Fulham v Arsenal: the plight of the mid-table meanderers (and Tottenham)

 

 

• Why don’t the rest of the clubs copy Arsenal?
• Fulham v Arsenal, tackles, fouls yellows
• Fulham v Arsenal. What on earth will this referee do this time?
• Fulham v Arsenal: the metaphors might be failing, but Arsenal are on the up

By Sir Hardly Anyone

As we approach the game against Fulham it is worth pausing for a moment to note that this is a top-of-the-table match, in the sense that Fulham are sixth – although to be fair they are six points and a goal difference of +12 behind Arsenal.

But on the other hand Fulham could be said to be heading a group of wannabe clubs that are hoping for one or two of the top five to slip a bit while the clubs below keep grinding out results.  And in terms of their recent results Fulham, Brentford and Bournemouth have all won three out of their last six matches.

However it is also very noticeable that once we move out of the top five we really are looking at clubs whose prime ambition must be to qualify for the Europa League through coming fifth, or winning the FA Cup or getting into the Conference and pretending no one laughs.  

So anyway, those clubs from seventh or eighth down might well be pondering like me, how they can actually get into Europe next season if they don’t win the FA Cup.  And there are some teams in that group that really do think Europe is the minimum requirement. 

Clubs like Aston Villa, Tottenham Ho, Newcastle United and Manchester Ditto.  And the fact is that even if they do push Fulham and Nottingham Forest (both of whom are above this group) aside they can’t all come fifth.  Besides which, Forest are certainly seeing themselves as part of the new elite with their new ownership.

And this really shows a bit of a problem that the Premier League has.  For it has almost half the league that thinks that getting into Europe is a minimum requirement in respect of their status or investment.  I’d include Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, ManC, ManU, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Newcastle and of course Tottenham in the group, and they can’t all get in.  

Of course some clubs can drop out of Europe as Arsenal did in 2021/22, and use the season for a total rebuild.  But it really does have to be a rebuild – and although Arsenal did it and returned the next year, that is no guarantee that the others can have the patience Arsenal showed with Arteta, especially when we had morons on here in April last year demanding he be sacked.  Arsenal’s progression of finishing positions (8th, 8th, 5th, 2nd, 2nd) clearly wasn’t good enough.  (I’m hoping they went and supported Tottenham Ho instead).

Worse, there is absolutely no guarantee that those nine teams in the paragraph before last, will between themselves occupy the top seven spots or win the FA Cup.  In fact it is logically impossible.  Instead what they will probably sack their manager.  In fact they might do that even if they get is the Conference.

Which means that at least one or two of Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Tottenham Ho, Newcastle United and Manchester United are likely to ditch their manager as the season progresses.  It probably won’t do them much good, but it is the sort of thing manic clubs do.

It was out of such thoughts that I looked up which Premier League clubs spent the most last summer using the Transfermarkt data for net spend.  The top five net spenders (that is spending minus the money received in sales) in the Premier League were Brighton, Ipswich, ManU, West Ham, and Tottenham.

Now Brighton have made such leaps of late even the drop to 11th last season surely won’t be taken amiss.  I mean 14 years ago they came 13th in League One.  This is their seventh consecutive year in the Premier League, and they look to me like a club that knows what it is doing.

Ipswich took the big gamble, of getting promotion and then buying in 15 players to prepare themselves for the Premier League. They are 18th and three points from safety.  Maybe they’ll make it.

For ManU further slippage down the league is unthinkable.  They are 10 points above relegation at the moment and were the third-highest spenders last summer.   Thus we begin to see the pattern.  The biggest spenders were:

 

Club	Spend	Income	Net Loss	Lge pos Today
Brighton &H	£194.7m	£28.8m	-£165.9m	5
Ipswich T	£106.5m	£1.4m	-£105.1m	18
Man United	£180.7m	£86.75m	-£93.95m	13
West Ham U	£121.6m	£37.7m	-£83.9m	14
Tottenham H	£125.4m	£42.3m	-£83.1m	10

 

On that basis, spending big in the summer is not the way to go.  Better to bring through some youngsters…. except that some rather silly supporters demand success now no matter what, and even more stupidly the clubs go and spend, even though they probably know as well as we can see that usually it just makes matters worse.

But still, if that is what they want to do, I certainly can’t stop them