Prolific Gunners leave legends in their wake

By Chris Harris

Another win, another glut of goals. Wolves were the latest team to fall victim to Arsenal's free-flowing, free-scoring start to the Premier League season when they succumbed to a 4-1 defeat on Saturday.

Arsène Wenger's side were given a helping hand at Molineux by two first-half own goals - although there's no reason to think Eduardo or Aaron Ramsey would not have finished the job if Ronald Zubar and Jody Craddock hadn't done it for them. However, the third and fourth goals from Cesc Fabregas and Andrey Arshavin illustrated how potent Arsenal are right now.

Saturday's quartet took Arsenal's tally for the season to 36 in 11 games, a scoring rate which keeps them on course to become the first side to break the 100-goal barrier for a Premier League campaign.

As our first table below shows, Arsenal are also on course to challenge a long-standing Club record.

In 1930/31 - the Club's first title campaign - Jack Lambert, David Jack, Cliff Bastin et al rattled in 127 goals at an average of 3.02 in each of their 42 fixtures. Incredibly, the class of 2009 are scoring at a faster rate - they currently average 3.27 goals per Premier League game.

However, Wenger's team will have to step it up even more to smash that Club record because they have four fewer games in which to eclipse Herbert Chapman's legendary side.

CHASING A RECORD?

Season	Goals	Games	Goals per game
2009/10	36	11	3.27
1930/31	127	42	3.20

Our second table underlines just how well Arsenal's recent scoring exploits compare with the Club's most successful teams.

We've calculated the total number of goals scored in the first 11 games of each of Arsenal's title-winning campaigns. None of those champions can match Wenger's current crop. The 1934/35 squad came close with 35 in their first 11 games - Ted Drake was in his pomp back then - but the others lag behind.

One more striking feature of Arsenal's free-scoring start is the manner in which their goals have been shared around the team.

In nine of Arsenal's 10 title seasons, the top scorer after 11 games had been responsible for between 31 and 49 per cent of his team's goals. The 1933/34 team bucked that trend slightly but no team shares out the goals quite like the 2009/10 vintage.

The current Arsenal side may have scored 36 times in the Premier League but their top scorer, Robin van Persie, has 'just' seven goals - only 19.4 per cent of his team's total. It's proof that goals can come from anywhere when you line up against Arsenal these days.

AFTER 11 GAMES

Season	Goals	Top scorer	% of goals scored by top scorer
2009/10	36	R van Persie (7)	19.4
2003/04	23	T Henry (9)	39.1
2001/02	24	T Henry (8)	33.3
1997/98	27	D Bergkamp (10)	37.0
1990/91	20	A Limpar (7)	35.0
1988/89	27	A Smith (12)	44.4
1970/71	22	R Kennedy (7)	31.8
1934/35	35	E Drake (15)	42.9
1933/34	22	C Bastin, E Bowden (5)	22.7
1932/33	28	E Coleman (10)	35.7
1930/31	33	J Lambert (16)	48.5

[Monday, November 09, 2009]

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