The latest edition of the series celebrating 100 years since Chapman joined Arsenal: Why Knighton had to go
By Tony Attwood
When I came up with the notion that Arsenal had had a particularly hard start to the season, I hadn’t seen anyone else write about it. Now it seems to be popping up everywhere. Although of course en route the story gets changed, with the Guardian now saying,” Opta’s data suggested they had had the fifth-hardest start of any club”. My focus was simply on away games, the implication (although not particularly emphasised) being that the away wins boost morale which leads over into home games, away defeats doing the opposite, making teams more nervous at home.
But either way, some of the media have noted Arsenal have had a difficult run, And next up, tomorrow we have Sporting away at 8pm. And a look at the top 12 in the league shows this could be rather difficult.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 1 | +9 | 12 |
| 2 | Sporting Lisbon | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 2 | +7 | 10 |
| 12 | Arsenal | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | +2 | 7 |
Arsenal’s current position is not high enough to take them further in the Champions League, but rather will shunt them into the play offs section whereby the clubs finishing 9th to 24th will play matches to see who goes where.
To make matters appear even harder, Sporting Lisbon are not only top of the Portuguese League, they are second in the Champions League as we can see above, having won each and every match they have played this season.
| P | W | D | L | F | A | +/- | Pts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sporting Lisbon | 11 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 39 | 5 | +34 | 33 |
| 2 | FC Porto | 11 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 28 | 8 | +20 | 27 |
| 3 | Benfica | 10 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 28 | 7 | +21 | 25 |
So while we can look forward to some recovery in the Premier League after a run of really tough games, that easing up does not include this week’s Champions League match, where even a draw will be considered a good result.
The trouble is that goal-scoring has not been a highlight of the series for Arsenal so far, with the home game against PSG being the only match in which more than one goal was scored. But on the other hand, things looked a lot brighter on Saturday.
Still, at least the media will not particularly notice Arsenal on this occasion as Manchester City are playing at the same time, and we all know there is only one club in the Premier League (irrespective of where they actually are in the Premier League). ManC are at home to Feyenoord and much attention will be on whether they can now make it six defeats in a row, following a thumping by Tottenham (to make it three wins in six for Tottenham).
But back to Sporting Lisbon, this run of form, in terms of winning each match and being opt of the league is nothing new. Last season they also won the league by ten points, while being 18 points above the third-placed team.
But this is a big improvement in Europe this season for Sporting, who last season came second in the group stages of the Europa League and were then knocked out in the first knockout round (the round of 16). So they are very much a team on the up.
Last season you might recall things were run differently and Arsenal won four of their six group-stage matches before just getting past Porto and going out to Bayern.
But if all this sounds a bit depressing (and perhaps it does because for whatever emotional reason I am much more interested in Arsenal winning domestically than on the European stage), Arsenal are in fact above the likes of Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Milan, Atletico Madrid and Paris St Germain in the Champions League, and there are whispers around that the grandees of Europe who fix these suggest the Big Men feel unhappy about these BIG clubs all going out of the Champions League and slipping into the “knock out stage play-offs” (a catchy phrase if ever there was) and thus having the danger of being knocked back down to the Europa League.
That is most certainly not what they planned when they cooked up this new approach.
One can’t actually say these things are meant to be fixed, but the frowns that I am told one sees in Nyon, Switzerland, where Uefa is based, tell a different story. Not of course that we make any allegations that things are fixed…..
Great observation Tony, I would also add having fresh legs and a consistent starting 11 to the confidence and moral point of view.
I agree that moral and confidence breeds a winning run of games, but also a consistent starting 11 when you compare to last year’s figures, where in your article you highlighted that both Arsenal and Man City used the least amount of squad players with a consistent starting 11 as opposed to Liverpool and Chelsea last year who was plagued with changes and injuries to their starting 11.
From my own opinion, I have always suggested that teams look to exploit Arsenal’s high line defence, especially our full backs being turned on the counter attack. Last Saturday we had a strong defence with our full backs being disciplined and strong.
The yellow card to Jorginho did us a favour in making Arteta replace him at half time with Partey. I believe both these players are fresher playing just 45minutes each. Also Saka plays better with the clever Odeguaard dragging Sakas double marking all over the place, opening up more room for Saka to do his magic.
Arteta got it right the weekend having a fresh team available (except for Rice, Wright, Havertz) with the quick passing and movement tactics, but will he get it right this Tuesday in Europe?