Are Arsenal really as bad as the media are now making out?

By Tony Attwood

What happens when a club comes under wholesale attack day after day during the summer? Quite often it seems the will of the management crumbles and the club does what their critics want, which usually means buying lots of players.

That happens for the simple reason that everyone knows that any slip or mishap in the next season is going to be pounced upon with a lot of “I told you so” comments if the club doesn’t do what the media has said. So managers authorise a purchase not because the player is needed, but to protect their own reputation. The managers follow the media.

But there can be a problem, for suddenly moving in a new player can be as disruptive as losing a player through injury. And in this regard in relation to Arsenal, no one mentions the fact that Saka played 18 games fewer in 2024/5 than in 2023/24. To which we might add the fact that Ben White played 29 games fewer this season just finished, in comparison with the one before. Martin Odegaard went down by just seven games – but probably came back too soon as was not at his best for several games more. Kai Havertz played 13 games fewer.

The impact of those losses was enormous for that is a total of 67 games fewer in 2024/25 played by these players alone than in the previous season – because of injury.

Now one could argue that given that the player was injured last season he is going to be injured again this season. There is no evidence to show that is a given but since we are dealing with fantasy excuses for buying in players, that could be thrown in as a reason why Arsenal need to be in the market.

The simple fact is however that clubs cannot have backup players for every position who will perform as well as the first choice player, for if the backup player really is that good he will want to be playing each week – which he can’t because he is the back up to another excellent player. And the result of a situation like that is that the player wants to move on and demands a transfer.

Then there is the fact that a substantial number of other clubs would like to buy some of Arsenal’s players. So players’ agents call journalists and talk up the notion that the player they represent is thinking of leaving Arsenal for another club. The agent then goes back to Arsenal and says Club X is interested in Player Y, and Player Y wants a pay rise as a reward for saying “no”.

To see this is action, take for example this one from the Telegraph. “If a single statistic could summarise Arsenal’s season, it is this one: they ended the campaign without any of their players reaching 10 goals in the league. The last time that happened was more than 100 years ago, in the 1923-24 campaign.”

That looks horribly relevant because indeed 1923/24 was a horrific season; it was Knighton’s last season as manager; he was replaced by Herbert Chapman. So maybe Arteta should go if he refuses to buy…

But let’s have a look at what Chapman actually achieved. (This table shows goal difference for both campaigns and gives three points for a win to make them comperable with the way we see tables today.)

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
19	Arsenal 1923/24	42	12	9	21	40	63	-23	45
2	Arsenal 1924/25	42	22	8	12	87	63	24	74
2	Arsenal 2024/25	38	20	14	4	69	34	35	74

In short, comparing like with like (which is three points for a win and goal difference rather than goal average) what Arsenal achieved in Chapman’s first season is incredibly similar to that which Arteta achieved this last season.

Now 100 years ago, the media was still sensationalist minded – the fantasy killer Jack the Ripper was 37 years in the past by the time Chapman came to Arsenal, but the media still wanted to make up stories then as they do now. But football correspondents were not quite as bonkers as they are today. Then, seeing Arsenal second they were full of praise for Chapman and the Arsenal team, rather than suggesting four or five new players were needed.

But now “What they need” is the headline you will see in a lot of papers at the moment and indeed the piece of that type in the Telegraph gives starts with a bit of logic: Arsenal need a back-up goalkeeper, since the reserve keeper from last season was on loan. So let’s leave that one out and consider the rest of the demands

A defensive midfielder (or two),
a centre-forward
and a winger.
And possiblyanother defender.

And the media comment is that “Those numbers say it all for Mikel Arteta.”

But let’s try this out. Arsenal lost two goalscorers for a total of 31 games last season and yet were still the third highest goal-scoring team in the league. Indeed That last fact is never mentioned. Let me repeat: Missing two of our top scorers for 31 games we were still the third highest scoring team in the League! And those two players will be back this season.

The fact is that in the league campaign a goal scored by a centre forward is worth as much as a goal scored by a full back, or indeed as much as an own goal. So where were Arsenal in terms of goal-scoring last season?

You might be forgiven for not knowing because the implication of the constant media bombardment of Arsenal is that when it comes to goal-scoring Arsenal were pretty much bottom of the league.

But in fact last season Arsenal were the third-highest goal-scoring club in the Premier League.

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	38	25	9	4	86	41	45	84
3	Manchester City	38	21	8	9	72	44	28	71
2	Arsenal	38	20	14	4	69	34	35	74
5	Newcastle United	38	20	6	12	68	47	21	66

Now you might want to compare this with Arsesnal in recent years. We have the fact that Arsenal scored a lot fewer goals in the era from 2019/20 through to 2021/22 than in the last three seasons – and yes that includes the 69 goals in 2024/25. It has been a long build up, and the fact is that this team, even with losing much of its forward line through part of the season, is still outscoring the Arsenal team of 2019/20 and 2020/21. Yet none of that is mentioned by the media.

And indeed nor does anyone ask, why such notions are not relevant, when the future of the club is on the line.

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