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So five matches out of six after a champions league game for Arsenal is at home. I think Ferguson and Mourinho do have something to complain about.
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No they don't.
1) They've not offered any evidence that having the game following a CL game at home helps you win things.
2) The quality of the opposition matters as well as the location
3) In the light of the lack of evidence in 1), you can make an equal case that having the *previous* CL game at home helps, in which case Arsenal are obviously being discriminated against, since they have 5 out of 6 away, and doubtless some will be on a Sunday before a Tuesday CL game, which leaves you two days to recover. Which is baloney as well.
4) Picking statistics carefully to support your 'case' doesn't prove anything other than ability to read a fixture list - you have to look at these things over a whole season, which we can't do for 2005/6*, but we can do for every season since 1999, which amazingly enough proves that JM and AF are talking out of their orifices.
5) In order for them to have something to complain about (unless they're complaining about the actions of chance, in which case they should be addressing their concerns to God, or whoever invented mathematics) they have to put up some evidence that someone is fixing the fixtures. Instead we get idiotic and ill-informed conspiracy theories about David Dein, who is elected by all 20 clubs to the FA, and has nothing to do with Premier League fixtures, which are set, er, by the Premier League, not the FA. It's like complaining that the holes in the road are the fault of a Masonic conspiracy. If you met a geezer in the pub who started on like that you'd assume paranoid schizophrenia and try and move away quietly.
6) You're assuming that matches never get moved, which they do, particularly around European games or late in the season due to cup ties. You can only draw firm conclusions from matches already played, which as we've seen shows that there's no bias in favour or against any team.
*Or can we? Assuming Arsenal get through the group stage again, when are the next six matchdays?
www.uefa.com has 21/22 Feb and 7/8 Mar
Currently Arsenal have these matches scheduled around then:
25/2/06 - Blackburn (A)
11/3/06 - Liverpool (H)
After that it's 28/29 Mar and 04/05 Apr
1/4/06 - Aston Villa (H)
8/4/06 - Man Utd (A)
After that it's 18/19 Apr and 25/26 Apr
22/4/06 - Tottenham (H)
29/4/06 - Sunderland (A)
So three at home, three away, and two of the home games are tricky ones, plus we get to go to Old Trafford after a European trip again, if we get to the quarter finals.