A win today takes Arsenal to second, as Arsenal get to the 13 point marker

 

 

• Arsenal injuries, and the referee who never oversees a home win!!!
• Arsenal v Ipswich Town. There have been times when Ipswich has consistently outplayed Arsenal.
• Has Saka been overplayed or is he just indispensible like other world-class players?
• How the last six games really show which clubs are up and which are sinking

By Bulldog Drummond

A win to take us second is an obvious fact – the ten point marker is just a game a few of us play in watching how far ahead of Tottenham Hots, Arseal can get.  Today Arsenal are 10 points above Tottenham, and have conceded ten goals fewer.  A 5-0 win for Arsenal would give Arsenal the same number of goals as Tottenham too.

Not that it matters – Tottenham will trip themselves up and pull themselves down without any help from us and the main thing is winning. Although that 5-0 win will also give Arsenal the same goal difference as Liverpool, but with Arsenal having played one more 

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	17	13	3	1	40	17	23	42
2	Chelsea	18	10	5	3	38	21	17	35
3	Nottingham For	18	10	4	4	24	19	5	34
4	Arsenal	17	9	6	2	34	16	18	33
11	Tottenham Hots	18	7	2	9	39	26	13	23

 

So yes, of course one has to be wary of conditionals, but I remain very hopeful that Arsenal will not only beat Ipswich this evening but that it will be a victory with a plethora of goals.  And that victory, if it happens, will have a bit of an impact on the league table taking Arsenal up to second. 

What is also noteworthy is that Ispwich, Leicester and Southampton have now sunk to the bottom three places in the “Last Six Games” table, suggesting that this might be a season where the three teams that have come up also then go down again.  

At the other end Nottingham Forest are now top of that last six chart, followed by Arsenal, Liverpool and Bournemouth all with four wins and two draws.  Brighton however have slipped of late and are 14th, Manchester United 15th, Manchester City 16th and Tottenham Hots 17th.with the theree promoted clubs from last season managing between them to keep Tottenham out of the bottom three.

And I mention these places because it does show the growth in the gap between the Championship and the Premier League, and it does suggest that clubs coming up are being much more restrained than they used to be about buying players after winning promotion, to keep them up. It’s ok if it works, but if it doesn’t the club is left with expensive players on Premier League salaries that few players want to buy. 

Although always having at least two and now seemingly three, clubs, that are not likely to survive for more than a season, does diminish the Premier League.  What I suspect we will see increasingly is clubs that get promoted using the extra money to pay off their debts, not to buy new players and just accepting that they will go down, but as smaller clubs that get into Europe accept the big defeats and take the money.

Meanwhile back with the match it is perhaps helpful that Arsenal have Ipswich Town today, given the injuries to Saka and Sterling.   The growing view is that Martinelli, who has been coming back to form, will change sides, leaving Gabriel Jesus in the middle.

Another following on from this the thought doing the rounds is that Ethan Nwaneri could make his first start in this game.

Elsewhere there is a rather chuckle-inducing headline in the Telegraph: Ruben Amorim: Man Utd ‘just have to survive’ amid relegation fears.  Just to rub it in the same paper also has “Man Utd’s fatal flaw with corners dissected: One week, two corners and a whole lot of embarrassment for Ruben Amorim’s mistake-riddled side”.  Telegraph articles are behind a paywall but if you search the internet you can often find them reproduced elsewhere with no such interference.

And having seen others do it, and still with the Telegraph they also have a top 30 men’s footballers in Britain today.  Arsnenal contribute David Raya at number 25 (“The standout goalkeeper in the Premier League”).  Then at 17 it is Gabriel Magalhães who is “such a threat at set-pieces.”

At 13 it is Martin Odegaard with the comment, “Where would Arsenal be if Odegaard had not missed two months of this season through injury?”  No mention, as there never is, of who he was playing for when he got injured.

Then we have William Saliba at number six with the comment ,”This season has not gone entirely to plan for Arsenal but Saliba’s development has continued apace.”  Saka comes in at three, beaten only by Palmer at Chelsea and Salah at Liverpool.