By Tony Attwood
Now the initials, the “AAA”, have not been used on this site for a while, but I find myself noting them today: they are the people who spend all their time complaining about Arsenal while claiming to be Arsenal fans – the anti-Arsenal Arsenal.
The view of this group, whose YouTube sites were seized on by journalists and others ato prove that Arsenal were so awful even their own fans hate them, was that if only Arsenal would listen to THEM, instead of hiring managers such as Bruce Rioch, Arsene Wenger, Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta, everything would be fine. For those managers, they argue, were not only tactically naive but also consistently bought the wrong players, invariably paying too much along the way.
Of course, they went rather quiet during Wenger’s run between 1998 and 2005, but when he reduced his purchasing of players in order to help the club pay for the new stadium, the AAA turned on him with a vengeance, which was also seen in the first couple of seasons under Arteta.
They are still there, the AAA, although I must admit that I long ago stopped noting what they said, since it seemed to me that nothing would ever satisfy them, although they have continued their “work” if I can call it that, through their website AFTV.
But they have come back to my thoughts as recently it seems AFTV and the Daily Mail sports section have been slagging each other off. Although not generally a violent man, I can only hope for multiple casualties.
I am not quite sure if this latest battle between the two groups is going to help anyone, but when two sets of campaigners spend a lot of time shouting at each other, even if no one is hurt, they might at least wear each other out.
Such a result could be to Arsenal’s advantage, especially as we think of this weekend’s match. Southampton are in the play-off places in the Championship, equal in points with Wrexham. Because of this, I am sure that promotion to the top tier is a much higher priority for Southampton than getting to the next round of the cup, although I guess they would like both.
Southampton are one of the league’s yo-you clubs….
- In 2021/2 they came 15th in the Premier League.
- In 2022/3 they were 20th and relegated back to the Championship.
- In 2023/4 they were fourth in the Championship and promoted.
- In 2024/5 they were 20th in the Premier League and relegated.
What they really want is to go up and stay up, so it is possible that this season their focus is totally on promotion, for although their ground capacity is reported as 32,384 they often don’t get this, and this season attendance has been down as low as 17,359. Certainly, in the Premier League, they were consistently getting above 31,000.
I don’t have details of their pricing structure, but I imagine they do charge more for Premier League games than Championship games – which is another incentive to get promotion.
So the League Cup is probably a distraction for them, although given that their home form this season is better than their away form, they will fancy their chances.
The clubs have played each other 115 times over the decades, with Arsenal winning 55 and Southampton 23. In the last dozen games, Arsenal have won six of them, four have been drawn, leaving just two won by Southampton, one in the League and one in the Cup. Both were at the Dell, and both ended 1-0. They score and pull up the drawbridge.
As for the last six games, that is more of a worrying issue. Obviously, Southampton’s matches are championship games, but even so…that is a trifle worrying… at least until one looks at Arsenal’s position for the last six games in the Premier League.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Southampton | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 14 | 3 | +11 | 16 |
| 1 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 5 | +7 | 14 |
In all the years of using the last six league games as a guide to form I don’t think I have seen this before!
The fact is that the current form has a huge impact on player psychology – something most journalists don’t like to write about, first because they can’t spell the word and second because they mix up psychology with psychiatry and think that it is suggesting something to do with mental ill-health.
But in essence, if a club is regularly winning, the players play with more confidence, which means both clubs will have confidence going into the game. Except that…
a) Southampton will know that Premier League players are better than Championship players, and
b) Arsenal will know that they currently have 11 players out injured as a result of the recent internationals.
More thoughts later….
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