By Tony Attwood
And so we get to the end of the club by club preview in the papers we find that “Arsenal in chaos, may make fifth, no money without selling lots more” is the summary of it all.
Elsewhere “Manchester City will push Liverpool all the way, Jose Mourinho CAN deliver Spurs a trophy and it’s great to have Leeds back!” according to the Mail Dailu Mail
And in case you wanted more of that “Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ‘will imminently sign his new contract’ to make him Arsenal’s highest-paid player – with his big-money three-year deal worth more than Mesut Ozil’s £350,000-per-week wage packet”
And then, staying with the Mail. just in case you had not got it yet they also did it in bullet points
- “Aubameyang’s new three-year Arsenal contract to be signed ‘imminently’
- Gunners captain is poised to eclipse Mesut Ozil as the club’s highest earner
- German earns £350,000 a week under terms of his current Arsenal contract
- Aubameyang’s decision follows months of negotiations and uncertainty
- The 31-year-old, who scored 29 times last term, was into his final 12 months
- Manager Mikel Arteta and player’s father were influential in his decision”
There is, below these bullets and headlines, nothing new at all. It the story that has been around for a long time. Oh except that we got a list of Arsenal’s highest earners…
Except we got a little reminder that he scored 31 goals in his first full season and 29 in his second.
So that’s it and we we prepare to play Fulham. Two years ago they went bonkers in the transfer window spending £110m net in an attempt to stay up, before going up to the first division, only to find that spending all that money took them straight back down. This summer they have been more cautious:
- Anthony Knockaert; Winger — from Brighton; £15m
- Antonee Robinson; Defender — from Wigan; £1.9m
- Mario Lemina; Midfielder — from Southampton; loan
- Harrison Reed; Midfielder — from Southampton; £6m
- Alphonse Areola; Goalkeeper — from Paris Saint-Germain; loan
- Kenny Tete; Defender — from Lyon; £3m
After the games restarted last season Fulham had a dodgy start losing to the two promotion rivals Brentford and Fulham, conceding five across the two games and no scoring a single goal.
But then they came good, with five wins and two draws in the remaining seven games – enough to put them in the play offs.
Fulham after dodgy post lockdown start came good. They beat Cardiff away, perversley then lost to them at home, and finally beat Brentford to win the Championship play off and come back to the Premier League. Which meant that like Arsenal, they hardly had a break.
Here’s how the Championship looked at the end.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leeds United | 46 | 28 | 9 | 9 | 77 | 35 | 42 | 93 |
| 2 | West Bromwich Albion | 46 | 22 | 17 | 7 | 77 | 45 | 32 | 83 |
| 3 | Brentford | 46 | 24 | 9 | 13 | 80 | 38 | 42 | 81 |
| 4 | Fulham | 46 | 23 | 12 | 11 | 64 | 48 | 16 | 81 |
Interestingly they got promotion (via the play off) having scored far fewer and conceded far more than Brentford.
Anyway, despite their tendency to yo yo between the leagues we have managed to knock up 39 competitive games against them, of which we have won 39 and they have won eight, the rest being draws, out of the 57 games.
Looking across recent seasons it has been rather a good spell for us, as we might expect, for after a blip in 2011 and 2012 we have won five in a row, scoring nine in the last two – all the games being in the Premier League.
| Date | Game | Res | Score |
| 22 May 2011 | Fulham v Arsenal | D | 2-2 |
| 26 Nov 2011 | Arsenal v Fulham | D | 1-1 |
| 02 Jan 2012 | Fulham v Arsenal | L | 2-1 |
| 10 Nov 2012 | Arsenal v Fulham | D | 3-3 |
| 20 Apr 2013 | Fulham v Arsenal | W | 0-1 |
| 24 Aug 2013 | Fulham v Arsenal | W | 1-3 |
| 18 Jan 2014 | Arsenal v Fulham | W | 2-0 |
| 07 Oct 2018 | Fulham v Arsenal | W | 1-5 |
| 01 Jan 2019 | Arsenal v Fulham | W | 4-1 |
And that should remind us that between 2009 and 2012 they were a decent mid-table team finishing 7th, 8th, 9th and 12th across those four seasons.
Of course reality means nothing when the media looks at Arsenal, and the previews inevitably comment on “years of defensive incompetence”.
More on that later.
Great read.
I hope Auba does sign. Considering what someone of his caliber would cost in terms of transfer fee and salary, even at 350 per week he’d be a steal.
Just compute the value of the fee, for argument’s sake, at 40 million, with a 3 year contract. The weekly cost of the transfer fee would be at 256’410.-
And on top of that he would command 200’000 a week at a minimal. which would bring his cost close to half a million per week.
So anyone pretending that Arsenal are paying way too much has not done his/her basic checking.
Arsenal have in all competitions been beating Fulham since 2013 as indicated in the above stats. And I can’t see a change to that happening this weekend.
But even then and commenting as a Gooner, I will want the Gunners to be very careful on how they go about approaching their first Premier League match of the season away to the Cottagers tomorrow to not falter, only for them to be paid back by the Cottagers in their own coins if they do falter in the game.
This being Arsenal opening day match of the new season entails caution should first be embraced and strictly adhered to by the Gunners by not taking beating the Cottagers for granted, because Arsenal is the better team to that of Fulham.
Yes, on paper and in reality too, Arsenal is the stronger team of the duo teams. And their coming from finishing strongly in the campaign last season by winning the FA Cup and the Charity Shield in the season opener that has made Arsenal to look a strong big team has added spice to give the Gunners a genuine reason to have the belief in themselves they can overcome the Cottagers with some easy in the match against them on Saturday.
And true, the Gunners won’t be wrong if they have the belief in themselves they will beat the Cottagers tomorrow to the collection of all the 3 points that will at stake in the match for collection.
This is because in actual sense, the revamping of the first team squad that is being carried out and still ongoing should make Arsenal to become strong, stronger and the strongest in the Premier League to win the title this season’s campaign.
But the Arsenal matchday squad tomorrow that will contain the starting XI and 7 on the bench Gunners on it which the Arsenal first team manager, Mikel Arteta will select to put out for the match against Fulham tomorrow will be an incomplete rebuilt Arsenal team that is in progress to finish to finalized.
Therefore, the Gunners should approach the match cautiously with cautions but not to fear the Cottagers nor be panicky in the match during the entire course of playing it because some new faces in the team who will in the match have not played a PL game with their on the ground colleagues before to blend. For, as things currently stands in the heart of the Arsenal defense-line, David Luiz who is rumoured to have been injured will not play if it is true.
And this disturbance that happened in the Arsenal back-line could force Arteta to introduce one of Saliba or Maglhaes in the match as centreback pairing with Holding in the match I can speculate. But this is not rocket science discovered by me as some Gooners will say.
But the Gunners should be confident and be courageous as well in the match as they take on the Cottagers and withstand them totally to not concede any grounds and goals to them in the game. For, the Cottagers could come at the Gunners attacking them with incessant furry unrelenting to try to score. But the Gunners MUST resist the Cottagers attacking ferocious furry in great defending to foil all attempts made by them to score in the game to try to at least grab a point in the match if they can’t win it. So a to prove to their doubters that their promotion to the Premier League last season is for staying in the division this season by playing the highly rated Gunners to a draw in the match.
A draw match which will the be taken as equivalent to a defeat by the Gooners for Arsenal should not be allowed to happen to Arsenal by the Gunners in the match in their PL away to Fulham.
But I think the Gunners will not allow any defeat nor a draw game to happen to Arsenal in the match. But will get an outright win for Arsenal in the match by employing the super counterattacking football tactics strategy in the match to hit the Cottagers on the break to score and score to overcome them to win the match.
And if it is only a goal the Gunners score in the match to no reply by the Cottagers, the Gunners will return home with all the 3 points that were at stake in the match collected looking joyous as they start their PL campaign this season on a winning note.having a good start to their season. Hmmm. Hilarious!
Finger crossed for the new season.No pundit has predicted Arsenal in the top4.A shame for the club and the idiot fan base. Will the idiot fans now realize that parting way was Wenger was the biggest blunder in the club’s history.
I remeber that during Wengers tenure all pundits predicted a top4 finish for Wengers Arsenal even some predicted a top spot in 14/15 and 15/16.
As Bootome posted on Twitter
”##It’s really interesting to see Arsenal fans long for CL qualification.The entitled brats mocked Wenger for 20 consecutive entries’.’##
May we ask the idiot fans where is the Epl title and the CL title they promised us once they get rid of Wenger.
And I would say for the umpteenth time
UA has been Vindicated
PA has been Vindicated
And to top it off
ARSENE WENGER has been Vindicated.