Does a Good Pre-season = Good Results?

Arsenal beat money-loaded Manchester City 3-1 yesterday. I didn’t watch the match, but the highlights available online made it look as if we played well. A great result just before the start of a season! We didn’t have the ideal results in the Emirates Cup but we looked good in our other performances.

Some people think that pre-season results are a good indicator of how well one’s club is going to perform in the corresponding season. Let’s see how significant they have been for Arsenal over the last 11 years.

	Win	Draw	Lost	Points Per Game in Pre-season	Final League Position
2002/03	5	2	0	2.83	2
2003/04	3	3	1	1.71	1
2004/05	4	2	0	2.33	2
2005/06	6	0	0	3	4
2006/07	4	0	1	2.40	4
2007/08	6	0	1	2.58	3
2008/09	6	2	1	2.22	4
2009/10	5	1	1	2.29	3
2010/11	4	1	0	2.60	4
2011/12	2	3	1	1.50	3
2012/13	3	1	2	1.67	4
2013/14	5	1	1	2.29	?

The statistics basically show that there is almost no correlation between pre-season and league results. The Invincibles had the third worst pre-season in the last 12 years. The average number of points per game in pre-season when finishing fourth (2.38) is actually slightly higher than our average number of points per game in pre-season when finishing third (2.12). As shown above we shouldn’t be reading too much into pre-season results, but beating Manchester City 3-1 a week before the Premier League starts makes me feel positive about the season ahead.