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By Tony Attwood
It is not something you would pick up just by reading the articles ahead of tomorrow’s match, which focus in many ways on how utterly wonderful Haaland is and how he is back to his best as a “goal scoring machine” and more (see for example Not just a goal machine: new model Haaland can deliver early body blow to Arsenal), but the reality is Arsenal are the top scoring tam in the Premier League. As I say, that is not much mentioned.
And the fact that this is ignored really does show us how the news about football that we are presented with on a daily basis is warped and twisted. To read the news you’d think that ManC has scored twice as many goals as Arsenal
The season of course, is still young, so the statistics can easily change game by game, but the reality this season is that while Haaland has indeed scored more goals than anyone else (five in four games), their second highest goal scorer this season is Reijnders with… err.. one. Comparing that with Arsenal, we find that Arsenal have Gyökeres with three and Timber with two, which together makes up, oh hang on, ah yes, five.
And this seems a bit important given that this is a team game and the league table is based on, oh yes, teams.
But there is more to it than that, since in the four (and yes I know it is only four) league games this season Arsenal are doing a little bit better than Manchester City in terms of more games won, fewer games lost, more goals scored and fewer goals conceded. In fact leading to a goal difference twice as good as ManC
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Arsenal | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 8 | 9 |
| 8 | Manchester City | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 6 |
Which still doesn’t mean that Arsenal are bound to win, but it does make the point that sometimes one player scores lots of goals and sometimes the team does.
It also ignores the point, as we have mentioned often before, that a goal is a goal no matter who scores it, and there are dangers of having most of the team’s goals coming from one player, which is that the player can lose form or be injured. And Arsenal certainly suffered from the latter last season and this season with Saka.
In 2023/24, Arsenal in the league saw Saka score 16, Havertz 13, and Trossard 12. That made no headlines, but as a way of scoring goals, it was effective, especially as Arsenal knocked in 91 goals in that season. And it is still perhaps a little interesting that last season, when Arsenal were decimated with injuries, Arsenal were still only three goals behind ManC in the league (69 to Arsenal, 72 by ManC,)
Moving onto the team news, Mikel Arteta says there is a chance that Ben White, Martin Ødegaard and Bukayo Saka could be involved against City on Sunday, but he will make a decision after seeing them training on Saturday. This, according to the Guardian. However, in another report it is noted that “Martin Ødegaard has not trained ahead of Sunday’s game against Manchester City at the Emirates Stadium due to a shoulder injury.”
We also have questions hanging over William Saliba (often known in the media, for reasons that have never become clear to me, as “the Frenchman” who seemingly has recovered from an ankle injury.
This will be Arsenal’s second game against one of the other top teams (having already played Liverpool), while it is the first for ManC and indeed even after this weekend Liverpool will still have only played one of the other top clubs. Chelsea, we might note, have yet to play any of the other top teams of last season. So we might just wonder about why this is, and indeed, does it make a difference? Psychologically, it could – but of course, maybe it is all down to chance.
When he was asked if he saw Manchester City as title rivals, Arteta could have said the journalist, “That is one of the dumbest questions I have ever been asked,” but of course he was as polite as ever and noted that he knows the Manchester City set up rather well having worked there for three and a half years, and so of course he did have some insights into how they operate.
Arteta also has spoken a little about Noni Madueke, who joined the club from Chelsea and who has played for England all the way from under-16s up to the full England squad (a total of 51 games). Arteta said, “He’s a player with quality and talent that we didn’t have in the squad. He carries a threat and unpredictability that will make us better. So far, the impact he is having on the team is very positive.”
