- Just because a journalist says AFC has a poor disciplinary record, that doesn’t make it true
- The danger that lies ahead of Odegaard, Saka and Martinelli
By Tony Attwood
“A brilliant strike from Bukayo Saka had sent Mikel Arteta’s side racing into a lead that was cancelled out by Virgil van Dijk’s header, before Mikel Merino headed home his first goal for the club from a free-kick.
“However, having suffered a double injury blow with Gabriel Magalhães and Jurriën Timber both limping off in the second half, the hosts were pegged back by Mohamed Salah’s 11th goal in 15 Premier League appearances against Arsenal.”
That seems a reasonable point from the Guardian, which makes one wonder why they feel the need to lead with the headline “‘They were on the floor so many times’: Arne Slot accuses Arsenal of time-wasting” The Telegraph is perhaps a little more on message with “Mohamed Salah the man for big moments as Liverpool striker haunts Arsenal yet again”
The Mirror has Roy Keane slammed for ‘pathetic’ comments immediately after Arsenal vs Liverpool draw. Obvioulsy being at the game I wasn’t able to hear these latest Keanisms, but it seems from another comment that ” “Roy Keane talking about a lack of quality and intensity when in the first half they were saying how high quality the game was.”
The fact is that Arsenal’s injury list is pretty awful at the moment, although now we have the statement of “Jamie Carragher not falling for Arsenal’s injury news ahead of Liverpool game”
So if a club’s statement on injuries is not now to be believed, then presumably nothing is to be believed when a club puts out a statement, which in turn means there is never any point in having any comments from anyone associated with a club. Or football journalists (you can choose which to eliminate). And yet, the media continues to press everyone associated with a club for comments, seemingly only to argue against them.
We can however find some facts that are going to be harder to challenge, such as the fact that 13% of the Arsenal team were recruited aged under 21 compared with 52% of Chelsea’s players in their current squad (not including youth academy graduates). Unfortunately, I am not sure if that fact actually does tell us anything much, although I am sure the media will use it one day.
But meanwhile we have two clubs following very similar recruitment paths both near the top of the league
Arsenal however are now slipping in comparison with the last two years, but still a long away above where we were in 2021.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 2024 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 17 | 10 | 7 | 18 |
| 2 | 2023 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 16 | 6 | 10 | 20 |
| 1 | 2022 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 20 | 8 | 12 | 21 |
| 12 | 2021 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 12 | -5 | 11 |
Now this would suggest that by the end of the season, if Arsenal carry on at this rate the final points total will be 85 or 86 which would have been enough to get third place by the end of last season, and in 2022, and first or second in 2021.
So although the media spread doom and gloom this doesn’t actually take into account what history can show us.
However, we can put some of this down to injuries, although to be fair other clubs have injuries too. These figures were taken this morning from the Premier Injuries website.
- Ipswich Town: 8
- Manchester United: 8
- Wolverhampton Wanderers: 7
- Brighton and Hove: 7
- Everton: 6
- M<anchster City: 6
- Newcastle United: 6
- Arsenal: 5
- Crystal Palace: 5
- Fulham: 5
- Liverpool: 5
- Southampton: 5
But just in case this makes you too depressed this morning, especially if you didn’t realise the clocks changed yesterday or your body clock didn’t work it out and so like me got up too early, here’s something to keep you amused this morning… the predictions for how Tottenham would do this season.
They are currently behind the mighty Nottingham Forest and Brighton and Hove, and although their goal difference is only one worse than Arsenal, they have actually accrued enough points to keep them in eighth position. Still they are above Newcastle (12th) and Manchester United (14th), so maybe they can form a “used to be big” mini-league, and work that out through the season.
In the summer The Guardian predicted Tottenham would be fourth, Opta Stats had this rather interesting prediction made on 13 August: “Tottenham head into the new season desperate to finally end their trophy drought. There were indications last term that they are heading in the right direction.”
Which would seem to be downwards.
Having a list of injuries is all very well but this has to be viewed in some sort of context to be meaningful. For example, we currently have our captain, one of the best centre back pairing in the Premier League, and our first choice left-back injured. Any comparison with a team that has six or seven squad players injured who might only be sitting on the bench if fit, is worthless. We have missed Martin O so much since his injury; and Saka’s absence was clear for all to see in the last two games. Yesterday the injuries to Gabriel and Timber led to Liverpool equalising. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that if we hadn’t had such key injuries in the first nine games, we’d be considerable better placed than we are……and some decent referees might have helped too. Let’s not forget, yesterday was the first game where we’ve dropped points without having seen a player contentiously red carded!
Every match so far this season in which we have dropped points has a common influencing factor. Cheated by referees – issuing unjustified red cards to our players, failing to issue justified red cards to opponents (ie the Brighton player who kicked Rice to the ground and Van Dijk kicking Havertz). inventing imaginary fouls so as to disallow our goal and blatantly awarding a goal-kick which should have been a corner etc etc.
The anti-Arsenal bias is not new, but it seems more blatant than ever this season. Deliberately ignored by media which has developed its own diversionary narrative rubbish about “dark arts”.