- How to make Arsenal invincible: the media finally do Arsenal a good turn
- The situation of the abuse of young players: League and FA take no action
By Tony Attwood
What we all know, of course, is that Arsenal are having a tougher time of it in the Premier League this season, than they had last season. And that made me wonder, is it getting harder and harder to win the Premier League? Or put another way, is the standard of the top club in the league improving year by year?
Now this is an important point because if the standard is going up and up, that has an implication for the type of players that the club needs. If however, the standard is in effect remaining the same, then all Arsenal have to do is improve slightly on the level they got to during last season, and the season before.
To see how much Arsenal have slipped this season, and indeed how good the two previous seasons were, here’s a table that you don’t often see, comparing Arsenal at this moment with Arsenal at this point in previous seasons.
| Pos | Team/year | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Arsenal 2025 | 32 | 17 | 12 | 3 | 57 | 27 | 30 | 63 |
| 2 | Arsenal 2024 | 32 | 22 | 5 | 5 | 75 | 26 | 49 | 71 |
| 1 | Arsenal 2023 | 32 | 23 | 6 | 3 | 77 | 34 | 43 | 75 |
| 5 | Arsenal 2022 | 32 | 18 | 3 | 11 | 49 | 39 | 10 | 57 |
| 9 | Arsenal 2021 | 32 | 13 | 7 | 12 | 44 | 36 | 8 | 46 |
| 7 | Arsenal2020 | 32 | 11 | 13 | 8 | 47 | 41 | 6 | 46 |
| 5 | Arsenal 2019 | 32 | 19 | 6 | 7 | 65 | 40 | 25 | 63 |
What this immediately shows is that the current season is that not only are the last three seasons way above anything the club has done in the previous four seasons, this season is also not the absolute catastrophe that some suggest.
This season has the equal lowest record for number of defeats, and despite the vast array of injuries the defence has only conceded one more goal than last season. Indeed the defence is doing better than our best recent season: 2022/23.
Further, although the goal scoring has dropped it is still beyond the level of the three previous seasons. And we all know why the goal scoring has dropped: injuries.
But we can also ask, what did the form of the top club look like after 32 games this season compared to the last six seasons? And yes we can see that in 2019 and 2020 Liverpool and Manchester City shot ahead of the norm, but from 2021 onward the norm has been for the top club to have between 74 and 77 points – a range that Arsenal achieved in 2023.
So this season we have slipped to around 11 or 12 points below where we should be. In short having six games drawn, which we should have won. All we need is for half our draws this season to have had one more goal scored – which of course they would have had with our three regular goalscorers (Saka, Martinelli, Havertz) operating throughout. The chances of all three being injured together was slight – but it happened. But it is unlikely to happen again.
Top club after 32 games
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liverpool 2025 | 32 | 23 | 7 | 2 | 74 | 31 | 43 | 76 |
| Manchester City 2024 | 32 | 22 | 7 | 3 | 76 | 32 | 44 | 73 |
| Arsenal 2023 | 32 | 23 | 6 | 3 | 77 | 34 | 43 | 75 |
| Manchester City 2022 | 32 | 24 | 5 | 3 | 75 | 20 | 55 | 77 |
| Manchester City 2021 | 32 | 23 | 5 | 4 | 67 | 23 | 44 | 74 |
| Liverpool 2020 | 32 | 28 | 2 | 2 | 70 | 25 | 45 | 86 |
| Manchester City 2019 | 32 | 26 | 2 | 4 | 83 | 21 | 62 | 80 |
Since the gap that we are seeing with Arsenal involves the club scoring around 0.6 goals a game more, this suggests that nothing too much is wrong with the club. Something which returning to our previous level of injuries would in fact put right. Of course, Arsenal could go out and buy another centre forward, but then that would probably mean Havertz would want to leave, and if the new man got injured as Havertz did, we’d be back in the same position.
No, in effect what has gone wrong is that all three normal forwards have been injured simultaneously and for long spells and it has taken a while to overcome that problem. But as noted before if the solution is buying another goal-scoring forward, he will demand to play all the time, meaning one of our current goal-scorers will then want to leave, so nothing will be gained.
The fact is since 2021 the normal position for the top club at this moment is around 75 points and Arsenal are a dozen points below that. Six draws into wins, and that’s solved as it was in the previous two campaigns.
But while we are at it, let’s take a look at the foot of the league, and here we can see that the effectiveness of the lower clubs has declined. Considering the end of the season, the bottom of the league 2023/24 read
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | Luton Town | 38 | 6 | 8 | 24 | 52 | 85 | -33 | 26 |
| 19 | Burnley | 38 | 5 | 9 | 24 | 41 | 78 | -37 | 24 |
| 20 | Sheffield United | 38 | 3 | 7 | 28 | 35 | 104 | -69 | 16 |
But in 2019/20 the teams at the foot were doing a lot better
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | AFC Bournemouth | 38 | 9 | 7 | 22 | 40 | 65 | -25 | 34 |
| 19 | Watford | 38 | 8 | 10 | 20 | 36 | 64 | -28 | 34 |
| 20 | Norwich City | 38 | 5 | 6 | 27 | 26 | 75 | -49 | 21 |
And this was the general pattern as 2018/19 shows.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | Cardiff City | 38 | 10 | 4 | 24 | 34 | 69 | -35 | 34 |
| 19 | Fulham | 38 | 7 | 5 | 26 | 34 | 81 | -47 | 26 |
| 20 | Huddersfield Town | 38 | 3 | 7 | 28 | 22 | 76 | -54 | 16 |
In fact, the quality of the bottom three clubs has declined a lot in recent years while the quality of the top clubs has remained the same.
And overall this means Arsenal are now not as far off the top of the league as we might think – it is just a case of turning some draws into wins. But at the bottom, we might expect the three that come up to be the three that go down next time – and this to continue for some years to come.
Don’t forget how difficult our opening fixtures were compared to others plus letter of the law PIGMOL
3 factors contributed to us trailing behind Liverpool as far as we are:
1: The PGMOL and their cheating referees.
I know some, including Tony I believe, don’t like to use such direct accusations, but I believe that is exactly what they are. They knowingly and with malice of forethought apply the laws of the game upon us in a markedly different way to how they apply them to most other teams, especially our direct challengers. This view is upheld by the statistics, not just for this season but for the last 16 seasons.
Almost certainly cost us a minimum of 6 points. Probably more.
2: Injuries.
Nobody’s fault, not even Wengers, but it is the reality of what has happened.
Almost certainly cost us another 6 points.
3: Liverpool having virtually no injuries to key players.
Just one of those things.
Add to that the fact somehow Liverpool get awarded penalties for being sneezed on and don’t get anything like ‘the letter of the law’ applied to them as we do, and you begin to see why it was a struggle for us to challenge.
Just compare, as one of the guys, (sorry cant remember who. Mikey?) has already done, how differently we are treated by referees and VAR in Europe to what happens in the premier league.
Liverpool are a very good team, and may of won the league anyway, but given the diabolical treatment we have had from the officials, allied to our injury woes, we never had a chance.
So, the answer to your question is yes it is tougher…..for Arsenal, not necessarily for anyone else.
The ties are damning. With only 3 losses at this point in the season you would expect the team have more points and better position than they do.
Nitram, I agree that the referees’ malign influence has been a key factor, especially in relation to the number of draws, as noted by Gooner 72. The penalty awarded against MLS is only the latest example. Another notable case was Anthony Taylor inventing a non-existent foul so as to disallow our winning goal against Liverpool – that accounts for 3 of the current points gap between first and second in the table.
I have calculated that referees have cheated us of 12 points this season – although I have recently seen a report from Sky (of all people!) suggesting that 13 is the actual number.
I have identified the red cards for Rice, Trossard and Saliba, plus the penalty against Saliba for an accidental clash of heads as part of the supporting evidence. – In addition, there are other potentially relevant factors, such as the failure of referees to issue cards to our opponents, their reluctance to give penalties to Arsenal – even the Fernandes free-kick when Taylor paced out 12 yards instead of 10.
I am sure that others may remember more such incidents. I admit that there appear to be too many for my own memory capacity.
We are, of course, quite accustomed to this situation. It is not just characteristic of this season, but has been evident in every season since Mr. Wenger’s arrival in 1996.
Don’t forget the Havertz disallowed goal against Liverpool. That was a three-point swing.
I think 16 points have been stolen from Arsenal this season.