- Sometimes world class stadia don’t work. Sometimes they are not enough.
- Suddenly the number of players coming to Arsenal has shot up. What’s going on?
By Tony Attwood
The latest in our series on 100 seasons in Division 1 and the Premier League has now been published on the Arsenal History Society website
The article also has an index to all the previous articles as we trace Arsenal’s life in Division 1 and the Premier League through their 100 seasons in the top league – a total far higher than that acheived by any other club.
Meanwhile, the draw for this season’s Champions League part one has been made and we now know Arsenal will play against Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Club Brugge, Olympiakos, Slavia Prague, Kairat Almaty and Athletic Club.
As with the arrangements last season, clubs will not play each other twice but will instead still have a balance of four games at home and four away. Bayern will be a home game, so will Athletico, Olympiakos and Kairat (who are in the Champions League for the first time).
So one thing we have discovered is that there is no rule against playing the same team in the same place two years running – hence Inter is once more an away game (we lost 1-0 away last season). The dates of the games should be confirmed shortly – but given this is Uefa, one is never quite sure what they might get up to.
So given we now know what teams Arsenal are playing, I thought it might be interesting to see which clubs did better than Arsenal last season. This is made slightly difficult by the fact that differentnt leagues play different numbers of games, and besides this, a straight review doesn’t take into account the depth of the league. By this last comment, I meant that the process the Premier League is undergoing of having maybe seven clubs that will invariably beat the other 13 is already an established fact in many of these leagues, although the number of regular winners can in some cases be as low as three. Or in the case of Germany, one.
But still, I thought it was worth taking the final league table of each club involved and then considering the points per game they got last season.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | PPG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Arsenal | 38 | 20 | 14 | 4 | 69 | 34 | 35 | 74 | 1.95 |
| 1 | BayernMunich | 34 | 25 | 7 | 2 | 99 | 32 | 67 | 82 | 2.41 |
| 2 | Inter Milan | 38 | 24 | 10 | 4 | 59 | 27 | 32 | 81 | 2.13 |
| 3 | Atlético | 38 | 22 | 10 | 6 | 68 | 30 | 38 | 76 | 2.00 |
| 2 | Club Brugg | 40 | 24 | 10 | 6 | 86 | 42 | 36 | 53 | 1.33 |
| 1 | Olympiakos | 32 | 26 | 6 | 3 | 58 | 22 | 36 | 75 | 2.35 |
| 1 | Slavia Prague | 35 | 29 | 3 | 3 | 77 | 18 | 59 | 90 | 2.57 |
| 1 | Kairat Almaty | 24 | 14 | 5 | 5 | 39 | 21 | 18 | 47 | 1.96 |
| 4 | Athletic Club | 38 | 22 | 10 | 6 | 54 | 29 | 25 | 70 | 1.84 |
Now on that basis, it looks like Arsenal might only beat Club Brugg and Athletic Club, while also having the chance of grabbing a draw against Karat Almaty. But the fact that Arsenal are 99% certain to do far better than that, just as they did last year, shows what a cockeyed system this is, because of course, the quality of the leagues is very different. (Just ask your bookmaker of the odds of Kairat Almaty beating Arsenal)
However Arsenal’s defeats cannot be predicated just on the achievement of the clubs in other matches. Last season for example, Arsenal lost to Bournemouth twice, plus Newcastle and West Ham once each; no club lost fewer games in the league. Liverpool also lost four but the nearest rivals after that were Manchester City and Chelsea, with nine defeats each. And that in a season when Arsenal were decimated with injuries.
But back to the Champs League… the top eight in order ot points in the initial eight-match round were Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter, Atlético Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille, Aston Villa.
Once more, the top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout stage, while the teams finishing in ninth to 24th place will compete in a two-legged play-off to try and also join in the last 16.
Our first match of the league phase will take place between September 16-18. The final two Euro league games will happen on January 20 and 21, and in the final round, all 36 sides play at the same time on Wednesday, January 28, 2026 which will mean some funny kick-off times in different time zones.
However, before that, on Sunday at 4.30pm we have the little matter of playing Liverpool away, a match we have not won since 2012 – although in fact that year we did beat Liverpool away twice – once on 3 March 1-2, and then again on 2 September 0-2. So I would imagine it must be our turn to win there again soon, and we’ll have a look at the possibilities in forthcoming articles.
