Previously and elsewhere….
- Are Arsenal really as bad at selling players as the media suggests?
- Arsenal Champions League draw – how the opposition have been doing
- And in our series on Arsenal’s 100 consecutive seasons in the top division, the latest article is Removing Knighton, the arrival of Chapman, and changing reality. There is an index to the series thus far at the top of that page.
By Tony Attwood
Arsenal’s upcoming fixtures are with Liverpool (tomorrow), Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Newcastle United. These terms finished 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th in the league last season, so quite a challenging set of games to have all at once.
Liverpool’s fixtures are against Arsenal (obviously) followed by Burnley, Everton and Palace. One might suggest these are somewhat easier and likely to give Liverpool a chance to top the league early on – obviously a psychological advantage if that happens.
Of course it can immediately be argued that the order of the fixtures doesn’t matter since everyone plays everyone else twice, but of course the order of the fixtures is a factor in where the team sits in the table after three, four, five, six etc games, and that has a psychological effect on the club and its players.
After all Arsenal is a club that had calls for the manager to be sacked during the summer for not winning the league last season. You can imagine what will happen if Arsenal were to lose a couple of those four matches highlighted above. Transforming a club that came eighth two seasons running, into one coming second three seasons running will be forgotten, and there will be demands for replacement.
Sadly, the stupidity of the “sack the boss” argument is not recognised, as we in fact noted earlier this year in the article “Just how stupid is it for a PL club to change its manager?” which we ran a couple of months ago. The question was posed and answered: “Very”. Most managerial changes don’t improve the club’s standing. You only need to look a little way down the road to realise that. From 2015 to 2019 Tottenham were a top-four club. In the following six years, they slipped right down the league as they changed managers over and over. Last season they actually won a trophy (not that common an achievement for Tottenham) and again immediately sacked their manager. So it goes.
But of course the media live on the blood of others, and targets are being set for Arteta and demands made – not least with the knowledge of what is coming up in the next four Arsenal fixtures.
For upcoming, we have Liverpool (currently third), Nottingham Forest (fifth at the moment), and Manchester City (sixth, and with over 100 charges still levied against them and unresolved in appeal).
Now of course we can say that is balanced with two easy opening fixtures against a team that was promoted last season (and we all all now know that teams that are promoted usually go back down) and a team currently 16th in the league, and a bit of a laughing stock as they go around sacking people all day long and still not getting anwhere.
And yes of course, every one of the 19 other clubs has to be played twice, but this does all seem rather lumpy. A bit of setting Arsenal up to knock them down, perhaps.
Last season by the time we got to mid-October with seven league games played it was starting to look like a three-horse race, with the fourth chaser starting to slip away. And although there was a bit of swapping of positions (Nottingham Forest making the top four after 16 games, for example), by and large the top four remained the same with Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea taking those four positions. All of which makes the Liverpool game look rather important and Arsenal’s recent record at Anfield less than exciting – although maybe not quite as poor as you might expect, if you just listened to the pundits and didn’t have time to study the chart….
In fact between 1 October 2020 and today, the two sides have met at Liverpool’s ground six times – twice in the league cup and four times in the league. Both league cup games were drawn, one league match was won by Liverpool, and the most recent three league games were again drawn, the last being on 11 May this year.
Maybe the prognostications are not quite as poor as I initially imagined.
Liverpool fan in peace. It feels like tomorrow is Arsenals chance to make a statement. It’s clear that Liverpool are adjusting to a new system and new players with those players also all early 20s (21,22,23,24). Yes they cost a lot of money, yes they are supposed to have top quality but players generally get improve through their 20s and I feel that with the number of changes as well that this will be a transitional season for Liverpool. Some may say that’s a cop out but I think this team might need time and experience. Arsenal meanwhile have been building on the same trajectory for a few years now. The players bought this summer are the older side of mid 20s (Zubimendi 26, Eze 27, Gyokeres27) so at their peak or just about to hit their peak years, and the core of the squad remains unchanged. Eze is a fantastic signing, he will win Arsenal the games they were held in last season. Arsenal also look so solid defensively and I think those two factors will be the difference this season. I think Arsenal win it. Liverpool will score a lot of goals if Isak signs and will improve defensively should Guehi sign. Both are yet to happen though. I feel our best chance could be the champions league. That’s not to say I think we will win it, but we are one of the teams that look more likely along with Arsenal Real and PSG. Chelsea, City, Bayern just behind. I’ve got to say I don’t go along with the order of the fixtures impacting anything, early leads mean nothing. The history of Premier League title races proves that. Arsenal just weren’t good enough last season but this season I think they will be.
LMM – thank you for your commentary. We always welcome comments from supporters of other clubs as long as they are not abusive or simply the expression of a single statement. You’re very welcome here and as moderator I do try and keep everything reasonably balanced while of course we all support our own team, naturally.