By Tony Attwood
Within the context of Belgian football, Club Brugge are pretty much one of the top teams – although when they come to compete in Europe, that is no longer the case. So they have the highest number of consecutive participations in the Europa League of any Belgian club, with 20, and the record number of Belgian Cups with 12. And when they qualified for the knockout stage of the Champions League in 202/23 that was their first time in reaching that stage.
At present, they are third in the Belgian league behind Union Saint Gilloise on 37 points and Sint Truidense VV on 33 points. Club Brugge themselves have 32 points.
At home, they have won six, drawn one and lost one. Away, the record is won four drawn one and lost four. The total goal tally is 24 goals scored and 17 conceded in 17 games. That is a per-game average of 1.41 scored and 1.00 conceded per game.
This compares to Arsenal, who have scored 28 and conceded 9 in 13 games, giving a per game average of 2.15 scored and 0.69 conceded.
Arsenal’s away record has slumped a little bit, leaving them the fourth best away team in the Premier League with four wins, two draws and two defeats and a goal difference of just +3. Club Brugge at home have also played eight and have won six, drawn one and lost one.
But they have had one rather unusual result this season, that being a 5-5 home draw with KVC Westerlo back in mid-September, which does show that it is quite possible for an opposition side to get at them.
In the past five years – that is to say since football was stopped for COVID, they have won the league three times, come fourth once, and last season came second, although they also won the country’s main cup.
These results obviously took them into the Champions League and in the first round of eight games (in which Arsenal, you may recall, came third) Club Brugge came 24th – the lowest position from which to qualify for the extra knockout round.
In that knock-out round, they beat Atalanta 5-2 over the two legs but in the round of 16 lost 1-6 over two legs to Aston Villa and so went out of the competition at that point.
This season, after five games, Arsenal are top of the 8-match league, having won all five, scoring 14 and conceding one. Club Brugge are 26th in the league, having won one, drawn one and lost three, with eight scored and 13 conceded.
This leaves them two points below where they need to be to get the extra two games in the knockout phase, and indeed 11 points behind Arsenal.
It all looks a foregone conclusion, but then again, with the level of negativity that the media pumped out after the Villa game, much depends on how Arsenal players were affected by that. On the other hand, that perfect record of five straight wins, 14 scored and only one conceded should be enough to scare the daulights out of the opposition, even though they are playing at home.
But now, after all that chitchat, we come to the bit that really surprises me. As for the first time since I started doing these sorts of analyses, I have hit a situation in which, as far as I can see, Arsenal have never played this team before. Now I might have got this wrong, but to the best of my knowledge, this will be the first match between the two sides.
Of course, I could have missed something, so if you know of a competitive game between the two clubs, do let me know, but for the moment, there can be no head-to-head section! Although of course, after tomorrow there will be one, and all the websites that record this sort of thing will have to create a new page.
So here are their last six games…
| Date | Venue | Opposition | Competition | Score | Res | Crowd |
| 5 Nov | H | Barcelona | Champ League | 3 – 3 | D | 27,037 |
| 9 Nov | A | Anderlecht | Pro League | 0-1 | L | 18,681 |
| 22 Nov | H | Sporting Charl | Pro League | 1-0 | W | 18,640 |
| 26 Nov | A | Sporting CP | Champ League | 0-3 | L | 41,634 |
| 30 Nov | H | Royal Antwerp | Pro League | 0-1 | L | 22,270 |
| 6 Dec | A | Sint-Truidense | Pro League | 2-3 | L | 10,076 |
As we can see, things have not always been going that well for them of late.
