By Tony Attwood
- Clubs with the best academies
- When something goes wrong with a football club, it might just be the owner’s fault
The Guardian’s preview of Arsenal for this weekend is primarily about a 15 year old – which is interesting, given just where the club are in the league at the moment. The player, of course, is Max Dowman, who joined us from Billericay Town – an amazing ten years ago. He is the second youngest player ever in the Premier League and apparently, there have already been multiple offers for him – all of which have thankfully been turned down by his agent, who is also his father.
The player can sign a full contract with Arsenal when he is 17, which is on New Year’s Eve – although not the one in six weeks time, but the one after tha. If he plays against Palace, it will be his fourth appearance.
Meanwhile, journalists have started digging out other records suggesting that Arsenal could break them this season, while actually knowing that even if they don’t, it doesn’t matter because either way, they have got another story. The latest one is the lowest number of goals scored against a team in a season – a record held by Chelsea in 2004/5 when they conceded 15.
That season, the table ended with Arsenal second and Tottenham ninth. I was particularly interested to see Bolton in sixth spot, since they are currently seventh in League One – the third tier. And given that Arsenal are now playing their 100th consecutive season in the top league (as is regularly celebrated in our regular series on the Arsenal History Society site – latest article: 100 seasons in the top division: 1934/35: Arsenal after Chapman).
But back to today: here’s the 2004/5 table, just for old times’ sake.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chelsea | 38 | 29 | 8 | 1 | 72 | 15 | 57 | 95 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 38 | 25 | 8 | 5 | 87 | 36 | 51 | 83 |
| 3 | Manchester United | 38 | 22 | 11 | 5 | 58 | 26 | 32 | 77 |
| 4 | Everton | 38 | 18 | 7 | 13 | 45 | 46 | -1 | 61 |
| 5 | Liverpool | 38 | 17 | 7 | 14 | 52 | 41 | 11 | 58 |
| 6 | Bolton Wanderers | 38 | 16 | 10 | 12 | 49 | 44 | 5 | 58 |
In that season, Arsenal averaged 2.29 goals a game and 2.18 points a game. This season so far, we are on 1.88 goals per game (not bad considering the injury to our main goalscorer of recent seasons and the new man taking a little while to get his first two) and 2.38 points per game. And in this we need to remember that Arsenal have had games against Liverpool, both Manchester and Newcastle – all clubs that were supposed to be causing us problems.
It was interesting also that Nottingham Forest finally got a win, although Crystal Palace, having been demoted to the Uefa Conference League because of a joint ownership issue, still managed to lose to AEK Larnaca.
Elsewhere, the Telegraph tells us that, in the word of a Mr J Carragher, “Arsenal should not be scared of Liverpool – they should fear Erling Haaland”. Actually, I would have put it another way if I were a headline writer: “ManC should not be scared of other teams; it is an injury to Haaland that will totally screw them.”
Haaland has now scored 11 for ManC in the League and four in the Champions League. In each case, his nearest rival within the club has scored one. Just imagine them without him (not of course that I wish an injury upon him).
Actually, there was one other headline in the Telegaraph I enjoyed: “Tottenham’s first goalless draw in 125 games shows they have lost their entertaining edge”. And yes in the Premier League, they have only scored one goal fewer than Arsenal. It is their defence that needs sorting, as they have conceded more than twice as many as Arsenal. (Still you can’t expect these journalists to get everything right. Or in fact anything right). Mind you Chelsea has conceded three times as many goals as Arsenal in the league this season, while Liverpool are one shy of four times as many. Going down and down we see that West Ham have conceded six times as many goals in the league as Arsenal this season.
Actually, WHAM really do have multiple problems at the moment, as there were lots of spaces in the stands for their last match, and their supporters are not only protesting against the performances of the club, but also about the “soulless” stadium. Although the latter seems a bit harsh – I mean, not only did the club manage to get taxpayers like me to pay for the ground, but it does generate a lot more money than the old ground.
But then it is hard to feel good about anything much when you are almost bottom of the league. On the other hand, the top still looks quite attractive…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 3 | 12 | 19 |
| 19 | West Ham United | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 18 | -12 | 4 |
