- Arsenal v West Ham. The reason we have got this ref looks truly shocking
- Arsenal v West Ham, Saturday 3pm. Are Arsenal on the edge of another dip?
By Tony Attwood
A lot of football is fixed, including how of course, the order of the fixtures. Just consider our opening this season! But at least we are still left playing each club twice.
And so, having weathered the storm, Arsenal have what must be one of the better fixture runs in the coming few weeks. After West Ham at home today, we have Fulham away and then a run including games against Burnley and Sunderland. Now it is true of course that within these runs we have the occasional European games which the Premier League don’t set up, but even so, one wonders why this season the Premier League seems to have dropped its regular concept of one game at home and then one game away. We get a bit of that alternation, and then it breaks down again.
So to be clear, it is West Ham at home today, then Fulham away, then Palace at home, followed by Burnley and Sunderland both away. And while of course “anything can happen” as they used to say on Thunderbirds in my youth, this doesn’t look too bad.
And what adds to the confidence is that we have what seems to me to be the best squad in years. True, we are getting the injuries, but it looks to me as if Arteta and Co started out by thinking, “we are going to get multiple injuries” (largely because the referees won’t protect us), and so that is built into the equation.” A sensible approach.
However, we do like to try and stay up to date with events, and we must note that Arsenal have sunk down the league overnight because of Bournemouth’s unexpected (at least by me) rise up the table. (And do note, most goals scored, least conceded as well as just two points off the top).
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 7 | 5 | 15 |
| 2 | AFC Bournemouth | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 14 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 3 | 9 | 13 |
| 4 | Crystal Palace | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 12 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hots | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 11 |
Bournemouth last night beat Fulham, who now move down to 11th in the league, while taking themselves up to second, which I rather think is the first time they have occupied that position. Quite how they have done this with a ground capacity of around 11,300 I have no idea. Indeed, even their expansion programme only takes them up to 20,100 and would still leave them with a very modest-sized ground for the Premier League. And that seems many years away, as it hasn’t started yet and is apparently being done in phases.
But back to today, and the Premier League foot of the table does look quite extraordinary with Manchester United and their vast stadium and support in 14th, Newcastle in 15th, then Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest, both clubs who appeared last season to have pretensions about breaking into the top six or big seven or whatever it is to be called.
I won’t take up computer space with that whole part of the table, but as we are playing WHAM it is worth looking at the lower reaches of the lower reaches as it were….
| Club | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
| 16 | Aston Villa | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 6 | -2 | 6 |
| 17 | Nottingham Forest | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 10 | -5 | 5 |
| 18 | Burnley | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 13 | -7 | 4 |
| 19 | West Ham United | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 14 | -8 | 4 |
| 20 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 6 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 13 | -9 | 1 |
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Of course, what we are used to seeing by this stage of the season is the three promoted clubs occupying the three relegation spots. But the three relegated clubs of last season are currently 5th, 11th and 13th in the Championship, while as you can see, there are some unlikely names now looking downwards.
West Ham’s finishing positions in recent seasons have been, in chronological order 14th, 9th and 14th, while in the last two seasons they have let in 74 and 62 goals respectively. But if they carry on at their current rate, they will end up having let in 89 goals by the end of the campaign
And that number is interesting because last season the three relegated clubs conceded 80, 82 and 86 goals, so this does make it look like WHAM are serious contenders for the drop.
Now, last time they went down to the second tier, they conceded 70 goals, and they are at the moment doing far worse than that.. Indeed, we can see this fairly clearly from their games this season, for they are not just losing by the odd goal, but generally by lots of goals. Indeed, the signings have been there from the start with Sundelrand beating WHAM in the opening round of the season 3-0, a game that was followed by a 1-5 home defeat to Chelsea. After that, Wolverhampton knocked them out of the League Cup, they lost at home to Tottenham and Palace, and then in their last game, just managed a draw with Everton.
Indeed, if Tottenham can beat them 0-3 at the Taxpayers’ Stadium (so named since all of us who do pay our taxes contributed to paying for it) I wonder what Arsenal might do when at home.
Suggested lines up will as usual come soon.
