By Tony Attwood
The transfer window closes at 7pm on 1 September this year. By the time that happens Arsenal will have played three matches – Manchester United away, Leeds United at home and Liverpool away.
Now we know that some fans and most journalists love to draw instant conclusions from any short and simple set of events, so three games could well be the moment when the knives come out if Arsenal have not performed well.
Last year (2024/5) however, matters went quite well, with wins over Wolverhampton at home, and Villa away, and only a draw at home to Brighton giving the media any ammunition.
The previous season (2023/4), having had the pleasure of beating Manchester City on penalties in the Community Shield, it was again two wins (against Forest and Palace) and a draw at home to Fulham.
2022/23 gave us five straight wins, as we beat Palace, Leicester, Bournemouth, Fulham and Villa, and indeed we have to go right back to 2021/22 for a truly rotten start. A 2-0 away defeat to Brentford on the opening day, a 0-2 home defeat to Chelsea, and then an awful 5-0 away defeat to Manchester City.
And when we look at the final league positions we can see that indeed that good start really is indicative of how things end up. The “two wins and a draw” approach of the last two seasons, and indeed the five straight wins of the season before, gave us the basis for the series of three sequential second-place finishes.
In short, coming second in each of the last three seasons was based on getting off to a flying start. When we didn’t achieve that (in fact in 2021/22 not winning any of the first three matches played) we recovered but only enough to come in fifth, which after three straight second-place finishes would now be disappointing to say the least.
But then that league table on 28 August 2021 didn’t really tell us that much about the table at the end of the season, depressing though it was at the time, and the table does show us that clubs that start poorly can recover. This is 2021 after three games…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tottenham Hotspur | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 9 |
| 2 | West Ham United | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| 3 | Manchester United | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 7 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| 5 | Liverpool | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| 6 | Everton | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| 7 | Manchester City | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 6 |
| 8 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
| 9 | Leicester City | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | -1 | 6 |
| 10 | Brentford | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 11 | Aston Villa | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 4 |
| 12 | Watford | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 3 |
| 13 | Southampton | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 6 | -2 | 2 |
| 14 | Crystal Palace | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | -3 | 2 |
| 15 | Leeds United | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 8 | -4 | 2 |
| 16 | Burnley | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | -3 | 1 |
| 17 | Newcastle United | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | -4 | 1 |
| 18 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | -3 | 0 |
| 19 | Norwich City | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 10 | -9 | 0 |
| 20 | Arsenal | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 9 | -9 | 0 |
Arsenal as you will know came fifth, but where did Tottenham come? Actually they were fourth, just two points above Arsenal. Tottenham although coming above Arsenal were still 19 and 20 points behind the top two at the end of the season.
So, yes a poor start to the season, can hamper a team but that doesn’t mean that being bottom of the league after three matches is going to lead to relegation. For Arsenal, it led to a season in the Europa, and from there, the next season wsa the start of three second-place finishes in a row. Not titles, I well know, but still not that bad.
Unfortunately, telling people not to read too much into the league table after the first three games doesn’t really do much good as year after year commentators do indeed do exactly that and tell us where everything has gone wrong.
But just in case there is a poor start we might like to recall 2018/19, Arsenal lost the opening two games to Manchester City and Chelsea. The club then went on an 11-match winning streak. In fact it was 22 matches until Arsenal lost again.
So things can change, and there is one other issue to factor in here. Bringing in new players is all very exciting, and exactly what the media demand on a daily basis, but they can take a little while to settle down in their new environment, and fully understand how the new system they are playing in is going to work. And indeed to understand the singularly weird approach of PGMO employees – something not seen in the rest of Europe.
Of course I don’t want to watch a couple of defeats at the start of the season as the new team members settle down, but if that is what happens, I will at least be able to remember that in 2018, rather a good run followed.
And there is always the chance that Tottenham might have a run as they did at the start of last season: one win, one draw and two defeats. Or how about 2015/16 with no wins, one defeat and three draws. Fortunately for them, Watford, Stoke City, Newcastle United and Sunderland were all doing worse, and Tottenham recovered, but still, it was fun at the time.
