Arsenal: 10 Reasons to be cheerful (that others won’t tell you)

By Tony Attwood

Well, ok maybe one or two other places will point these reasons out but given the mood of negativity swirling around the media at the moment, you’ll be lucky to find them all in one place.  So prepare to smile with 10 reasons to be cheerful

Reason to be cheerful 1:  

We’re top of Premier League 2, which is rather nice since it means we really do have some very fine youngsters making their way through the ranks.

And although perhaps it doesn’t show me in the best of lights, I am even tempted to make this “Reasons to be cheerful 2” at the same time, which you’ll understand if you look at the foot of the table.

 

	Club	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	9	5	4	0	20	10	10	19
2	Crystal Palace	9	5	3	1	25	16	9	18
3	Manchester City	9	5	3	1	20	11	9	18
4	Fulham	9	4	4	1	21	8	13	16
5	Chelsea	10	4	4	2	24	18	6	16
6	Liverpool	9	4	4	1	16	11	5	16
7	Everton	9	5	1	3	14	12	2	16
8	Brighton and Hove	9	3	3	3	19	15	4	12
9	Wolverhampton W	10	3	2	5	14	23	-9	11
10	Blackburn Rovers	10	3	1	6	15	20	-5	10
11	Manchester United	10	1	6	3	19	29	-10	9
12	Leicester City	9	2	2	5	14	22	-8	8
13	Tottenham Hotspur	10	0	5	5	8	22	-14	5
14	West Ham United	10	0	2	8	11	23	-12	2

 

As you will see from the table above the mighty Tiny Totts have won none, which rather rolls off the tongue.  But no, making that a reason to be cheerful would not be nice.  So we’ll move on…

Reasons to be cheerful 2

While we are at it with league tables we could add this one: Group A

 

 

So yes we are top of the Europa League group (and I know we have mentioned this before, but it needs to be added to a “Reasons to be cheerful article”).  One more win from two games (for example by beating FC Zurich) and we are not just qualified but also miss out the next rather tedious first knock out round by winning the league.

Reasons to be cheerful 3

While one can’t be happy over any injuries, we only have three (Smith Rowe, Elneny and Zinchenko who is almost fully fit.  And not that we’d ever want to wish an injury on anyone but only Manchester City with two injuries has fewer men down than Arsenal.

At the other end of the list we have Liverpool 8 and Manchester United 9 players out, according to the EPL Injury Table but they do tend to be a bunch of hearty roughs up north.

Reasons to be cheerful 4

The media is getting ever more desperate with the Arsenal small squad story.  As we have shown this is yet another media fantasy.   We’ve used 21 players, as have Manchester City and Tottenham Hots, and although I don’t normally compare us to Tottenham H the fact is that these three aforementioned clubs are the top three, which kind of suggests that using 21 players thus far is optimum.  We could copy Nottingham Forest and Wolverhampton Wobbles with their 25 and 24 players used, but what would be the point?

Reasons to be cheerful 5

Ethan Nwaner, who made his Premier League debut against Brentford in September 2022, thus becoming the youngest ever Arsenal player, and the youngest player to appear in the top flight of English football has now been picked for England’s u17s for their Euros.   Good to see him playing with lads his own age for a change!

Reasons to be cheerful 6

Folarin Balogun has scored seven goals in 12 Ligue 1 games for Reims.  And this for a club that is 14th in the league and has scored just 14 goals.  So half of their entire stock of goals have been scored by our man in France.

Reasons to be cheerful 7

Charlie Patino’s manager at Blackpool has been raving about him saying, “He takes yards off people sometimes with his ability to get away from people.  I thought he was great, I thought he showed a calmness. He showed an old head on very, very young shoulders and I enjoyed watching him. I think the Blackpool fans over the coming season are going to enjoy watching him.”

He scored in the 4-2 win against Preston, and got the man of the match award.  His manager also said, “We’ve used him as a six, an eight, even as a number 10 at times. He deals with it, he copes with it, he’s got an understanding of the game beyond his years.

“He can deal with the ball and move it, he’s got a big future ahead of him. I think people were a little bit worried or concerned whether he could cope at this level at such a young age but I think he’s proved he’s more than capable of doing it.”

Reasons to be cheerful 8

While the media are getting worked up because our centre forward doesn’t score every 30 seconds, we can take a more measured view and note that last season we were the ninth-highest-scoring team in the league at 1.45 goals a game.  This season we are the second-highest-scoring team with 2.27 goals a game.

Reasons to be cheerful 9

We’ve got Granit Xhaka.

Reasons to be cheerful 10

Oh I nearly forgot…

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	11	9	1	1	25	11	14	28

 

Said “We are top of the league”.