West Ham Skip Gleefully Up The Londonist Football League

Chris Lockie
By Chris Lockie Last edited 112 months ago
West Ham Skip Gleefully Up The Londonist Football League

Image by psyxjaw via the Londonist Flickr pool.

Football: it's bloody regular. Games come thick and fast with just the occasional pause for an international break, during which fans of most clubs sigh and twiddle thumbs in anticipation of the resumption of proper sport.

Football is so regular, anyone writing a monthly round-up has to time it very carefully to remain as relevant as possible for as long as possible. We should have done this last week, but London has many distractions, as you know. This is therefore a round-up for October that includes a set of early November matches, which will be redundant by tomorrow because there are more games tonight. Bah.

On we plough with the important news that, wait for it, Chelsea are still top of the Londonist Football League. We sense this will become boring very swiftly for all but Blues fans.

Londonist Football League Table

Team Games played Goal difference Points Points per game
Chelsea 10 16 26 2.6
Arsenal 10 6 17 1.7
West Ham 10 5 17 1.7
Charlton 15 1 23 1.53
Brentford 15 -2 22 1.47
Tottenham 10 -1 14 1.4
AFC Wimbledon 16 -3 20 1.25
Millwall 15 -4 17 1.13
Leyton Orient 16 -5 16 1.0
Fulham 15 -6 15 1.0
Dag & Red 16 -8 15 0.94
Crystal Palace 10 -5 9 0.9
QPR 10 -11 7 0.7

This will not stand; we're not writing every month that Chelsea have extended their lead at the top of the LFL because regardless of our well-honed neutrality there needs to be variety in life. We will have to start picking holes in Chelsea. For example, their points per game tally has actually gone down from 2.67 to 2.6. That's rubbish.

Arsenal are doing their best to keep up but it's West Ham making the major moves this month, leaping from 8th to 3rd in the table. Picture Sam Allardyce gaily skipping down the touchline as his charges record yet another famous victory, forgetting how he was about to get the boot a few weeks ago and probably will again soon when the fickle wheel of football spins back around (picturing Sam Allardyce skipping will brighten up anyone's day, trust us).

Charlton have started rolling downhill in the last few weeks but Brentford continue to hold their own following their promotion. Goals have been hard to come by for the Bees, but handy wins against Reading and most recently top-at-the-time Derby have plopped them happily mid-table in the Championship.

Incidentally, we refuse to make bread-based puns on Mark Warburton's name — that would demean us all.

QPR are still dreadful and Harry Redknapp still looks bored and/or livid in all of his press conferences. Harry's been watching the weird Rio Ferdinand Twitter story unfold in genuine bewilderment; he doesn't even know what Twitter is, our Harry (though we hate weeds that grow up between paving slabs we still at least know they exist). He's also having to deal with whether or not Adel Taarabt is fat. For everyone else, QPR are the gift that keeps on giving, though it seems owner Tony Fernandes may finally be losing patience.

London clubs collect amusing gaffers like Taarabt collects luncheon vouchers, and Millwall's Ian Holloway is a particularly fine specimen. We were all set to write how he was working his obvious Championship magic on the Lions following an unbeaten October but our failure to pull our finger out last week means we must now solemnly report that Millwall are on a dreadful run of one defeat in their last one game, 3-1 away to Watford. A London derby against Brentford is up next, following which Lions fans will be hoping not to hear more of this from their hyperbolic boss: "Eighteen years I've been a manager and that's probably the hardest one I've had to stomach." Watford are top of the league; he's not asking for much is he?

Meanwhile Crystal Palace have taken a tumble, and their own entertaining manager Neil Warnock has decided a run of dire results is down to his players being too nice, which brings us happily to the table that never lies.

LFL disciplinary table

Team Yellow cards Yellows per game Red cards Discipline points per game
Arsenal 24 2.4 0 4.8
Leyton Orient 33 2.06 3 4.69
Chelsea 20 2.0 2 4.6
West Ham 20 2.0 1 4.3
Millwall 20 2.0 1 4.2
Tottenham 18 1.8 2 4.2
Fulham 26 1.73 3 4.07
Crystal Palace 14 1.4 3 3.7
Brentford 23 1.53 1 3.27
Dag & Red 23 1.44 2 3.25
AFC Wimbledon 23 1.44 1 3.06
Charlton 21 1.4 0 2.8
QPR 10 1.0 0 2.0

Crystal Palace are very much the average team when it comes to being naughty or nice, so Warnock may need to look elsewhere for the cause of his team's current malaise. Indeed, London's filthiest player belongs to the Eagles - Mile Jedinak, with three yellow cards and one red already - and Palace have as many red cards as anyone else, joining Leyton Orient and Fulham on three each.

It's still Arsenal at the top of the nasty league though, despite their having received no red cards so far; Calum Chambers had racked up enough yellows for a ban before October was even done and Jack Wilshire is not far behind. It's odd, as the Gunners generally seem so loveable and 'hilarious'.

The eagle eyed among you will notice that we've ditched the 'penalties conceded' aspect of the disciplinary table. This is because it seems bafflingly hard to find out this statistic for any team below the Premier League without trawling through a month of match reports in which AFC Wimbledon "fired over from close range" and Charlton "gradually piled on the pressure". Please, please don't make us do that.

What we can say, however, is that Tottenham seem to have a ludicrous propensity for conceding penalties, hacking and booting their way around the box, with five spot kicks already against their record this season. If that continues it's going to be a long, trying season for Spurs fans, but when is it not?

Spare a thought for Dagenham & Redbridge. They are towards the bottom of the LFL table, and towards the bottom of the disciplinary table too. They managed a single win in October, against who-are-they Accrington Stanley, and lost last weekend to a 95th-minute penalty at home to Shrewsbury. Nearly all the words in that last sentence are depressing. The massive London derby against AFC Wimbledon in a couple of weeks is the Daggers' big chance to silence a few doubters; a repeat of last season's 1-1 draw will do neither team any favours.

Join us again next month for another incredible round-up you won't get anywhere else because we thought of it first and that would be stealing.

Last Updated 04 November 2014