Arsenal v Athletic Bilbao: two sides with very similar league form

 

 

• The Sun says Arsenal fans are revolting, but actually the prospects are wonderful
• This is not the pre-season we wanted: but there is one great shining light

By Tony Attwood

The next match in the ongoing round of pre-season games is against Athletic Bilbao, the game being tomorrow (as I write this) on 9th August.   

And since both clubs played the same number of games last season in their respective leagues, it is possible to do a comparison between the two in competitive games…

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
2	Arsenal	38	20	14	4	69	34	+35	74
4	Athletic Bilbao	38	19	13	6	54	29	+25	70

 

As we can see, the difference between the clubs is very slight.   But we know that Arsenal have been stumbling of late in the pre-season – so let’s see if this is making a difference…

Now as I understand it, Athletic B have had a pre-season to forget losing 1-0 to Alaves, 2-1 to PSV, 2-1 to Racing and 3-2 to Liverpool.

As for the club, Athletic Bilbao is well known for its policy of only signing Basque players or players who have been playing for other Basque clubs.   But that in no way makes them a soft touch, although we might also remember that before coming to Arsenal Stadium on Wednesday, Villarreal had failed to win any of their first six friendly matches this summer.  SportsMole described their last game as an “incoherent rearguard display.”

Generally, the feeling in the more thinking end of the media was that Max Dowman (who must be thoroughly pissed off with no one ever mentioning him without actually mentioning his age, so I won’t) was dazzling and pretty much everyone else wasn’t.   Worse, Viktor Gyokeres was, well, not really very good.

So either Arsenal have bought all the wrong players, or they need a lot more time to get this unit to work as a team, or else it is all a trick to make Manchester United feel complacent before the opening game of the season between the two clubs – at which point Arsenal will awaken and slaughter them.

Mind you Athletic B have managed to get Nico Williams on a 10 year contract and they seem to be very pleased about that.

Arsenal have all the signs of being a team in which the squad members are stsill trying to get used to each other, and to the manager’s tactics.  Normally these things do come together (Arteta has, after all, now been Arsenal manager since 2019, and his run as manager of 290 games shows 169 won – which is a win rate of 58.28% (169 wins, 55 draws, 66 defeats).

Of course, that is not the best ever Arsenal run of any club in the league, although it is the best ever at Arsenal (previously Arsene Wenger held the record at the 290 game marker at Arsenal with 110 wins – a ratio of 55%.)  This figure for Arteta puts him only four wins behind Alex Ferguson in his opening run of games

And I think it is once more worth pausing to reflect on the fact that some “supporters” adopted the media approach of calling for Arteta to be sacked last season.  It just shows what Arsenal are up against.

Leaving aside the temporary managers such as Joe Shaw and Pat Rice, the most successful manager in the history of Arsenal when measured by win percentages is indeed Mikel Arteta on 58.28%, overtaking Arsene Wenger who reached 57.25%.   And yes, people were demanding Arteta’s sacking at the end of last season on the grounds he was not a winner.

Athletic Club actually do have a website in English and it is interesting to go to that for a report on their match against Liverpool where they admit that “Athletic Club were well beaten by a superior Liverpool FC in the first of two friendlies at Anfield.   The Reds were especially powerful and fast in the first half, putting the Lions to the sword….”

So of course, if Arsenal fail to reach the same level, we can look forward to a series of predictions about how Arsenal will be lucky to make the top four next season, will be slaughtered in the Champions League, and will lose this match as well.  So no real change there.