- How do you measure success in a football club or the competence of a commentator?
- How this season compares with previous campaign starts
By Tony Attwood
For one thing we can be grateful – the first leg of Arsenal’s next match tomorrow going to be played in the country of the opposition, and not in Miami or New York or somewhere else chosen for financial rather than sporting reasons. Such possibilities of matches being played in other venues is, however, still on the cards for domestic competitions and being actively debated, and it is certainly possible that the focus of that notion might shift to European games.
But for now, tomorrow night’s game is being played in Spain against Athletic Club, who are currently fourth in the Spanish League with three wins and one defeat, which may sounds fairly familiar.
Of course, we have already played them once as Arsenal lifted the Emirates Cup with a rather fine 3-0 win over Athletic Club. As you might recall, Viktor Gyokeres headed in his first Arsenal goal from a cross supplied by Martin Zubimendi. Bukayo Saka scored and Arsenal strolled on to what turned out to be an easy win Kai Havertz coming on as a sub. Ben White and Noni Madueke came in the second half and Gabriel got the final goal.
But of course, that was a friendly and our opponents have since also played some games in the Catalan Football League. However, leaving all those aside, what we have are these results so far….
| Club | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Madrid | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 2 | +6 | 12 |
| 2 | Barcelona | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 13 | 3 | +10 | 10 |
| 3 | Getafe | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 4 | +2 | 9 |
| 4 | Athletic Bilbao | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 4 | +2 | 9 |
| 5 | Villarreal | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 3 | +5 | 7 |
So the results look the same as Arsenal’s except the goal scoring and defending is less assured, with Arsenal having scored nine and conceded one so far.
This season will be the same as the last in relation to the Champions League format, with clubs playing each other once, with matches in theory against a balanced array of clubs, as measured by the Uefa rankings. After this game, Arsenal have Olympiacos away, Athletic Madrid at home, Slavia Prague away, Bayern Munich at home and Club Brugge away.
Athletic Club have not been in the Champions League for 11 years, and so we can’t trace previous meetings with the club in history. And indeed, apart from being in the Europa last season, they have not been in a European competition since 2017/18 when the club played in the Europa, having come seventh the season before.
But they have just had six years of progress coming 11th, 10th, 8th, 8th, 5th and 4th across those seasons. They also won the Copa del Rey in 2024.
In the league last season, they were fourth, 18 points behind the winners Barcelona. We can compare their finishing position with Arsenal’s in the table below, which shows both clubs’ stats for last season.
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | ||
| 4 | A Bilbao | 38 | 19 | 13 | 6 | 54 | 29 | +25 | 70 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 38 | 20 | 14 | 4 | 69 | 34 | +35 | 74 |
.
What we can see is a similar range of results (Arsenal winning just one more game and drawing one more) but a more significant difference in terms of goals, most significantly Arsenal scoring 15 more and getting a goal difference that was 10 goals superior. We might also note in passing that Atletico Madrid are way down in 11th so far this season, having won just one of their opening four games.
Athletic Bilbao have been champions of Spain eight times, most recently in 1984. However, we might also note that in the last 20 years in Spain, the only time the league has not been won by either Real Madrid or Barcelona was in 2014 and 2021 when Atletico Madrid took the title.
So in effect, two league winners covering 18 of the last 20 years – and I must admit that while I support Arsenal totally, I really don’t want to see the Premier League move the same way, even if it means Arsenal and Liverpool sharing out the title year after year. We have had Manchester City winning six seasons out of eight, and it really does nothing for football in England.
Fortunately, it looks as if the League might (just might, nothing more certain than might) sort out what sort of funding model ManC is allowed to have, and then impose sanctions, but the fact that we are still waiting for a result of the enquiry into the 115 or so charges against them does not fill me with positive thoughts. The case that has been settled of course se, is the Associated Party Transactions case – ManC were found guilty as charged – but the 115 charge case is still the big one.
And that actually does raise a question that the media seem reluctant to face. Just how long is the league going to allow this to go on?
