8 per cent of all victories. Also,

the team have scored 1,609 goals in that time (18.4 per cent of total).

More than half of his charges (51.2 per cent) have at least one goal to their

name with 38 players reaching double figures. Robin van Persie, DennisBergkamp and Thierry Henry all netted more than 100 under Arsne

Wenger, and between them scored 28.5 per cent of the total under the

boss.

Just looking at the current first-team squad (not including those out on

loan), each Arsenal player, on average, has played exactly 75 games and

scored 9.7 goals each for the Gunners.
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Arsenal's game against Everton will be the Club's 5,175th all-time match -

they are looking for their 2,428th win.

The vast majority (82.6 per cent) of those matches have been in League

football, 8.5 per cent were in the FA Cup (including qualifiers) withEuropean football (which started for Arsenal in 1963) the next most

popular competition (4.5 per cent).

The overall win percentage for Arsenal's history is 46.9, broken down as

45.4 per cent for league football, 54 per cent in the FA Cup, 50.6 per cent

in Europe and 57.9 per cent in the League Cup.

There have been 15,072 goals scored in the 5,174 games, at an average

of 2.91 goals per game. The overall goal difference is +2,418.

To put these numbers into a more modern context, Arsenal's overall goal

difference prior to Arsne Wenger's arrival in 1996 was +1,635, while the

win average has risen more than two whole percentage points (from 44.7

per cent) over that same timescale.

The first game the Club ever played was on December 11, 1886 a 6-0

win over Eastern Wanderers in a friendly on Plumstead Common. That

result, however, isn't included in these figures below, as it is not counted

as an official senior first-team match. The first such match was actually

played on October 5, 1889 - an FA Cup First Qualifying Round match athome to Lyndhurst which Arsenal (or Royal Arsenal as they were then

known) won 11-0.

Because of interruptions due to the First and Second World Wars, this is

the 113th season in which Arsenal have played official first-team football.


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ALL-TIME RECORD

P W D L F A

League 4,272 1,939 1,069 1,264 7,145 5,418

FA Cup 441 238 100 103 797 461

League Cup 209 121 40 48 381 203

Europe 233 118 55 60 389 226C/Shields 19 11 1 7 33 19

Totals 5,174 2,427 1,265 1,482 8,745 6,327

ALL-TIME WIN PERCENTAGES

Overall 46.9%

All-time League 45.4%

All-time top flight 44.8%

All-time Premier League 53.7%

Overall under Arsne Wenger 57.9%

Overall under Herbert Chapman 49.9%

At Emirates Stadium 69.9%

At Highbury 59.5%

Overall at home 60.4%

A complete list of all 803 Arsenal players will appear in this weekend's

souvenir programme.

Josh James also provides the stats for the Arsenal Analysis pages of

the matchday programme. To subscribe, or buy online, click here.
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behind the numbers - 125 years of arsenal

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