By Tony Attwood
Let’s try to get this clear.
“A blip. A wobble. A mini-crisis. Call it what you want, Arsenal went into Tuesday night’s top-of-the-table battle with Aston Villa after a shaky few weeks.”
That comes from the Analyst – and it is the same theme as you can find in many publications at the moment. “Fans who pushed for a change of captaincy should be feeling sheepish after Norwegian’s two most recent masterclasses,” which is a bit ripe because the media was after Martin Ødegaard even more than the fans. But you know, consistency in reporting… not really that important is it?
So no, it was all our fault, because, well, the media don’t make mistakes, aren’t biased, and never comment on referees because really there is nothing to comment upon as they show us each day by not reporting on them.
So let’s examine this blip, wobble, and mini-crisis. And in doing so, let’s try to define “a few weeks”. Not one or two weeks obviously, but not four either, since that would have been called, by general agreement of the English-speaking public, a month. So three weeks. Around 21 days.
Right, we have that fixed, so let us have a look at just what Arsenal have been up to in the last “few weeks”. Here we go…
| Date | Game | Res | Score | Competition |
| 10 Dec | Club Brugge v Arsenal | W | 0-3 | Champions Lge |
| 13 Dec | Arsenal v Wolverhampton W | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 20 Dec | Everton v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 23 Dec | Arsenal v Crystal Palace | W | 1-1 (8-7) | League Cup |
| 27 Dec | Arsenal v Brighton and Hove A | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 30 Dec | Arsenal v Aston Villa | W | 4-1 | Premier League |
Now I know that for many journalists maths is a bit of a sticking point, but even so, that does look to me as if the “sticky period” consists of six wins in six matches.
“Ah,” but the argument might go, “that league cup match was lucky as Arsenal won on penalties,” so ok let’s take that out. And we still have five in a row, which isn’t that bad, is it?
Now I also have no problem in talking about Villa’s run, which consisted of nine successive wins in all competitions before they were cut to pieces by Arsenal, although I think I would also add that for the last seven games before meeting Arsenal, each and every one of those victories was by one goal. Which points to the fact that they have evolved a style of play that basically means getting the lead and then shutting up shop. It’s not something the media mentions, but well, it’s a bit obscure, I suppose.
But the fact is that Villa’s way, isn’t actually a very positive way of playing and not a very entertaining approach either, once the lead has been established, but that is what they do. From Leeds United away to Chelsea also away, they have been winning by a single goal, game after game.
That didn’t get mentioned, of course, but I know, the number of goals scored is a bit of a technical detail and not what newspaper readers want to hear about. So, best leave it out.
But to call that run a “shaky few weeks” does seem a bit weird. What does that make Manchester City in late November, or indeed earlier in August, when on each occasion they have lost two consecutive games?
Or what about Chelsea? They had not lost a game in the last six when they drew with Arsenal at the end of November. Not much was made of their run, although that draw with Arsenal had a profound psychological effect on Chelsea who then won just two of their next nine games. The only wins in fact were both away from home against Cardiff City in the League Cup and Everton at home in the league.
The obvious team that is chasing Arsenal is Manchester City, and they have one game in hand, being five points behind and having a goal difference of +1, superior to Arsenal. Their game in hand is in fact today at 8pm away to Sunderland. And here they have real luck with them as we can see from the last six games table…
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester C | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 7 | +12 | 18 |
| 10 | Sunderland | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 7 | -1 | 9 |
But there is one little bit of good news tucked away in all this. And I don’t want to go clutching at straws and all that, but you may have noticed that through the season, Manchester City have still not quite got their away form up to the level of their home form. Here is the comparison table.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Manchester City away | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 18 | 11 | 7 | 16 |
| 5 | Sunderland home | 9 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 16 | 8 | 8 | 19 |
You never know. Sunderland could do us a favour.
In fairness the run of games against Wolves, Palace, Everton and Brighton together with the defeat at Villa Park may well be considered a “bit shaky”.
What intirgues me though is that barely any of the media mentioned during that period how badly we were affected by injuries. Strangely though after the thrashing of Villa at home in which Gabriel played a huge part, a few are now mentioning that we are almost back to full strength and are actually willing to cknowledge that we did have a lot of injuries.
It seems to me that they are hugely reluctant to acknowledge injuries which cause us problems in the hope that we get beaten and can call it us “bottling it” but when we get through it without having “bottled it”. However, it’s hugely difficult for them not to mention that we’ve had injuries when Gabriel, Havertz, Jesus, Timber, White are all in the squad having been missed for weeks/months. Yet hardly a mention that against Brighton we had only one first choice back four player and were so depleted we had to play Declan at right back.
It’s almost as if there’s some sort of agenda they wish to perpetuate……
Happy New Year fellow Untolders!!