By Tony Attwood
The Arsenal problem, in the eyes of the media, is well defined today as the Guardian runs the statement, “Mikel Arteta has conceded his long-term future at Arsenal is dependent on winning silverware as he prepares to celebrate his sixth anniversary in charge.”
The negativity in the piece continues, “Arsenal could be knocked off the top of the Premier League table for the first time since mid-October before their game begins,” which of course, we all knew, but doesn’t really tell us anything in particular. And of course, there is the comment that the manager is “aware he must deliver sooner rather than later.”
But let us consider this for a moment.
We recently ran the piece, ” How top clubs have at least 6+ of the top players in the world in their squads” in which we picked out the Arsenal players in the top 100 players in the world selected by the Guardian. At that moment, only players number 11 to 100 were included in the list/
Now the top ten have been added and as expected, there are of course no Arsenal players in that list. And how could there be? These are players contracted to the likes of PSG (3 players), Barcelona (3 players), and then four clubs with one player each: Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Manchester City. The top Arsenal player is Declan Rice at 15th.
But Arsenal’s journey since 2021, when the club finished eighth in the league, has not been to compete with PSG and Barcelona, but to compete with Liverpool and Manchester City. And in this case, this is not the case of moving up from eigth to first while everyone else is standing still. It is obviously a case of moving up while other clubs are improving as well. Of course Arsenal do have a plentiful amount of money around but it does not match the money available to PSG and Barcelona. Indeed nor does it match the money available to Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Manchester City.
Of course, Arsenal can spend more money than many other PL clubs, but that money does not stretch to buying and then paying the sort of players that PSG and Barcelona can buy and pay. Indeed, we used to think Real Madrid could spend what they liked, but even they are finding it hard to keep up with the spending now going on. Hence, they are four points behind Barcelona and could even be caught by Villareal who have two games in hand.
Arsenal’s game is to buy very good players and have them work in a team that has superior tactics. So yes, Arsenal can spend a lot of money on players such as Declan Rice, but are also focused on bringing through young players – as we have seen this season.
Of course none of this excuses my getting my fixtures in a tangle yesterday and reversing the venue of the match. It is of course at Everton’s ground and here is the home and away comparison.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Everton home | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 9 | 2 | 14 |
| 4 | Arsenal away | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 7 | 3 | 14 |
As the table shows the home results of Everton this season are very similar indeed to the away results of Arsenal this season – there is just one goal in it when it comes to the goal difference. Which indeed suggests a 1-1 draw.
But Everton did suffer a 1-4 home defeat to Newcastle last month, which suggests the ship is not quite as steady as the overall table above suggests.
As we know, Arsenal have only lost two games this season, but both of these have been away from home – against Liverpool and against Aston Villa, each lost by just one goal. That is what we have to avoid this evening.
Everton and Arsenal are not only equal in the home and away table above but also very close in the last six games table, where Everton are one point above Arsenal. It could be a close-run encounter..
