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Recent articles here include
- Scandal of the referee for the Arsenal v Manchester City game
- Arsenal v Man City. The return of the demon after a 2 year banishment
- Arsenal v Manchester City. The background, the players, the stats
By Tony Attwood
The Premier League injury table makes the point of just how lucky Liverpool are at the moment, what with them being bottom of the table with zero injuries. Sunderland and Crystal Palace are also in that esteemed place with zero injuries in the first team squad.
Arsenal have five injury issues: Jesus, Havertz, Saka, Odegaard and White. Only Odegaard and White are given any chance of playing (just 25%) by the website, which shows how important the summer spending spree on backup players was.
As we have noted, but it bears repeating, Arsenal have remained unbeaten in the last four matches against Manchester City (two away draws, two home victories in the last two years), which is all the more remarkable given that it followed a run of a dozen straight defeats against the country (sorry, against the club) in the League matches.
Although of course, as we feel obliged to mention each time their name comes up (because others seem to have forgotten all about it) Manc still have 115 charges hanging over them. The story remains that the club has said that if the League proceeds further, the club will sue the League until it (the League) runs out of money, but of course, that is still just a story. There may be another reason why the League is taking so long to reach a decision. It is just that they are not saying and I can’t think of one.
Indeed, maybe the League can’t think of a reason not to find ManC guilty on all counts, which even the utterly gullible media will swallow, but simply don’t want to be sued by finding ManC guilty as charged.
Last season’s table shows that Arsenal had a noticeably different home record from Manchester City’s away record, and although only two games have been played in each category so far that appears to be continuing. But of course, it is hard to derive too much from just two games, so here is the difference from last season…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Arsenal home | 19 | 11 | 6 | 2 | 35 | 17 | 18 | 39 |
| 4 | Manchester City away | 19 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 29 | 21 | 8 | 29 |
Of course, Arsenal’s spending spree in the transfer window this summer means that not only does the manager have cover for each injured player, but it also increases the chance of changing tactics for playing against different clubs. For Manchester City, only one player has scored more than one goal – Haaland of course, with five. For Arsenal, three players have scored more than one goal. It makes Arsenal harder to mark.
Obviously, having a player like Haaland in the team is a great advantage to ManC, but Arsenal’s approach to having a number of different scorers (which has continued for the last three or four seasons) does cause defences greater problems – as long as they are not all injured at once, as happened last season.
But what we must keep coming back to is the fact that in each of the seasons from 2021/2 onwards (except for the injury-driven blip last season), the two outstanding teams in terms of goal scoring have been Manchester City and Arsenal (although you probably may not have read that in the media). But the fact is that even with all the injuries against Arsenal’s forwards, Arsenal were even then, the third top scoring team in the League.
So we can see the difference: Arsenal have backups to their top scorer, but ManC are far more reliant on their top man
In 2025, Arsenal knocked in five against Manchester City for the first time since 2003. It would be nice not to have to wait so long for another festival.
