By Tony Attwood
Hermansen made 13 saves in the game against Leicester, – the most in a Premier League game since David de Gea for Manchester United against Arsenal in 2017.
But at least the referee gave Arsenal the chance to capitalise on the fact that eventually he had to get a bit tired of his defence letting Arsenal through. Of course, the media will make much of the fact that the third Arsenal goal took a deflection, but then all clubs get goals from deflections. Aiming the ball at the defender’s mid drift if there is no other option is part of the game.
Still, the officials could get their own back to some extent by recording it as an own goal. But then again it was Arsenal’s first own goal of the season in their favour, and there has been one own goal by Arsenal, so it is all balanced out..
The fact that this was an own goal is due to the narrative-hating dubious goals committee which ruled that the ball came off Ndidi. But even so, Kai Havertz got the fourth, didn’t celebrate much, and everyone sang “60 million down the drain” once more.
And meanwhile, Ethan Nwaneri is not just living up to his reputation, but if possible exceeding it.
So overall Arsenal had 74% of the game, which shows quite a turn around from some earlier matches, and had 20 attempts on goal. But what is also interesting is that Arsenal are now running at 14.2 shots a game and sit third in the league. But West Ham are recorded as having 14.5 shots a game, while sitting in 14th position. So maybe shooting on sight isn’t really that important.
So Arsenal are now the third-best scorers three behind Chelsa, have the second-best defence with five conceded (although equal with several other clubs). and fourth-best goal difference, three behind the leaders. And these things are worth noting since all through the summer people were demanding that Arsenal should buy a striker. Our top scorer, so fondly denounced when he was signed, is of course Havertz. leaving him behind Haaland, Palrmer Diaz and Brentford’s Mbeuno.
As for how this season compares with past seasons…. it is pretty much in line with the last two years and way ahead of 2021. So all is looking fairly solid to me.
| P | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Arsenal 2024 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 5 | 7 | 14 |
| 5 | Arsenal 2023 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 14 |
| 1 | Arsenal 2022 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 14 | 7 | 7 | 15 |
| 10 | Arsenal 2021 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 10 | -5 | 9 |
So overall I’d say things are jogging along rather nicely. Although we must not forget the mighty Tottenham Hots who have a game in hand, being played today. If they win that they could rise to eighth, which will almost certainly excite the media.
At the bottom, three of the five teams at the foot of the table are teams that rose from the Championship last year, which shows even at this early stage that a repeat of all three that come up, then go down. Which says a lot about the gap between the top league and the Championship.
And given that Aston Villa are away to Ipswich today that could mean that Arsenal might slip down a place as a Villa win would mean they rise up to second in the league, equal on points with Liverpool.
But there is one other factor that ought to be borne in mind, and that is the injuries. The Premier League Injuries table today shows seven players out: Odegaard, Zinchenko, Tomiyasu, Trossard, Merino, White and Tierney.
Tottenham we might note, have no such excuse for any failing on their part as they only have three players out, while Mancheter City have four. But the worrying factor remains the cards – one of the weapons that can be used against Arsenal by referees during the game and journalists in their commentaries.
Arsenal have now had 17 yellow cards and two red cards. (Not the highest, that of course is Chelsea with 21 yellow but no red. Manchester City have 15 yellows, but Liverpool and Villa only 12 each. If things go on this way Arsenal will end up with 108 cards during the season, which will inevitably mean a whole host of suspensions. True Chelsea will end up with 133, but the number of suspensions will be enormous. And if those suspensions come at the same time as injuries we could be fielding the youngsters a lot more than expected.
But most worrying is the fact that Arsenal have already had eight yellow cards for the ill-defined “other” classification of cards – which means something other than a foul, unprofessional conduct or a dive. No other club is near that – and of course, this being so ill-defined a category it gives referees an enormous opportunity to do what they like.
At the very least PGMO should come clean and tell us what “other” means in the classification of yellow cards.
Their manager says that Arsenal were lucky, is he blind.
Arsenal could have won by 16 goals. Unbelievable landslide