Has Arsenal now caught up with Manchester City?

by Nitram

I think the answer to both of those questions in the headline is possibly, and probably not. In other words, I’m not sure. Arteta on the other hand is in no doubt as he said in his pre-match press conference that, “we are about to face the best team in the world”. But are we?

Well maybe, maybe not, but the fact is they still haven’t even been crowned as the best team in Europe. And looking at the current Premier League table, currently, they are not even the best team in England!

So how good are they? And more importantly how good are we? Well personally I think Manchester City probably are the best team in England, and I say that on the basis of two things. One, they ARE current champions of England. Two, we are still only halfway through the season.

As for how good are we? Well, we are certainly a lot closer to Manchester City than we were at the end of last season when we finished a massive 24 points adrift of them. Even in the last 35 match table that we did so well in, we still finished a massive 18 points behind them. But we are most definitely getting closer, of that there can be no doubt. We are without question the most improved team in the Premier League.

But as is my wont, rather than just say it, I thought I would show it. To do this I thought I would do a league table based on the last 54 matches. Those 54 matches are comprised of the 19 or 20 matches played so far this season, added to the much-lauded (in Arsenal’s case) final 35 matches of last season. For ease I’ve used the last 35 or 34 depending on this season’s games, with teams having played 19 or 20 games thus far.

This is how that table looks:

Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
Manchester City	54	40	9	5	129
Arsenal	54	38	5	11	119
Liverpool	54	33	13	8	112
Chelsea	54	26	15	13	93
Manchester Utd	54	25	12	17	87

Following those first three defeats last season, that people drew such damming conclusions from, the improvement is absolutely remarkable. We have without a doubt improved well beyond Chelsea, Manchester United, and even Liverpool. And as you can see, we are indeed much closer to Manchester City.

But have we surpassed them? Well, no, for even with that vast improvement, we are still a substantial 10 points behind Man City over the period.

A point to note is that over those 54 matches, Manchester City averaged an incredible 2.38 points per game.

That is quite remarkable and suggests that Arteta may indeed have a point when he says Manchester City are ‘the best team in the World’.

Tonight may tell us just how close we in fact are.

Arsenal’s anniversaries for 27 January including the all-time record cup crowd at Highbury

6 Replies to “Has Arsenal now caught up with Manchester City?”

@Nitram,

well, your question in the title of the piece is a unique question. Yet you start by mention “both of those questions’.

Maybe, that being suggested respectfully with a big smile, you forgot to mention that you only take into the account the last question ?

I agree with your analysis. This is the second of what I consider a ‘game of reference’, as I dont consider Newcastle on the same league, nor Sp*rs, Pool! and Chelsea.

Am looking forward to see how our Young Gunners play and hope they’ll just have fun on the biggest stage the world of football can offer these days.

We will have a better idea of how close to City we are IF we finish top of the pile? Or there abouts? But the improvement is remarkable, and on current trajectory? Future looks quite bright. Also, who would have thought we’d get a season like this? Especially as Arsenal are not only the team to upset the apple cart? Newcastle and Brighton are stand out teams too.

Forgot to mention Brentford.