– By Bulldog Drummond
So the top two in Group A of the Europa League play each other on Thursday in order to bring them up to speed with the rest of the group on four matches. The game was postponed as you may recall, because of a lack of police officers available for the match at the Arsenal Stadium. No one seems to be holding the government (whose job it is to recruit police officers) to account.
Here’s the Uefa group table…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 9 |
| 2 | PSV Eindhoven | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 2 | 9 | 7 |
| 3 | Bodo Glimt | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | -3 | 4 |
| 4 | FC Zurich | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 14 | -11 | 0 |
PSV started out in the Champions League where they played four matches beating Monaco 3-2 after a 1-1 draw, and then beating Rangers 1-0 at home before a 2-2 draw at Ibrox in the play-off final. That took them into the group stages of the Europa League.
In their three Europa matches thus far they have drawn with Bodo Glimt 1-1 in Norway, and beaten Zurich 5-1 away and then 5-0 at home, which results give them a better goal difference than Arsenal’s.
So our target should be a 3-0 win the give ourselves not only more points than Einhdoven but also a better goal difference. The 3-0 would give us a goal difference of +8 and PSV a goal difference of +6.
In their domestic league Eindhoven are second to the eternal winners Ajax.
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ajax | 10 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 34 | 9 | +25 | 25 |
| 2 | PSV Eindhoven | 10 | 8 | 0 | 2 | 35 | 14 | +21 | 24 |
| 3 | Feyenoord | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 26 | 11 | +15 | 23 |
| 4 | AZ Alkmaar | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 20 | 10 | +10 | 23 |
| 5 | FC Twente | 10 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 18 | 7 | +11 | 19 |
| 6 | Sparta Rotterdam | 10 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 16 | 11 | +5 | 17 |
The top three in the league above, are the top three who share the league championship amongst themselves throughout the years. Since 2010-11 Ajax have won it six times, PSV Eindhoven have won it three times (the last in 2017-19) and Feyenoord once. One season (2019-20) was not completed because of COVID.
In their most recent games PSV have been knocking in the goals: 6-1 against Utrecht in their most recent match and 5-0 against Zurich in the game before. Their last defeat was on 1 October with Eindhoven losing 3-0 to SC Cambur.
Given the importance of this game in terms of qualifying top of the group, it would seem unlikely Arsenal will not be able to rest very many players although Football.London are talking up the possibility of an injury to Gabriel. But then again that’s what they always do.
But given the large number of subs that can be named there is always the chance that if Arsenal get themselves several goals ahead, another one of the teenagers might pop onto the pitch for a few moments.
The Daily Cannon suggests that this time it could be Khayon Edwards who has been promoted from the under 21 squad, rather than playing with the rest of the kiddies against Northampton Town in the Papa John thing. This story it seems comes from Jeorge Bird, which does give it a certain amount of respectability.
Incidentally Arsenal under 21s won the game against Northampton 3-1, although the always amusing Football.London announces on its site “The Gunners come from behind to win 2-1 after goals from Awe and Cozier-Duberry to take Arsenal U21’s joint top in their Papa Johns Trophy group.”
Khayon Edwards was a substitute against Bodo/Glimt and part of the squad that went to Leeds for the regular bit of rough and tumble. He is said to have signed professional forms at the end of last season.
Elsewhere the prime news seems to be about Arsenal having dithered and not bought this player or that player when they could and will now have to pay £30m more etc etc. I suppose some people believe all this stuff, although little of it ever turns out to be true.
But we’ll pick up more on Arsenal and PSV later.
