Aston Villa v Arsenal, but were NOT top of the league!

 

 

• Aston Villa v Arsenal – where the teams have come from and where they are going
• The window is almost shut but some still keep buying. Villa v Arsenal

By Tony Attwood (and a grin).

Well, what more could we have asked for?   More goals I suppose, but that might have been a bit greedy, although as we can see from the table below, another one would have given us the top of the league spot all by ourselves. 

As it is the league table after two games has a somewhat familiar look after recent seasons, and in my normal pre-season nervousness I had imagined worse.   A slow start.  Difficult referees.   A fluke goal against… all that sort of thing.   But for now we have the table below and yes, I am showing it all, and yes that is after just two games, because yes, I really couldn’t believe that the Tiny Totts could actually begin with the opposite of our results.  At least not after having spent all that money.

Four goals scored by Arsenal and non conceded.  No goals scored by Tottenham and five conceded.   I mean, who predicted that?   (And yes I will shut up about them shortly, but this is just how I feel, and we live in a world where the media make excuses for Tottenham.  I mean 400 million euros on new players….)

But first, forgive me if I offer a league table because, well, you know…. do read it all the way through…

 

 

Of course I have the inherent wish for Tottenham to have a troublesome season as always – for me as an old time Arsenal fan that is part of the package inherited from my father and grandfather, where I grew up, where I went to school…..   But there is more to it than that.

The smile on Declan Rice’s face near the end showed me that he felt it too.   Arsenal were in control, but not over doing it, saving themselves for the months to come, knowing they were the Champions, knowing they were the best.  Villa were the pesky upstarts, trying to get one over on the established masters – the team that won the league by seven points.  (Oh yes and Tottenham are the team that spends a fortune and still can’t buy a win).

And let us be fair, maybe Jan Paul Van Hecke, Mateus Fernandes, Sandro Tonali and Savio will show that they are worth a third of a billion pounds between them, but with Tottenham 20th in the league it doesn’t look like that at the moment.   Hence I type with a smile.

Of course what could happen is that their directors will once again sack their manager and bring in another man who will then decided these players are not up to it and let them go at a massive loss in January.   Then the club will find they can’t pay the bills on the new wonder stadium and… but no, sorry, I am day dreaming again, and really there is no need, since we are top of the league.

As for Aston Villa who spent a quarter of a billion pounds on new signings this summer and are 19th in the league – but only because I put them in alphabetical order.  Actually to be fair to Villa they are equal with Palace and Tottenham.

Sadly of course the media doesn’t share my utterly biased via and the Guardian calls Aston Villa “work-in-progress” although they do have the grace to add that they left “David Raya untroubled”.   In fact I wouldn’t have been surprised to have found him reading a book there was so little for him to do.

And it is very important that we should (sorry, “that I should”) not get too carried away.  After all Aston Villa are really awful.  They are only the second team since records of this sort of thing started (which was actually in 2003/4) not to have a shot on target in either of their first two games in a Premier League season.   With last night’s performance they equalled the record of Swansea City in 2017/18.  Swansea came 18th and were relegated that year.  And actually while we are at it, they are the first team since QPR (currently in the Championship) to follow up on a top four finish by losing their first two games.

But perhaps what is most interesting is that the media are positive about Villa saying it was an improvement on their game against Brighton.   One report calls their approach “promising”.   And that made me wonder, if that is promising, what was Arsenal’s approach?

However I shall not worry too much on that issue.  It was interesting to see Villa’s rebuilding work (of the ground), after all.  I just wonder what their re-housed fans thought.  “I expected worse” was one comment I saw.   “A crisis at Villa park with potential silence,” was another.  Ah well.  Can’t please them all.