Arsenal v Bayer Leverkusen – early signs and possible team

 

 

• The link between club injuries and days lost, fouls, and league position
• The Worse the Clubs Were Last Season…. the more they travel pre-season

By Tony Attwood

Arsenal play Bayer Leverkusen at 6pm on Wednesday in a pre-season friendly.  The game is being shown on Arsenal.com for £4.99.

Leverkusen is for some German fans a club created the Bayer pharmaceutical company, for others it is regarded as a works team.  Because the club’s name has existed under this form for over a century Uefa allows the corporate name Bayer to be used while it prohibits Red Bull’s clubs from using their sponsor’s name as part of their official name in European games.

The team won the league unbeaten last season, winning 28 games and drawing six, taking them to 17 points above second-placed VfB Stuttgart and an extraordinary 18 points above Bayern Munich for whom, some ex-Tottenham player now plays, in an attempt to win something for once in his career. It was VfB’s first ever Bundesliga title, and the nation’s first unbeaten season.

We can compare their performance perhaps with that of Arsenal this last season and in the Arsenal Unbeaten Season

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Leverkusen 2024	34	28	6	0	89	24	65	90
2	Arsenal 2024	38	28	5	5	91	29	62	89
1	Arsenal 2004	38	26	12	0	73	26	47	90
1	Bayern Munich 2023	34	21	8	5	92	38	54	71

 

What we can see in this table is an extraordinary performance by Leverkusen last season, as they won their first German title.   And they did so equalling Arsenal’s unbeaten season, with the same number of points but playing four games fewer.

Indeed as with Arsenal 20 years ago, Leverkusen were the first German team to go unbeaten all season – although of course to be exact we must also admit that Preston North End went unbeaten in the first-ever Football League season in 1888/9 although only playing 22 games.  18 wins and four draws, scoring 74 goals and conceding 15.

Just to compare this summer’s build-up with a year ago, the 2023 schedule had a 1-1 away draw with Nuremberg, a 5-0 win over the MLS All-Stars, a 0-2 defeat to Manchester United in the USA, and a 5-3 win over Barcelona also in the USA.

Then back home it was a 1-1 draw with Monaco before winning the Charity Shield on penalties (4-1) after drawing 1-1 with Manchester City at Wembley.

But that of course was in the dim and distant.  What we have with Arsenal v Leverkusen are two teams who have gone unbeaten in the modern era.   In fact Leverkusen were the first German team to get the unbeaten domestic double and set a European record for unbeaten competitive games.

So far we have details of them playing a friendly against Rot Weiss Essen away, which they won 1-2 and Lens, also away which they drew 2-2.

And of course, we will be welcoming back Granit Xhaka who was idiotically booed by some “supporters” at Arsenal who subsequently changed their mind toward the end of his time with us.

Arsenal and Leverkusen have only played each other twice, these games being in the Champions League.  The two teams drew in the group stages in 2001/2 in Germany and Arsenal won 4-1 at Highbury.  Riccardo Calafiori will be available to play his first match for Arsenal, and the players who were in the Euros should be back in the squad for this game – although they may only play part of the game.

Tierney and Tomiyasu are both injured, but Saka, Rice, Ramsdale, Saliba and Raya could well have some involvement in the game.

However with these players only just coming back there should also be a chance for the young players who have had time in the previous pre-season games, such as Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ayden Heaven.

Sports Mole offer a lineup of