It’s not been a surprise to see that most commentators are taking the view that as Vavel website says, “The outlook is bleak, with Arsenal sat in a modest lowly place in the Premier League, needing to close down a nine-point gap to the league leaders Liverpool – if their season is to end in success domestically.”
I suppose that’s because they reckon negativity gets more readers than positivity. After all, as I’ve been trying to say of late, there is a lot of positivity around at the moment, as Arsenal have recently played a whole series of games (often away) against other top teams – matches that normally are spread out through the season.
In fact, far from being bleak the outlook (if one considers the opposition to come as opposed to the opposition already faced) is rather positive. One could ask of course how come Arsenal have had such a tough run of fixtures, but one would never get a straight answer to this from the likes of those who organise the fixtures, so probably it is not worth thinking along those lines. If you want to delve into this further and missed the previous piece it was at Lower points than last season? In fact Arsenal are actually doing just as well
There was more good news when it revealed that Martin Ødegaard isn’t going to get further injuries by playing in pointless internationals (it’s what the newspapers call “international duty”.) After this “international interruption” (a phrase that is much more related to what happens I think, than the traditional “international break” which makes it sound like a holiday) players like Odegaard and can now really get his recovery sorted.
I don’t know if Ødegaard simply told Norway of his decision, or the Norwegian FA showed a lot more sense and decency than most associations, but either way he is not playing in this interruption. What he is quoted as saying is, “I’ve been through a long training period and when you haven’t practised football in the last nine weeks, it’s natural not to be 100% yet. I need to listen to my body, complete this rehab process and get my foot back in good shape.”
Even the Norway team doctor, Ola Sand, appeared to be utterly reasonable, noting that the injury was a “complicated ankle injury,” which I guess we gathered. Indeed there seems to be an outbreak of sense and realism going on in international football of a type we don’t normally associate with organisations better known for the “he got injured playing for his country – be sure to have him ready for the next time we need him” approach to football.
So with Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice among eight withdrawals from the England squad things are looking up for Arsenal and we might have nearly a full team of fit players once the internationals are done and football proper returns.
Meanwhile in the Independent there is a review of Arsenal’s last game which says within it, “It still ended up as one of those matches where it is difficult to say anything definitively, which also feels the case with a strange Premier League table at the moment.”
But of course that is only because they refuse to take into account the fact that Arsenal have played a disproportionately high number of games against other top teams in the opening 11 games of the season – as we revealed in our last piece.
It would be good to have a table of how many games each of the top clubs have played against other such clubs away from home (which is what Arsenal have been subjected to this season) but seemingly because it says positive things about Arsenal, none of the media want to publish such data.
You might however remember my chart on Arsenal from the last review on this site – it showed that five games out of 11 played this season (which by my calculation is almost half) have been against teams that we might consider the bigger outfits in the league…
| Date | Match | Res | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Aug 2024 | Aston Villa v Arsenal | W | 0-2 |
| 15 Sep 2024 | Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal | W | 0-1 |
| 22 Sep 2024 | Manchester City v Arsenal | D | 2-2 |
| 02 Nov 2024 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | L | 1-0 |
| 10 Nov 2024 | Chelsea v Arsenal | D | 1-1 |
Now here is the comparison chart for Liverpool
| Date | Match | Res | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 Sep 2024 | Manchester United v Liverpool | W | 0-3 |
| 27 Oct 2024 | Arsenal v Liverpool | D | 2-2 |
It’s odd that the league fixtures have worked out this way. But perhaps the only odder thing is that very few media sites or outlets of other kinds or indeed newspapers (which most certainly can be called “another kind”) seem to want to mention this.
