- Bayern v Arsenal: Arsenal continue to out perform Munich in domestic league games
- Totties get a win and race up to 16th, but are still a very long way behind Arsenal
By Tony Attwood
When I came to think about it, it seemed rather strange that the question wasn’t regularly posed, and answered. Which is to say, “How are we doing this year compared with last year?”
Of course this isn’t a question that can be answered exactly because the fixture list isn’t the same each year, and although obviously by the end of the season we play everyone else twice, a measurement made after a dozen or so games can be misleading because of factors affecting just this year or last year. A key player was injured, the fixture list involved a couple of really tough games early on… that sort of thing.
But then, clubs ought to be set up to overcome such difficulties – so, I thought – there might be something to be discovered by seeing exactly where Arsenal were after seven league games in recent seasons. And if I may, I will stress that it is SEVEN LEAGUE GAMES and I am not including anything from the league cup, or a preliminary round of a European competition.
Now I don’t recall anyone doing this before – but if someone has then a) I’m sorry to have taken up your time and b) doubly sorry to have take up my time, because it took a lot longer than I thought it would. But for what it is worth these are the league situations after seven league matches soon after the start of each season as indicated in the first column.
And just to spell it out, this is only including league matches, not league cup, or Preliminary Rounds of European competitions etc.
Now the first thing you will notice is just how poor 2021/2 was at the start. From which you then can quickly notice that after that the first seven league games of each season have been really very consistent. The points total ranges between 16 and 18 after the opening campaign in this list. We know how to get going.
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021/2 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 | -5 | 10 |
| 2022/3 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 7 | 10 | 18 |
| 2023/4 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 15 | 6 | 9 | 17 |
| 2024/5 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 15 | 6 | 9 | 17 |
| 2025/6 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 3 | 11 | 16 |
| 2026/7 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 18 |
However although the points total across the last six years of the chart only varies by a maximum of two for each years, except the starting year of 2021/2 the number of goals scored has remained consistent, dropping just this season from the range of 14 to 17 down to 11. The defence has stayed where it was before, letting in five goals but we have scored fewer. There we are – the entire issue in half a sentence.
Now there is quite an achievement here – to have got the top number of points across this set of games (18) while knocking in roughly half the number of goals that we are used to getting. Not good for the entertainment ratings, but at least we are not going to have to be spending the rest of the season trying to catch up while looking over our shoulders.
In fact one could make a positive out of this: we can win when we score, and we can win wen we score fewer.
Now this seems to me an important point to understand. In points total we are at the top of the game, so all we have to do is knock in a few more goals Which although it sounds a bit odd to say, can be an interesting thought. For it suggests that a greater effort could be put into getting one or two extra goals at the end of the game just to help the numbers along.
Anyway we are second in the league, at a time when we have not really been at our very best in terms of the forward line. So we don’t have to go through an agonising discussions about which forwards to buy. Our players know perfectly well how to score, but have just been having a bit of a lean time. They are still getting the results, and we are undoubtedly on track for the next section of the competition.
But what about the league itself. As it stands the top of the table reads…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 7 | 12 | 21 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 18 |
So how did the table look a year ago after seven games? Here’s the answer
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 3 | 11 | 16 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 9 | 4 | 15 |
| 3 | Tottenham Hotspur | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 14 |
Yes we are down in the goal difference department but we are only three goals down in terms of scoring in the PL and a couple of goals worse off in the defence. Both can be rectified, while the things we have got right would create a lot more work if we were trying to reform them, because they had gone wrong.
So all things considered I would say we are surviving rather well both in the Champions League and the Premier League and on that basis I would suspect we are going to have rather a good season. Better still, because most managers and coaches will have seen us slip down the league, they’ll have forgotten all about Arsenal, and won’t notice as we sneak back into the top three.
