- The two teams that make Arsenal what it is today
- Arsenal tackles and cards – how are we comparing and why is it all so strange?
By Tony Attwood
Now you may have missed this little fact, but there is another live Arsenal match on tomorrow (Tuesday) – and its actually on Sky at 7pm. That game is Exeter City vs Arsenal under 21 and is in Group I of the EFL Trophy (and that is I as in the capital letter “i” not I as in the Roman numerals 1. Glad we got that sorted. These details are important.
Now what sort of game it will be I have no idea for I hve not watched one of these matches before, but having come a bit of a cropper in a minor car accident this week (which was big enough to take my car off the road but not so big that I can’t get up and turnh the TV on when everyone else in the house is being nice to me) I shall be watching the kiddies, rather than doing anything else.
In fact, all things considered, there are 30 games on TV so the TV audience in each case will be modest, but it’s my house, so I get to choose. Well, sometimes.
The Grecians are bottom of the group after losing to Cardiff City, and they now face “Arsenal The Younger” who are top of the league after being Newport County.
Newport and Cardiff have each played two, winning one and losing one, while Exeter have played one and lost it – that of course being the game against Arsenal.
The under-21s started with a series of friendlies, the highlight of which was a 5-2 win over St Albans City. The Premier League 2 as it is known, started on 15 August with a 2-3 home defeat against Fulham. The next game as as a 2-2 draw in Forest and then finally came the first home win of the season proper with a 1-0 victory over Brighton at the end of August.
That improvement continued with three games and three wins in September, beating Wolverhampton and Derby in the League and Newport County in the EFL Trophy. That was seen as the highlight of the season thus far – but compliments have also been given for scoring in every game. And there is hope for the game against Exeter, for here’s a snippet of the league table giving the top teams, and Exete’s place and those below. The bottom four go down to League Two
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cardiff City | 13 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 21 | 11 | 10 | 26 |
| 2 | Stevenage | 12 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 18 | 10 | 8 | 26 |
| 3 | Bradford City | 13 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 23 | 16 | 7 | 26 |
| 18 | Exeter City | 14 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 16 |
| 19 | Reading | 14 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 15 | 19 | -4 | 15 |
| 20 | Burton Albion | 13 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 11 | 16 | -5 | 15 |
| 21 | Port Vale | 13 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 11 | 12 | -1 | 13 |
| 22 | Plymouth Argyle | 13 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 17 | 23 | -6 | 13 |
| 23 | Blackpool | 14 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 13 | 22 | -9 | 12 |
| 24 | Peterborough United | 13 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 10 | 22 | -12 | 10 |
And I thought you might like to know that Exeter City has the nickname: the Grecians, as that was the name for the people who lived in St Sidwells, outside the walls of the city. It seems these people outside the walls were compared with the ancient Greeks who besieged Troy. Although why anyone would compare Exeterians with Grecians I can’t quite understand.
Now, through the month of September, Exeter City had a bit of a duff time of it, playing four league matches and one Football League Trophy and losing all of these five matches, scoring one and conceding seven.
Since then, they have perked up a bit, winning two, drawing one and losing one of their four League One games in October.
But their last game was a 2-0 home win over Plymouth Argyle, which by and large gives them the bragging rights for the south west, given that Torquay are these days in the National League South. The predicted lineup for Arsenal is
Setford;
Nichols, Sweet, Clarke, Washington;
Copley, Ibrahim;
Stevens, Dudziak, Sagoe Jr;
Annous.
