- Where has all the money gone? Now we know.
- Optimism to succeed: the way forward for Arsenal and its supporters
By Tony Attwood
Daniel Farke has promised his side will not “sell our DNA” to get the win, which I suppose is metaphorical, given that as far as I know, there is no black market economy in DNA. Athough it might make a good science fiction story if there were, since as I remember from my science studies, you can extract a bit of DNA from a body without harming the whole body. So maybe you could then inject that into another person, and let the two molecules fight it out for possession of the individual and his/her personality. Actually it could be quite a good science fiction story. Not that I am contemplating writing any more sci-fi these days. Anyway, he said… “we won’t sell out our DNA and park the bus. If you just try to defend you have no chance to survive there,” (That being at Arsenal).
So that is not really a moral stand for the playing of attractive football, more of a practical stand. Dominic Calvert-Lewis may or may not play which sort of covers all options.
Arsenal have three injuries, Jesus of course, plus Norgaard and Havertz – the first two have no chance but at the moment of writing the Havertzian situation is unknown.
So we can now move on to games against Leeds in the past: 127 all told. Just under 42% won by Arsenal and 32% won by Leeds, the rest rather obviously being draws.
There was a dreadful time in the 1970s when Leeds won eight successive games starting with a horrific 6-1 in May 1973. Then eventually, Arsenal got a couple of draws in 1977. And I mention such awfulness because one should never give up hope or support. For thereafter in 22 subsequent League and Cup games, Leeds won just one.
Moving on to more recent days in the last 14 games between the two clubs, starting on 1 November 2003, Leeds have not won a single match. Indeed twice in the last four meetings we have beaten them 4-1, once in the far north and once (1 April 2023) at Arsenal stadium.
But Leeds, like Arsenal, did win their opening game of the season 1-0, in their case it was them against Everton at the Leeds home ground, while Arsenal of course, won away. Pre-season, they had some ups and downs as Arsenal did, having a goalless draw with the not very united Manchester, beating SC Verl 1-4 away, losing 2-3 to SC Paderborn, and drawing 1-1 with Villareal and then Milan, both at home.
And at this point I thought it would be interesting to look up who they have brought in this summer, given that last season they were in the Championship, which they won. Here’s the league table in case you missed it…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leeds United | 46 | 29 | 13 | 4 | 95 | 30 | 65 | 100 |
| 2 | Burnley | 46 | 28 | 16 | 2 | 69 | 16 | 53 | 100 |
| 3 | Sheffield United | 46 | 28 | 8 | 10 | 63 | 36 | 27 | 90 |
| 4 | Sunderland | 46 | 21 | 13 | 12 | 58 | 44 | 14 | 76 |
What I have done below is added a third row which rives the Leeds results of last season as they would have been had they only played 38 games as Arsenal did.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leeds United | 46 | 29 | 13 | 4 | 95 | 30 | 65 | 100 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 38 | 20 | 14 | 4 | 69 | 34 | 35 | 74 |
| Leeds 38 game | 38 | 23 | 12 | 3 | 78 | 25 | 53 | 81 |
As you can see Leeds still come out better than Arsenal but really not by that much and considering that the Leeds season, including matches against the likes of Luton Town, Plymouth and Cardiff, that is perhaps a little less impressive than it might at first appear. This is undoubtedly why they have bought 10 players and sold nine through the summer break.
Perhaps the most famous of these is Calvert-Lewin the Everton centre forward who came on a free.
And what might give Leeds a bit of hope, given their previous results against Arsenal, is that they did win the last six games of their Championship season. Indeed in that run they scored 16 while conceding two. So yes, they might be a Championship side, without any big-time signings for the new campaign, but they were doing well last season.
The approach of Leeds does take us back to the whole issue that we are now in a period in which we expect the three promoted clubs to be bottom of the Premier League the following season, and thus go straight back down.
To avoid this, some clubs have bought in vast numbers of new players to try and keep them up, but others seem to be accepting their fate before they start, and effectively just taking all the extra TV money that comes from the Premier League and using it to pay off some of their debts.
Leeds last set of accounts shows they are £60.3m in debt, and we know that £22.5m is owed to the owners who charge the club a whacking great 6% interest. In other words, the owners take out of the club £1.35m a year. And if you are not fully up to date with current interest rates, just see how much you can get in terms of interest from any of the regular borrowers. I wonder what Leeds supporters think of that.
