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By Tony Attwood
Arsenal, as obviously you know, play in four competitions each season, and this season the fixture list seems to be getting overwhelming. It is easy to say that this is due to the fact that Arsenal are making progress in the League Cup, but then over time Arsenal have played in more League Cup games than most clubs. In fact, Liverpool have played the most, Aston Villa are fractionally behind, and Arsenal are in third place. We may put out junior teams, but we still get a long way most seasons.
Overall, last season we played five League Cup games between September and February, in 2023/24 it was just two, while in 2022/23 it was just the one. Although go back to 2021/22, and it was six games.
Then of course there are FA Cup games which the club does take more seriously, although we seem to have opted out of that of late. In 2024/25 Arsenal played just the one game, as in 2023/24. In 2022/23 it was two. while in 2021/2 it was one. In 2020/1 it was two.
What has really changed everything is the re-arrangement of the Champions League, where instead of there being six games in the opening league section we now have eight games in the opening round, ending at the end of January. At least if Arsenal do as last year and end up in the top eight, then the next two games in the knockout round are avoided.
Put all this together and between now and the end of 2025 Arsenal have 13 games to play in 57 days, which is one in every 4.4 days. Now of course, anyone who is old and has a long memory will recall that until the mid-1980s, First Divison clubs could play four games in eight days. Take, for example, Arsenal’s schedule in 1983.
- December 26: Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal
- December 27: Arsenal v Birmingham
- December 31: Arsenal v Southampton
- January 2: Norwich City v Arsenal
Yes four division one games in eight days. Now we are not back to that yet, but Arsenal have got 14 games in 60 days – one in every 4.4 days, including games in the Czech Republic, Germany and Belgium. Here’s the list…
- November 4 – Slavia Prague (h)
- November 8 – Sunderland (a)
- November 23 – Tottenham (h)
- November 26 – Bayern Munich (h)
- November 30 – Chelsea (a)
- December 3 – Brentford (h)
- December 6 – Aston Villa (a)
- December 10 – Club Brugge (a)
- December 13 – Wolverhampton (h)
- December 16 – Crystal Palace (h)
- December 21 – Everton (a)
- December 27 – Brighton (h)
- December 30 – Aston Villa (h)
- January 3 – Bournemouth (a)
The fact is that this is inviting clubs to bring in additional players to cover themselves in case of injuries through overplaying, which is not really the idea of these competitions. The alternative is some clubs simply not bothering that much with competitions they don’t fancy.
But each competition has its own organisers and each one wants to screw as much money and interest out of its activities as possible. Hence, the expansion of the Champions League format. And indeed, many clubs want more games because that is where they get their money. The League Cup, after all, was simply introduced as another way to screw a few more pennies out of supporters.
And it was to Arsenal’s credit that they refused to join in at first, only relenting when they were forced to by the League itself.
But countering that, the Premier League, when it was formed, reduced its size from the 22 clubs in the old First Division to 20 clubs. And indeed there was a campaign largely Chelsea to cut the league size again just recently, but that was rejected by the smaller clubs. Chelsea’s season this campaign began just three weeks after they had won Trump’s Club World Cup, which they had volunteered to enter.
Quite how the mess gets sorted out, no one knows, but the separate demands of money and the condition of players have yet to be balanced. Certainly, playing junior players and those who are improving their match fitness, in the League Cup, can help, as can using junior players in a couple of the Champions League initial rounds, when the games are against clubs from smaller countries. But that is now under pressure as it is claimed that this action betrays the integrity of the competition.
In the end, the issue is one of split management. The League, the FA, the FA and Fifa, all want their competitions to be played for by the best players, but that just makes for far too much football. Arsenal do only have 21 players aged over 21 in their first team squad, and it can be argued that they should fill up all 25 places, but then older players don’t like to sign for a club knowing that they are only there to make up the numbers if others are injured.
The real solution has to be to reduce the number of matches played by countries, but the chances of that seem remote.
Bayern Munich (h) Slavia Prague (h) You list them as home games.