Why the top of the league is more interesting than the bottom

 

 

• Why defence isn’t everything but train drivers are rather necessary

By Tony Attwood

Liverpool win three games in nine and the headline is “Bradley shuts down Vinícius and shows Liverpool he can be right-back for the future”. 

To be fair, the Guardian, which runs the headline above, did get to Arsenal eventually, although you do have to go searching for the headline, which reads, “Arsenal make it 10 wins in a row as they cruise past Slavia Prague with Merino double”

But really, that’s how it goes: one win for Liverpool is more news than ten successive wins for Arsenal.   And there is actually a compliment in the Telegraph with “Back-up plan Mikel Merino Arsenal’s most deadly finisher in 10th straight win”. 

Still, maybe by the time the back up players are chopped to bits by defenders, the first choice players might be fit again.     Premier injuries has six Arsenal men firmly out, but no one waiting for a report, which curiously is actually is an improvement.    It would be interesting to see what happens if they all come back at once.

But still let us enjoy pondering the top eight in Europe – the clubs that automatically go through to the next round.  And there is a bit of a mathematical dispute here in that Uefa has decided (and the media in their normal kow-tow approach, accept every word the almighty say) that Bayern Munich are above Arsean in the league on goal difference – what with both clubs having full poins and a goal difference of +11.

They reach this conclusion of Bayern above Afrsenal on goals scored, which I guess is what it probably says in the rules.   But I think the achievement of having no goals against should be recognised, so since I draw up this site, I’ve put Arsenal at the top.   Just because I can.

What is interesting however is that Manchester City are in ninth position as they come to play Dortmund while there might be a few goals in the match between Inter Milan and Rafael Urazbakhtin who are coached by Kairat Almarty, later today.  Manchester City are playing Dortmund.

And as things stand there is a chance that four Premier League clubs will enter the next round – although of course such is the way of Uefa, we don’t finish this round until January.

 

	Club	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	4	4	0	0	11	0	11	12
2	Bayern Munich	4	4	0	0	14	3	11	12
3	Paris Saint-Germain	4	3	0	1	14	5	9	9
4	Inter Milan	3	3	0	0	9	0	9	9
5	Real Madrid	4	3	0	1	8	2	6	9
6	Liverpool	4	3	0	1	9	4	5	9
7	Tottenham Hotspur	4	2	2	0	7	2	5	8
8	Borussia Dortmund	3	2	1	0	12	7	5	7

 

So that is now ten consecutive wins for Arsenal stretching back to 24 September..  By my adding up, that makes it 21 goals scored and one conceded; that was a goal scored by Newcastle.   If we start from after that game, we have eight consecutive wins without a goal conceded, with 17 goals scored.    Or to repeat that the other way around 17-0 across eight consecutive games.  (It’s so good it is worth saying twice, I reckon).

But of course this is not the only way to read these results.   As the Guardian put it “Another game, another slew of records for Arsenal’s defensive machine. This time it included one that stretched back more than 55 years, when Leeds were the last English team not to concede a goal in their opening four matches, in the 1969‑70 European Cup campaign, under Don Revie.”

However, we should not get too carried away with such headlines, for the Sun goes in a different direction and runs with “VEN-CREDIBLE: Micky van de Ven scores absolute worldie for Tottenham against Copenhagen after picking up the ball near his OWN BOX.”   But I think we can leave them to their own little worldie.

But now, having done whatever they want to do concerning last night’s game the media have to move on, and on Saturday at 5.30pm we have Sunderland away, who are doing quite well themselves, aided by not playing in Europe, since as you might recall, they came fourth in the Championship last season.

Sunderland have won two of their last four Premier League matches, so they do have the ability to win things, but then we might notice that those two wins were against Chelsea and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

However, before turning away from the Champions League and focusing on Arsenal’s next game, it might be worth having a look at the rest of the Champions League table.  Because at the bottom in 35th and 36th position there are two fairly famous names: Benfica and Ajax, each with zero points, although they have both played only three games thus far.   On home territory Ajax are fourth at in the Dutch league and Benfica and third in their domestic competition.

Which just goes to show.   I’m not show what it just goes to show, but I am sure it just goes to show something.  Maybe it just goes to show that it is more interesting to look at the top of the league rather than the bottom.

 

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	10	8	1	1	18	3	15	25
18	West Ham United	10	2	1	7	10	21	-11	7
19	Nottingham Forest	10	1	3	6	7	19	-12	6
20	Wolverhampton Wanderers	10	0	2	8	7	22	-15	2