By Tony Attwood
Ignoring friendlies and charity community shield – yesterday was the latest start to an Arsenal league season since 2012 (that was a goalless draw with Sunderland on 18 August). And despite the impression you might have picked up elsewhere, it was Arsenal’s fifth opening day win in six years, having previously beaten Wolverhampton, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Newcastle United in the starters. The only defeat was to Brentford.
So, really not too much of a surprise, although little was made of the fact that last season Manchester United actually won their opening league game of the season. But these are details. ManU are officially a crisis club, and so their performance yesterday could be applauded. I am not sure anyone actually said they were “jolly plucky” but that was the general idea.
Mind you, I think the Telegraph has gone completely over the top by saying that “the home fans reacted with approval, even delight.” Their argument is that this was a glass-half-full match for Manu, so they were happy with an opening-day home defeat.
And that reaction I suppose, is part of the club’s decline. For as the BBC says, “Manchester United have now lost their opening Premier League home game in three of the last six seasons… having only lost their first match at Old Trafford twice in their first 28 campaigns in the competition.”
So this moderate reaction from some Manuvians was a trifle odd, given it gave the manager a record of seven wins, six draws and 15 defeats so far in his league career at what I guess is now called very old trafford, (what with them wanting to build a new one). In Arsenal’s last 28 games in all competitions, the record has been five defeats, 15 wins and eight draws. And in fact some of these games were a lot tougher than the ManU matches, as seven of them were in the Champions League.
In fact, in the last 28 league games Arsenal have lost two matches – both at home, once to Bournemouth and once to West Ham. But of course such a statistic might give the impression that last season, despite more injuries than any other team, Arsenal were doing all right, and that, as we known, must never be part of the narrative.
The Independent tells us that this was a positive ManU performance using their back-up keeper, leaving the reader with the impression that actually the home team had been jolly good, and Arsenal were party poopers by not letting the valiant home side get some points. Arsenal’s player ratings came in at 66 out of 110, while for ManU the ratings totalled 72. In short, according to the Express, Manchester Un were the better team. I always knew there was something fishy in Canary Wharf.
I know that there is a constant anti-Arsenal agenda in much of the media, particularly including the Express, but this really is taking things too far and of course, with figures like this one can understand a) why they don’t publish the total at all and b) why the two sets of figures are put in different articles.
I suppose the “newspaper” (I use the word in its broadest sense) feels it has many more Manu supporters and so wants to try and keep them happy. And maybe that is something we ought to remember when looking at the way newspapers treat football. Reality is not really the prime concern.
Anyway, Arsenal won, just as Arsenal won the opening game last season, and in the season before (2023/24) and the season before (2022/23). In fact, we have to go back to 2021/22 to find a defeat – and that was the season when Arsenal lost the first three league games but nevertheless ended up fifth in the league by the end of the season.
In that campaign, Tottenham actually finished up above Arsenal in fourth – as opposed to last season, where they just missed relegation. And yes they are actually above Arsenal at the moment in the league table…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 3 |
| 2 | Sunderland | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| 3 | Tottenham Hotspur | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 5 | Nottingham Forest | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 6 | Arsenal | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Unfortunately, if any supporters of the Middlesex team feel like crowing over that league table, their next match is away to Manchester City..
I know it’s early but……the top eight in the league for cards are Man City and seven southern clubs….and who’s already top with the most cards? Arsenal.
In a game where we got heavily ‘tackled’ far more than the opposition and where Zubamendi received a deliberate elbow to the face in the first few minutes, we saw the team from the North West receive zero cards. Still we can’t complain…Tony’s analysis before the game showed us what would happen and it did. Same old, same old. The only surprise was them not getting a penalty given they won quite a few fouls by simply falling over and throwing their arms in the air.
My mistake. Man U did get one card. It was zero goals that they got 🙂