By Sir Hardly Anyone

As you may have noticed, Untold went down yet again.  Whether it is a deliberate attack by someone we’ve insulted or some technical fault that is really hard to trace, I don’t know.   But as ever we’ve continued to publish our words of wisdom on the Arsenal History website that we also run, and those articles are still on line:

• How come most pundits, managers and supporters get it so wrong most of the time?
• Fulham v Arsenal, the Untold predicitons and line up

Meanwhile of course the criticisms go on and on.   How about

£750M SPENT TO BE THREATENING FROM CROSSES IS A DISGRACE!!

I’m not even going to put a link to that.  If you are interested you can go looking.

But moving on and looking forward to the game this week as you will know we are playing the team in seventh in a league in which only the top eight automatically go through to the next round.   

Seven teams including Arsenal are all on ten points, with positions ranging from 6th (Bayer Leverkusen) to 12th (Lille).  Those which don’t make it into the top eight go into the extra knockout round to see who qualifies, so there is a big advantage in finishing in the top eight.

In the ten point group we have Arsenal with a goal difference of +6.  Below Arsenal are  Monaco (a goal difference of +5), Aston Villa (also +5), Sporting CP (+3), Brest (+3) and Lille (+2).  Bayer Leverkusen are also in the group on the same points but they have a better goal difference than Arsenal.

Assuming none of the clubs below that group manage to force their way into the top group, then it is going to be a dog fight between seven clubs all on 10 points for three places.  So not only is winning needed, but goal difference is going to count as well.

But we might also pause for a moment to look out for those clubs that are just below Arsenal and the other clubs on ten points.  Bayern Munich, Benfica, Atletico Madrid and AC Milan are all clubs that are used to making some progress in Europe, and at the moment have the horrific prospect of being reduced to fighting in the aforementioned play offs.   But that is not all, for below them we can also find lurking Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Manchester City, and PSV.

Indeed Manchester City are currently 17th in the League on eight points,   And you may have noticed that there are still some big names missing, such as Juventus (19th), Real Madrid (24th) and PSG (25th).  I don’t think Uefa quite expected it to work out this way, and will be a big miffed if the TV companies start asking for refunds, (or perhaps offering less money next year) if some of their favourites fall by the wayside so early.

Anyway, a win for Arsenal could help ensure an easy passage forward into the next round after the mega-league stuff has all finished.  So far three teams have gained no points, and one club (Liverpool) has won all its games.

Monaco will of course forever be closely associated with Arsenal as both were managed by Arsene Wenger.  He oversaw 349 games with the club, over a seven year period, the longest spell any manager has ever had in the club: 2635 days.   He then went to Japan to be head coach at Nagoya Grampus Eight before then coming to Arsenal .

Wenger had great success at Monaco winning the league and the cup with them, in a league dominated by much bigger clubs.  He managed Arsenal of course between 1 October 1996 and 30 June 2018, over an easily remembered total of 1234 games, including of course the Unbeaten Season (the final game of which I still remember in every detail – including the drive away from the ground on a North Circular Road over run by celebrating fans.)

Last season the league in France finished with PSG top, Marseille second, Monaco third and Lille fourth.   The League table at the moment reads… so I doubt the bookies give very good odds on predicting the French league table each year.

 

	Club	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	PSG	14	10	4	0	37	11	26	34
2	Marseille	14	9	2	3	31	17	14	29
3	Monaco	14	9	2	3	24	12	12	29
4	Lille	14	7	5	2	24	14	10	26
5	Lyon	14	7	4	3	26	17	9	25

 

It was interesting how easily Arsenal overcame PSG in their meeting earlier this season.  It makes me wonder just how strong the French league is.

More anon.