Arsenal: Francis Coquelin Sporting Some Dubious Statistics

Arsenal uncovered a gem in Francis Coquelin when he returned from loan, but some dubious stats may shed some doubt. Do they really though?

Francis Coquelin was pretty much a Godsent when he came back from loan at Charlton Athletic to fill the void in Arsenal’s midfield. Finally they had someone that was a bruising tackler and specialized in doing the dirty work.

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Rather than just accepting that he had to do the dirty work, he thrived in doing it. He may have been undersized, but his zeal was enough to paper over that crack.

Slowly but surely he made a statement, solidifying himself as one of the top defensive midfielders in England.

But a recent statistical dive into Arsenal’s success with and without Coquelin, done by the facebook profile Arsenal Transfer Speculation and Rumors, has turned up that the Gunners are much better off without Coquelin. The full numbers can be seen here, but I’ll do some summarizing.

The main number here that is most shocking is that the Gunners have played 10 games without Coquelin and won all 10. In those 10, they have surrendered just 0.4 goals per game and scored 3.0 per game.

Meanwhile, in the 24 matches in which they have used Coquelin, they boast just 12 wins, seven draws and fives losses; all the while conceding 1.3 goals per game and scoring 2.2.

The question that accompanied the image was a simple one – is this something, or is it a fluke?

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The best response I saw was one particular comment that highlighted that this was a stat taking into account all competitions, including scrub FA Cup and EFL Cup matches where the Gunners almost always manage a clean sheet at at least a couple goals.

And that is a solid argument. I went ahead and dove into which FA Cup and EFL Cup games he missed and came up with four games – 5-0 at Southampton, 2-0 over Reading, 4-0 over Nottingham Forest and 2-1 over Preston.

That right there is an average of 3.25 goals scored to 0.25 goals surrendered. Which, considering how it accounts for 40% of the matches without Coquelin, is enough to skew the stats to support the claim that he isn’t used in smaller games.

Still though, he has massive games like the 6-0 win over Ludorogets, the 5-1 win over West Ham and the 4-1 win over Hull City. But three games out of the 24 the Gunners have had with him is obviously a bit less than the four of ten without.

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So yes, it looks to be hogwash and nothing more than circumstantial malarkey. And I’m so glad I found an excuse to use malarkey and hogwash in the same sentence.