Is this the closest we have been to relegation after 11 games?

By Tony Attwood

Today, with nearly 30% of the season gone, the league table is not a very enticing thing to look at from an Arsenal point of view.   But if you are a regular reader here you may recall that from time to time I do like to have a look at how we were doing at this same stage in previous seasons, just to see which direction the club is travelling in.

Here’s the current top six.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	11	10	1	0	25	9	16	31
2	Manchester City	11	8	1	2	34	10	24	25
3	Leicester City	11	7	2	2	27	8	19	23
4	Chelsea	11	7	2	2	25	17	8	23
5	Arsenal	11	4	5	2	16	15	1	17
6	Sheffield United	11	4	4	3	12	8	4	16

And to add one level of comparison that I’ve not tried before, the club in 18th position – that is the club in the first of the three relegation places, is on eight points.  That is Southampton.  So we are nine points off relegation.  Is that the closest we have been to relegation in recent seasons?  We shall see.

Of the allegedly “Big Six”, two (Man U and the Tiny Totts) are missing.

Now moving back to last season 2018/19

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	11	9	2	0	33	4	29	29
2	Chelsea	11	8	3	0	27	8	19	27
3	Liverpool	11	8	3	0	21	5	16	27
4	Tottenham Hotspur	11	8	0	3	19	10	9	24
5	Arsenal	11	7	2	2	25	14	11	23
6	AFC Bournemouth	11	6	2	3	20	14	6	20

Again we were fifth, and this time the top six was only missing one of the big six – Manchester United again.   We had six more points than this season, had scored nine more goals and conceded one fewer.  The key difference is the draws of course – three wins from last season have become three draws.

In 18th position were Huddersfield, 17 points below us.  That is compared with nine points this time around.

Moving back one more to Mr Wenger’s last season 2017/18

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	11	10	1	0	38	7	31	31
2	Manchester United	11	7	2	2	23	5	18	23
3	Tottenham Hotspur	11	7	2	2	20	7	13	23
4	Chelsea	11	7	1	3	19	10	9	22
5	Liverpool	11	5	4	2	21	17	4	19
6	Arsenal	11	6	1	4	20	16	4	19

Here we are in sixth again with more goals scored but only two more points on the board than now.  So yes, Mr Emery is doing worse than Mr Wenger did in his last season.   But getting rid of Mr Wenger was the cry of the day from the journalists and their followers on the blogs.  Did anyone other than a few untold writers and commentators think things could get worse rather than better?

In 18th place was West Ham with nine points, putting Arsenal 10 points above relegation, still making this season the worst in terms of distance from the relegation places.

Finally let’s go back one more to Mr Wenger’s penultimate season.

At this moment in 2016/17 the table read…

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	11	8	2	1	30	14	16	26
2	Chelsea	11	8	1	2	26	9	17	25
3	Manchester City	11	7	3	1	25	10	15	24
4	Arsenal	11	7	3	1	24	11	13	24
5	Tottenham Hotspur	11	5	6	0	15	6	9	21
6	Manchester United	11	5	3	3	16	13	3	18

We were fourth, with 24 points – our best position and best number of points across these last four years.  Both the defence and attack were doing better than now as well.  And as with 2017/18 the “Big Six” were in the top six at this moment.

Hull were in 18th position with 10 points – the gap to relegation was 14 points compared with nine now.

So overall, compared with the previous four years this isn’t very good.   We have the smallest number of points and the poorest attack of this time in the season, over these years.   And we are closer to relegation than in the last three years at this stage.

The conclusion is that all the fuss made about having to change managers, all that flying of planes over the stadium with the sign “Wenger out” on the back, all that disruption and negativity, was for… well nothing much so far.  Except to make things slightly worse.

And now there is a group of people who want to try it all again.  Another manager out, another change.

One has to wonder, why, when this whole “get him out now” thing failed so dramatically to make any improvement when it was done through Mr Wenger’s last two years, these people are doing it all again.  For what?  To make it worse again?   Do it often enough and it will be Arsenal getting relegated.  Will they be happy then?  Or do they think that if we do this enough then eventually, by pure chance if nothing else, we must get someone who can do better than Mr Wenger on the money available?

Or could it be that this has nothing to do with the club, but instead gives the people who call for a change of manager a sense of power?  Could it be that their lives are so meaningless that being part of a movement to bring down an Arsenal manager actually makes them feel good?

I can’t see inside their heads of course, so I don’t know, but if not, given that their ploy succeeded 18 months or so ago, and yet has merely brought about a decline, why on earth are they doing it again?

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