Fulham v Arsenal: time for Arsenal to make amends – and the option of a new forward

 

 

• Would Arsenal season ticket holders really not go to super league matches?
• The defeat to West Ham: does this mean the title race is over?

By Bulldog Drummond

The Arsenal match tomorrow has surely become a “must win” game – if not we are most certainly in a dip in form, exactly of the type that scuppered last season’s hard work.  Here is the home and away breakdown for the two clubs this season.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
13	Fulham home	19	6	3	10	26	34	-8	21
2	Arsenal away	19	12	4	3	36	18	18	40

 

Once again this predicts a story of a clear Arsenal victory, but I am deeply conscious that for recent games such predictions have been woefully inadequate.   Although the fact is normally they are good guide to what will happen.    And certainly when we see that Arsenal have scored 36 away and Fulham have conceded 34 at home that ought to make us think of a positive outcome.

But the last six games table shows us just how up and down everything is at the moment, with Bournemouth sitting on top of the league, and only one of the teams fancied to finish in the top four at the start of the season (Liverpool) sitting in the top four across the last six games.   Manchester City, predicted by one and all to be champions again are even worse off than Arsenal over the last six games, now being in ninth.  I don’t normally run the whole “last six” table but this one is so topsy-turvey that I think it is worth a look.

 

Premier League Form (Last 6)

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Bournemouth	6	5	1	0	16	5	+11	16
2	Liverpool	6	4	2	0	11	5	+6	14
3	West Ham	6	4	1	1	10	7	+3	13
4	Everton	6	4	0	2	10	5	+5	12
5	Aston Villa	6	3	2	1	9	7	+2	11
6	Tottenham	6	3	1	2	14	11	+3	10
7	Arsenal	6	3	1	2	9	8	+1	10
8	Wolverhampton	6	3	1	2	9	8	+1	10
9	Manchester City	6	2	3	1	11	9	+2	9
10	Chelsea	6	3	0	3	9	9	0	9
11	Luton Town	6	3	0	3	11	12	-1	9
12	Brighton and Hove	6	2	2	2	10	10	0	8
13	Burnley	6	2	1	3	8	6	+2	7
14	Manchester Utd	6	2	1	3	5	9	-4	7
15	Fulham	6	2	0	4	13	12	+1	6
16	Newcastle United	6	2	0	4	6	11	-5	6
17	Nottingham Forest	6	1	1	4	6	13	-7	4
18	Sheffield Utd	6	1	1	4	4	13	-9	4
19	Crystal Palace	6	0	3	3	6	10	-4	3
20	Brentford	6	1	0	5	6	11	-5	3

 

So over the last six games Arsenal have out-performed Fulham, and on the home and away form this season the same applies.  Surely it is time for Arsenal’s bad run to come to an end.  But it is interesting to contemplate why six of our “big seven” are in fact outside the top four places, and why on this standard of play four of them would not qualify for Europe.

Although we usually go through the ludicrous lists of players linked with Arsenal during the summer (which reveals year after year that only 3% of the players linked with Arsenal by the ever-over-excited media actually arrive at the club) we don’t normally bother with such tittle-tattle in the winter window but one did catch our collective eyes…

Real Madrid set Kylian Mbappe deadline as Arsenal and Chelsea sent transfer update

Now before you get too excited let me say that this was on the Football.London website which has an accuracy record in predicting transfers which is worse than my ability at prediction results across the last two games.

The point is that Mbappe is running down his contract with PSG and it has just six months to go, leaving him free to negotiate a pre-contract agreement from the day after tomorrow.    Although he seems to have been around forever he is still only 25.

But of course Real Madrid are said to want him, not least because just when they thought Barcelona were finally bankrupt, Real Mad have a new rival in Girona (average attendance 12,500, average income… well anything you like).

 

#	Team	Pl	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Real Madrid	18	14	3	1	39	11	28	45
2	Girona	18	14	3	1	42	21	21	45
3	Atletico Madrid	18	12	2	4	36	19	17	38
4	Barcelona	18	11	5	2	34	21	13	38

 

But it is said in some quarters that Real Mad can’t afford Mbappe’s wages, and indeed that might be the problem with Arsenal.   However Arsenal are said to be near the edge in terms of FFP payments for transfers, but might be able to move things around in terms of salaries.

Also there was a lot of bad feeling when Mbappe suggested he was going to Real Mad in 2022 but then stayed at PSG, so maybe Real Mad don’t want him anyway.

Inevitably one of the Saudi Arabian clubs (it doesn’t matter which because they are all effectively owned by the state) offered €300million for the player last year and PSG opened discussions, but it all broke down, and Mbappe felt he would have more fun playing in a real league.