By Tony Attwood
- The 115 charges seem to have failed. But there is still a way out for football.
- How are Arsenal finances doing, and how are we seen across Europe?
So we beat Coventry 3-0. We beat Aston Villa 0-1, we beat Chelsea 2-1 we beat Napoli 0-1 and the league table reads
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 2 | +5 | 9 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 | +5 | 9 |
| 3 | Hull City | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | +3 | 7 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 7 | +1 | 6 |
| 5 | Brentford | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 2 | +3 | 5 |
And I know there is still a very very long way to go, in fact such a long way we appear to have Christmas and Easter before we get there, but I can’t help thinking how these results contrast with the reviews which spread across the media and the internet to the effect that “Arsenal had a poor window”
Or indeed as Football365 put it “Feels strange to say that considering we bought a very good midfielder, a very good defender, and an interesting wide player, spending a lot of money in the process. ,… However, there is absolutely no escaping the fact that the most important target this window was to strengthen the left side of attack and possibly up front….”
Now to be fair after several paragraphs like that they did conceded that, everything really was going ok, with a good set of players some of whom I would already rate as excellent. So we all seem to be getting into some sort of agreement.
So maybe, and maybe as they conceded later, we have put the money in the bank ready for January. Who knows? But for now I can have a good time and enjoy the notion that Untold didn’t say the summer window was rubbish, and we’ve had much pleasure through every moment of the season so far that has emerged out of that window.
Oh yes and you might have noticed I missed out the fact that on 16 August we beat ManC 3-0 in the Community Shield. But I suspect that doesn’t count. Or at least it doesn’t count when we win it.
And we have achieved all this while being comical. Now I wasn’t at the Community whatnot game – I watched it on TV – but I do look at the newspaper headlines and couldn’t but notice “Martin Odegaard bails out comically wasteful Arsenal” in the Telegraph and other sites in reviewing the Napoli game. I am not sure who copies who these days, but that headline turns up in different places – and maybe that is this season’s theme. Arsenal are top of the league but could do so much more if they were not so comically wasteful. OK, if that is what we have to have. let it roll.
Anyway, in case you were wondering about Arsenal’s colours, there is an explanation in that article where it says, “Perhaps it was the fact that, at Uefa’s insistence, they were forced to wear red shorts for the first time since a Premier League game against Watford in 2022 that Arsenal were not quite at their flowing best here and missed a hatful of chances.”
So there we are. Arsenal go on winning, and the media go on knocking and the most important thing is the colour of the shorts. At this rate I get the feeling it could go on like this for most of the season, although I am not predicting another unbeaten campaign nor indeed more red shorts. More the notion that the journalists only have copy ready for Arsenal’s defeats. When they keep winning, well, they just don’t know what to say so they dribble on about the colour of shorts….
There was also the absolute scandal of Arsenal supporters being kept in the ground for over an hour after the final whistle – will Uefa take any action over that? No of course not. They always say that security is a matter for the home club. So having got away with it this time, we can expect the remaining clubs we play in Europe to do the same thing. It is a scandal and a disgrace – but then we live in a world where the President of the United States just seems to have offered American citizens money to vote for him. So I guess keep Arsenal supporters behind after a game doesn’t rank very highly any more.
Obviously Ødegaard is currently the wonderful superstar who has majestically scored a grand total of four goals in the games played having having scored one last season, and long may it stay that way.
So to summarise: starting with the Community Shield we have won every game we have played. I am not sure you’ll read that notion anywhere else, and maybe you think we shouldn’t combine different competitions in this way, but it’s my blog so I can say it. (If you want to write something yourself for the blog, please do send it in. Unless it has abuse in it, the piece is most likely to be published – email me at Tony@schools.co.uk)
Next up is Sunderland away on Saturday 12th September with a kick off at 8pm. I must admit I am finding it hard to wait.
