- Liverpool show signs of the “dip” syndrome, which Arsenal have overcome
- Arsenal v West Ham: the aftermath
By Tony Attwood
The good news is that Martin Ødegaard has come out of Norway’s team that will play Israel and New Zealand (and we might pause at this moment to think, Norway v New Zealand – what does that say about global warming and football?). The bad news, of course, is that he has a medial collateral ligament injury to his left knee, which is way beyond my medical understanding but sounds awful.
Ødegaard was, as you will recall, replaced by Martín Zubimendi and left the ground with his knee in a brace.
The news about Declan Rice is worrying however since despite having to come off in Arsenal’s game with a problem in his back, he is nonetheless joining the England squad, which appears to have little respect for medical conditions, and seems to have a history of sending injured players back to clubs with the message “make sure you get him ready for our next Enjgland game”.
Arsenal’s statement said that, “Martin will continue to be assessed and treated by our medical team during the international window, with the aim of a return to action as soon as possible.”
Gabriel Jesus, Kai Havertz and Noni Madueke are all still injured. Piero Hincapié, who joined us from Bayer Leverkusen (with whom he played 116 games), is said to be ready to return from a groin injury after the international break. He joined Arsenal on 1 September on a season-long loan with an option to buy.
The weekend left Arsenal having played ten and won eight, drawn one and lost one this season and a position of being top of the Premier League – as the PL table shows below…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 3 | 11 | 16 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 9 | 4 | 15 |
| 3 | Tottenham Hotspur | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 14 |
| 4 | AFC Bournemouth | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 14 |
Arsenal have one more game in the run of matches they will be expected by all and sundry to win (Fulham after the international rounds, on 18 October – this another Saturday evening game).
Beyond that, we have Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on the 21st, then Palace and Brighton at home. So there would seem to be quite an opportunity for some more solid goal scoring during that run, noting that Arsenal are the second top scoring team in the Premier League behind Manchester City (who of course rely totally on Haaland who has scored 69% of their league goals this season. I wonder what will happen when he gets injured.)
The next games of the four top clubs are Fulham away for Arsenal as noted, then Manchester United at home for Liverpool, Aston Villa at home for Tottenham, and Crystal Palace away for Bournemouth.
Arsenal’s record calendar year in recent times came in 2024 when the club won 34 of 50 games, which gives a win percentage of 68% – the best since 1932, which was the best year in the club’s history. (If you want to know more about Arsenal in the top division, we are currently celebrating 100 consecutive seasons in the top division on the Arsenal History Society website (its an anniversary Arsenal FC don’t seem to have noted, having picked up from us the fact that this is also the 100th annivesrary of Herbert Chapman coming to the club). The latest article in that series is on our Arsenal History site, and there is an index to all the articles published so far in the series at the foot of that page.
There is a fair bit of chatter doing the rounds about Liverpool’s current record with three defeats in successive games – two in the league and one in the Champions League. Although they still have some way to go to match their record own run of consecutive defeats, which was nine, running from 29 April to14 October 1899. Still we can always offer them the best in their efforts in that regard.
Indeed, just in case you are interested in the niceties of football’s recent history, according to Wiki, they had a run of six consecutive home league defeats between January and March 2021. Mahybe they could try and emulate that.
