The Season Ahead: will it end on the pitch or in the courtroom?

 

• As the League v Man C cases begin, one question overrides everything else
• Arsenal v Wolverhampton: how the financial issues of last season will affect this campaign

By Tony Attwood

We all know the journey Arsenal have been on over the last five years but it bears repeating by looking at Arteta’s four complete seasons:

 

Pos	Year	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
8	2020/1	18	7	13	55	39	16	61
5	2021/2	22	3	13	61	48	13	69
2	2022/3	26	6	6	88	43	45	84
2	2023/4	28	5	5	91	29	62	89
	2021-4	+56%	-29%	-62%	+65%	-25%	+388%	+46%

The number of wins has gone up each year.  The number of defeats has gone down, the goals scored has gone up, the goals conceded has declined, the points have gone up.    I doubt that there has ever been such an improvement since the upturn between 1924/25 and 1925/6  I haven’t analysed each year, but I doubt it.

It would be really good to see what has happened to other teams between those two seasons, but of course this is not the sort of statistic that journalists can be bothered with.  Here are the Manchester City figures…

 

Pos	Year	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	2020/1	38	27	5	6	83	32	51	86
1	2023/4	38	28	7	3	96	34	62	91
	Improvement 2021/4		+4%	+40%	-50%	+16%	+6%	+22%	+6%

 

So what we can see is that just as Arsenal have been improving so have Mancheseter City, .  Arsenal’s job is thus not just chasing a side that wins matches, but rather chasing a side that is getting better all the time.

So how are Arsenal going to do this?

Thus far the club has brought in Ricardo Calafiori (aged 22) to play at centre back.  David Raya who was the league’s best goal keeper last season has moved from being on loan to being a permanent member of the Arsenal squad, Nuno Tavares and Kieran Tierney have come back from loan, as has the right winger Marquinhos who was on loan at Fluminese is also back with the club and may stay.

Possibly breaking into the first team is Myles Lewis-Skelly, who is 17, who has been playing at left-back and can move into mid-field in the modern Arsenal manner.

Pulling this together Arsenal are stronger, but haven’t bought the centre forward that the rambling journalists and their hangers-on in the blogs have demanded.

This is unfortunate, not because I think we need a centre forward but because as soon as there is a game in which we don’t score a hateful and win easily, Arteta will be blamed.  “Stubborn” is the word I expect to see in print and on the screens, just as he was stubborn in spending “all of Arsenal’s available transfer budget” on Havertz.

Although of course there may be more transfers to come.

But the point is that with the most wins ever in a 38 game season, the fewest goals ever conceded in any 38 game season except the unbeaten season, the most goals scored ever in a Premier League season, it is not clear how much more can be squeezed out of this team.

Arsenal actually had the fourth youngest team in the league last season, over a year younger than Manchester City, which suggests we might see a natural improvement in these players having had a solid year in the league.

Arsenal was also one of three teams that only used 25 players in the league last season: no one used fewer.  The other two teams on 25 were Fulham and Manchester City.

So at every level, we can see Arsenal growing, improving and emulating Manchester City in results but without the funding of an oil state that does not enjoy the democratic rights that we have.

Overall last season Manchester City drew two games that Arsenal lost, and so got their two extra points.  Each club used the same number of players but the Manchester City squad was a bit older than Arsenal’s.

But we also know that Manchester City are suing the league for more money than the league has got, and are fighting all the allegations against them.

Arsenal could win the league this coming season, but in losing the league Manchester City could be deducted points.  Which would mean that forever more Arsenal’s 14th title would have an asterisk after it, and ManC supporters would claim the title was won in the courts not on the pitch.

But then that’s what they do.  Of course if ManC were deducted enough points to send them to the Conference, that would be more fun, but somehow I think the league will chicken out.   At which point I would expect Nottingham Forest and Everton to sue the league for their not being even handed over the points education affair.

This one could run and run.