From the Orient

Two games and Arsenal can make history twice. Manchester United stand in their way both times.

First of all, this Sunday, Arsenal aim to take their unbeaten run in the Premiership to a record breaking 30 games (this is from the beginning of the season). Liverpool and Leeds United (along with Arsenal) hold the current record of 29.

Liverpool acheived this in the 1987-88 season, when United finished a distant 2nd in Alex Ferguson’s first full season in charge. Leeds United did it 1974. The record for the most unbeaten games in one season in top flight football is 30 matches and “belongs to the 1920 Burnley side”:http://www.sportnetwork.net/main/s37/st47504.htm. However, there is still a few more games to go before they can match Nottingham Forests 42 game unbeaten record (over two seasons).

The other record is the potential 4th sucessive FA Cup final, never done before. I think honour demands this is the one United should stop, as United claim to have the best FA Cup record. They haven’t lost a FA Cup semi-final in my lifetime. Given the Premiership is virtually over, and winning the semi is very important, given the potential “easy” final.

Whilst on this statistical run, it is interesting to compare Liverpools 70/80’s league dominance with United. The have “identical championship winning patterns”:http://www.napit.co.uk/viewus/infobank/football/premiership/index.php

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Liverpool  (starting 1976) WWxWWxWWWxWxWxWxxxxxx....x (until false)
Man United (starting 1993) WWxWWxWWWxW?

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? means this season, so Arsenal to win this year, but I predict two more championship wins before the empire falls.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 26th, 2004 at 11:12 and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.