- Tottenham and the Mancs. How can they both be failing while Arsenal rise up and up?
- How did Arsenal get it so right while the others get it so wrong?
By Tony Attwood
So we all know that Arsenal are on the up. We are top of the league, and not just by a point or two. And we won the league last season (I thought I would add that in case you had forgotten). Indeed even the media are grudgingly admitting we are doing ok.
But here’s the question: can this be continued?
The first and most obvious answer to that issue is the fact that Arsenal have built up to this position slowly and carefully, not just by leaping out of nowhere to the top (something that is then as often as not followed by a collapse back down to the place from whence they came).
But Arsenal’s build under the guidance of Arteta has been careful, considered and moderate. Just thinking of those league positions (8th, 8th, 5th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd) gives the thought that this was very much a controlled process.
However there is more – something that was not directly under Arsenal’s control but which was necessary to allow Arsenal to rise to the top: the reigning in of Manchester City. Their rise to the top followed a different trajectory from that of Arsenal: starting in 2008/9 they moved from 10th to 5th, 3rd and 1st.
In the last nine seasons they have come top six times, second twice and third once. A seemingly impregnable position. And yet Arsenal did in fact overtake them last season, and not just by goal difference or the odd point or two. No, Arsenal really did overtake ManC. And that was not a one off either.
For if we look at the tables for the season 2021/2, 2022/3 and 2023/4 we see the Mancs getting between 89 and 93 points. Not quite as many as they were getting in 2017/8 and 2018/9 (when they picked up totals of 100 and 98 points in two of those three years) but really sizeable numbers of points – and a goals total of 100 or more in two of those seasons as well, with the third not far behind.
So the domination of ManC has continued year on year until….in 2025 they came third and in 2026 they were second.
Now those are hardly poor finishes, unless of course one remembers that the club appeared to have utterly unlimited funds to spend on players and no worries about trying to expand the ground or any other details about making more money to pay the players. They had so much cash they didn’t know what to do with it.
So how could it be that a club that was set fair to dominate the Premier League for ever more, having won the league six times in seven seasons, could then come third and second in the last two seasons, while at the moment are sitting third, six points behind Arsenal, and one point behind Brighton? After seven yeas of coming top (six times) and second (once) they are now third! That looks like a disaster.
Of course the argument could be that this is just a blip, and that any moment now they will starting winning just like the old days and secure yet another title. And yes with mega spending in January that could happen. But lurking behind that is the awareness of 100+ guilty charges, all of which they say can be readily set aside because the football authorities simply don’t understand the Mancs’ unique accounting procedures and sources of cash.
Obviously we have to wait and see, but it is an extraordinary coincidence that while the argument about the source of level of the ManC expenditure goes on, the playing side of the club have slipped down the league. They are of course still a formidable side, obviously, but even so, they don’t look quite so certain to win the league as they have in recent years.
So as we return to our first question: can Arsenal keep this up, the answer is probably yes. In three of the last four seasons Arsenal have knocked up between 84 and 89 points. In the last three season ManC dropped from 91 points (three years ago) to 71 and 78 points. So on that basis, assuming that Manchester City are not able to (or are afraid to) spend as much as they would like on a new team, Arsenal could well be in line to win the league again.
Now this will probably encourage anyone who knows a bit of Arsenal history to think back to the last time Arsenal won two league titles in a row. Wenger you might recall didn’t manage that feat, instead getting a sequence of 1st, 2nd, 1st, 2nd at the start of this century. But Chapman did it, staring in 1930/31 when Arsenal came 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st across five seasons.
So what we are looking for is Arteta to be able to claim that he has built a club that can emulate and indeed surpass that which Chapman built.
However if you know your Arsenal history, you will know that Chapman died in 1934 and so did not complete the treble himself – although he had already achieved that masterstroke with Huddersfield Town, whom he managed before Arsenal. And you may not know who it was that persuaded Herbert Chapman to leave Huddersfield after his third successive title there, and come to Arsenal – even though Arsenal had only just avoided relegation by coming 20th out of 22, with their lowest ever number of 1st division points. That man who persuaded Chapman to leave champions Huddersfield and come to almost relegated Arsenal was Sir Henry Norris, whose history has been utterly maligned and miswritten by the disaster of a manager he sacked, Leslie Knighton.)
Now that story is told elsewhere (if you just want part of it, you can start here) and maybe I’ll do another summary for readers who have joined in recent years. But the point I am making today is that Arsenal did indeed win the league three times running from 1932/3 to 1934/5 and in fact won the league four times in five years, and five times in eight years. Plus a couple of FA Cups during that same period as well.
So that is the era we look back to, when we see what Arteta is doing. Although Wenger’s eight year run of three 1st place finishes and five second place finishes in consecutive years between 1997 and 2005 certainly deserves a plaque or two at the stadium as well.
As I do endlessly repeat in articles like this, I was the person who suggested to the club that they put up statues of Herbert Chapman and Arsene Wenger at the Emirates Stadium and for once they listened to me. But I suspect that after Arteta has won his third title, he might get one too. I certainly hope to be able to put the idea to the club in due course.
