- Arsenal v Bournemouth: the utterly shocking reality of refereeing in the PL this season
- Arsenal v Bournemouth: the old Arsenal problem – where will the goals come from?
- Arsenal v Bournemouth: commands from the people who say they know
By Tony Attwood
I’m not even going to start quoting a pundit quoting a pundit, but just look at what is being said about Arsenal at the moment and who is quoting whom. It is a bit like the dog chasing its tail. Or Manchester City quoting its owners to tell us that it has done nothing wrong. Or the Daily Telegraph quoting Marx.
But then this is the world in which we find outselves and quoting itslelf is most certainly something that Uefa is forever doing. Take a look at this statement
“Charges against Real Madrid CF: Decision: The CEDB has decided: To fine Real Madrid CF €15,000 and to ban Real Madrid CF from selling tickets to its away supporters for the next one (1) UEFA competition match, for the racist behaviour.
“Said ban is suspended during a probationary period of one (1) year, starting from the date of the present decision.”
With the punishment suspended, supporters are not expected to be banned from attending any Real Madrid matches – unless they fall foul of the rules once again. All they have to do is to blank out the offending words but chant the same chant leaving everyone else to fill in the blanks in their mind. I rather suspect they’ll find that a good bit of fun.
Ah well, it was ever thus. Real Madrid are in fact, utterly untouchable.
But moving on, for today’s game the eternally unreliable Football London who we have hardly mentioned for a while now, tell us that Thomas Partey will play and come off at around 70 minutes. “Declan Rice, Jakub Kiwior, William Saliba and David Raya are others that will likely be forced to start with Jorginho and Riccardo Calafiori still injured.”
So let’s get that right. Raya is forced to start because two outfielders are injured. No, he is selected to play because he is our best keeper, and Arsenal need points to secure a top three, and ideally top two finish.
For it is a fact that in relation to the league table, any of the six teams below Arsenal could actually overtake Arsenal by the end of the sesaon. In the table below we’ve added the column to show the maximum number of points each club could get by the close of the season….
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | GD | Pts | Max Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Arsenal | 34 | 18 | 13 | 3 | 34 | 67 | 79 |
| 3 | Manchester City | 35 | 19 | 7 | 9 | 24 | 64 | 73 |
| 4 | Newcastle United | 34 | 19 | 5 | 10 | 21 | 62 | 76 |
| 5 | Chelsea | 34 | 17 | 9 | 8 | 19 | 60 | 72 |
| 6 | Nottingham Forest | 34 | 18 | 6 | 10 | 12 | 60 | 72 |
| 7 | Aston Villa | 34 | 16 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 57 | 69 |
Now obviously, to ensure that Arsenal are not hanging around waiting for results from other clubs, to secure second place in the league Arsenal need 76 points – or 77 if you think that Newcastle will not only win all their games while Arsenal lose all theirs, but in so doing Newcastle’s goal difference makes up the 13 goal gap.
So that means Arsenal need 10 points from four games which is three wins and a draw by my calculations. A fairly difficult run given who we are playing. But not impossible.
I’ll take a more fulsome look in the final article of this series prefacing today’s match, along with a look at the possible line up.
If you have been, thanks for reading.
