- So just how brilliant is this new Arsenal?
- The Community Shield: Pay a fortune to see some of the Arsenal first team
By Tony Attwood
Just how good were Arsenal last season? As we know, they won the league by seven clear points, but how did that compare with, for example, the Arsenal team that Chapman led to the first of three titles in a row in the run that started in 1930/31?
To give a clue I have put a comparison of the last season, with 1930/31, below – but there is one mathematical factor to take into account, and that is that in the 1930s clubs played 42, not 38, league games in a season.
To try and get a little bit more of a comparison is complex as we have to recognise we are comparing figures from 95 years apart, and as you might have noticed, one or two things have changed over that time, such as the offside rule and the length of the players’ shorts, although I am not sure the latter makes much difference.
But we can only use the figures and data we have, and as I had a bit of free tim here is the result – presented, I think, for the first time in this form: the start of Chapman’s trilogy in comparison with Ateta’s title win of 2026.
Now of course, you might think this is a load of old baloney, and although I wouldn’t use that word, I would agree it is all a bit fanciful. But I like fanciful stuff, and have a particular reason for this comparison – because my father was on the terraces during that first title-winning season.
Of course I heard about such times in my young days when taken to the matches by my dad, and I did hear one or two things about what Arsenal was like in those olden times. Now an old man myself, I do find it amusing to engage in a bit few comparisons between now, when I first went to Highbury, and what it was like for my late father
And to make comparisons a little bit easier, I have added a third row at the foot of the table below, which allows us to compare 1930/31 when 42 games were played in the league by each team, with the current situation in which just 38 games are played.
There is, however, no comparison of points totals since obviously these days we have three for a win, and then it was two.
| year | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | FAC | SCORER | GOALS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1930–31 | 42 | 28 | 10 | 4 | 127 | 59 | 66 | R4 | Jack Lambert | 39 |
| 2025–26 | 38 | 26 | 7 | 5 | 71 | 27 | 85 | QF | V Gyökeres | 21 |
| 1930/1 BALANCED | 38 | 25 | 9 | 4 | 114 | 53 | 61 | R4 | Jack Lambert | 35 |
I am going to compare last season (Arteta’s first league title) with 1930/1 using the “balanced” numbers – which means in effect, an estimate of the number of wins, goals etc that would have been seen had the club only played 38 rather than 42 games in that first title season.
And what we find is that the number of victories in 1930/1 was almost the same as 2025/6. Indeed, the number of defeats in 1930/1 was only one fewer than last season using this perspective – really last season’s team can be talked about defensively in direct comparison with the start of Chapman’s great era. I hope Arteta realises what he has achieved in this regard!
Where there is a difference however, is in goals scored. Arsenal at the start of their dominance of the 1930s were scoring 60% more goals than Arsenal today. And with a tougher offside rule too. How can we explain that?
In fact, goals were much more plentiful in the 1930s – the top three clubs all scored over 100 goals each. And amazingly, Blackpool, who finished in what today would be the third relegation place in 1931, scored 71 goals – exactly the same as Arsenal scored in winning the league last season! So it seems goal scorers were much more adept than now, and defenders much less adept than now, despite a much less rigorous offside law in the 1930s.
And indeed Arsenal were not the top scorers with the 127 goals – Villa got more. Only one more, but it shows that ARsenal were good, but not out of this worldd.
Of course no one measured goal difference in th 1930s, .but in looking back we can see a significant difference between then and now. So as we can see, if we are going to compare Arsenal winning the league at the start of its first great run in the 1930s, with what is happening today, football has changed enormously. But looking at goal ifference as the measure that compares then and now, this Arsenal team has got a lot more going for it, than that team of the 1930s. Of course I wasn’t there to see it, but i know my Dad was, and I think it is with data like this that I begin to understand exactly why he was so keen to see his son grow up an Arsenal supporter, even though a fair number of my fellows at primary school, rather foolishly (as it turned out) were inclined to support Tottenham.
