Arsenal v Palace: what’s going on in the background

 

• Arsenal face Crystal Palace away: the form and prognostications

Now there has been a bit of rumouring going on that really, the club we have to watch out for, is Chelsea, with their strange financial processes and outreaching arms travelling in multiple directions. 

Indeed, we have to ask, how on earth it is that they can afford all those players and not get hauled before the beak with questions about where all the money came from.  And why were they putting players on eight-year contracts?   And exactly how did they persuade the league to accept the notion that having a company made up of Chelsea people buy the ladies’ team, was an at-arms-length deal with a totally unconnected company?

Don’t even bother with answers on a postcard for that one because if it is believable, it is probably wrong.

But even so, we now have Chelsea down as the outlier.  The club that has found its way around the rules.  A club that can in fact suggest that playing football is actually only a secondary concern for them, coming as it does a long way after the money-making issue of player trading.   But then, if the others really do suggest that playing football is what it is all about, well, Chelsea will go and do it, and win.   And then go back to the buying and selling.  That it seems is the message from under the bridge.

Except that the result today was Chelsea 1-2 Sunderland, and we found that rather jolly, the underlanders first win at the Bridge in over 10 years.   And my goodness, just look at where they now are in the league.

So here is the table at the time of writing

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	8	6	1	1	15	3	12	19
2	Sunderland	9	5	2	2	11	7	4	17
3	Manchester City	8	5	1	2	17	6	11	16
4	AFC Bournemouth	8	4	3	1	14	11	3	15
5	Liverpool	8	5	0	3	14	11	3	15
6	Tottenham Hotspur	8	4	2	2	14	7	7	14

 

It was their first victory at the crumbling bridge in over ten years, and came through a winner in time added on for winners, or something like that.

Meanwhile, Arsenal’s top scorer is still sitting eighth in the top scorers league, which shows the great value of having a multiplicity of scorers – the opposition never have a clue where the next one is coming from, whereas with ManC we all know a week before each game where their goals are coming from.

So moving back to the match forthcoming, we have Eze playing against Palace just after his big money money just like Ian Wright once did.   He gave Palace their first trophy last season in winning the FA Cup, which was rewarded by a place in the Conference League, because of ownership issues.  You might recall the Tiny Totts wanted him, but for some reason, he preferred Arsenal.  Ah well…   And he has already scored, although it was in the League Cup against Port Vale, but still they all count, and from what I hear, this season Arsenal are going after every competition they play in.  Apparently, there is a bit of space in the trophy room these days.  But although others may focus on this, we still keep an eye on the number of goals Arsenal have scored in the league this season, and pretty impressive it still is.