- Arsenal in dire straits with naff strategies and no solution in sight.
- PGMO remains the problem, and the problem just got worse
First I hope you will forgive a little repeat of my advert.. I recorded a radio programme a few days ago with a couple of the guys from BBC Radio 5 Live and it is being broadcast on that channel on Sunday 2 February at 10.30am. The subject is “North London Forever” which you may know is on the home page of this site, and I’ve added it at he end of this article just in case you ain’t got it yet.
Now moving on…
The game on Saturday is 2nd vs 4th
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 22 | 16 | 5 | 1 | 54 | 21 | 33 | 53 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 23 | 13 | 8 | 2 | 44 | 21 | 23 | 47 |
| 3 | Nottingham Forest | 23 | 13 | 5 | 5 | 33 | 27 | 6 | 44 |
| 4 | Manchester City | 23 | 12 | 5 | 6 | 47 | 30 | 17 | 41 |
Looking at the current form across the last six games we can see that both Manchester City and Arsenal have the same record as each other, two wins, one draw no defeats at home and the same away. The only thing ManC have done is scored more goals in getting their wins…
| H | O | M | E | A | W | A | Y | ||||||||||
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |||
| 1 | Newcastle United | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 15 | |||
| 2 | Manchester City | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 2 | 13 | 14 | |||
| 3 | Liverpool | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 12 | 14 | |||
| 4 | Arsenal | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 14 |
But as we have learned this season perhaps more than any other, it is necessary to have a look at just who clubs have been playing in their last six games to make real sense of this… In ManC’s case their opponents in their last six league games have been Everton, Leicester City, West Ham United, Brentford, Ipswich Town and Chelsea.
That is to say the teams who are 6th, 11th, 14th 16th, 17th, and 19th. Or put another way just one top ten team in the last six games. N o wonder they are moving up the league.
Arsenal have not had the toughest of runs in the last six fixtures but still, it is tougher than Manchester City have had playing teams that are currently 19th, 11th, 9th, 5th, 15h, and 8th.
Both have been playing in the Champions League of course but the difference there is that while Arsenal won both of their games, Mancheser City lost 4-2 away to PSG. As a result their position in the European table is quite differnt from Arsenal’s…
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
| 3 | Arsenal | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 3 | 13 | 19 |
| 22 | ManC | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 18 | 14 | 4 | 11 |
So we can see a slight advantage to Arsenal.
Over the whole history of the league Arsenal have the better of Manchester City having won 100 matches against them to 65 for them. Now much of this downturn for Arsenal has come in the Money Years when ManC were spending anything that they wanted without limit. As a result between 2016 and 2023 the Mancs totally dominated Arsenal.
Across 15 games played between the two clubs from 8 May 2016 and 26 Apr 2023 Arsenal won not a single one and two were draws. In fact those draws came in the first three games of this sequence, meaning there was a run of no less than 12 consecutive defeats. for Arsenal in the league fixture between the clubs.
But the last four games have been quite different. The clubs drew in the Community Shield in August 2023, and since then it has been one win to Arsenal and two draws. So not an absolute triumph for Arsenal but a major improvement on the run of defeats that went before. Hence in the last six games this season, the teams have been evenly matched.
This has been a major improvement of late for Manc from the period between 30 October and 15 December whee in all competitions ManC lost five games in a row followed by one win, two draws and three defeats in all competitions. But now, as we can see they are pulling themselves back together again.
Finally, another advertisement if I may. As I mentioned before and I hope you forgive me for mentioning again, I recorded a radio programme a few days ago with a couple of the guys from BBC Radio 5 Live and it is being broadcast on that channel on Sunday 2 February at 10.30am.
The subject is “North London Forever” which I’ve added it to the end of this little piece, just in case you wanted to hear the full version.
So if you listen to the Radio 5 programme, you will then know what the voice of the guy who keeps writing all these articles actually sounds like. (There’s more about the song in the intro to the audio at the end of this piece).
Beware the revenge of Sky, BBC, Telegraph, Guardian, Evening Standard, Talk-Shite, Carragher, Neville, and most of all Webb and PGMOL.
Memo to Arsenal players: do not go near their goalkeeper, do not tackle, do not compete for headers, do not take longer than a nano-second to take throw-ins, corners, free-kicks (not that there will be many of those).
Memo to Mr. Arteta; stay in your seat, do not look excited / annoyed / happy / animated in any way during the game.
Which Manchester-based referee has been assigned?
They already started John. Sky Sports said Arsenal have been charged for having their players surround the ref.
But you see that virtually every game, sometimes far worse than us last Saturday.
Letter of the law applicable only to Arsenal FC I suppose.
In the immortal words of Tennessee Ernie Ford “”If the right don’t get you , the left one will .
Or like Shylock they want their pound of flesh.
And another one slightly amended :- Hell hath no fury like an organisation scorned.
Until they are completely reformed nothing will change but the money that runs the whole thing will continue to prop them up so that control can be maintained.