Where to next for the Arsenal?

Where to next for the Arsenal?

Prior to the Tottenham game in the League Cup, the talk on the media was all about Arsenal losing three games in a row for the first time since the first Queen Elizabeth was on the throne.

Actually I may have exaggerated that point, but you know what I mean. If there is a chance to mix the name of Arsenal with gloom, doom, and quite possibly an outbreak of Bubonic Plague, and the Rise of the Zombies, then the press will do it.


But, sadly for all those guys who prepare the ten foot high headlines in the national papers, Arsenal let them all down yet again, and went on to win.

So after five games in the league, where does that leave Arsenal now?

Ignoring that we are above Tottenham and Chelsea (although you wouldn’t have credited that from the way the media have reacted of late), here’s where we stand…

Premier League Table Sept 25

So a win against Leicester at the weekend would lift us at least up to fourth, and possibly to third. A good win and a defeat for Man U by a couple of goals could put us in second – but of course for that we are dependent on not only Arsenal’s result but also West Ham and Man U. That is perhaps going too far.

Beating Leicester is not a foregone conclusion of course – they are having their best run ever under the Tinkerman, and even when they are not, they cause us problems. Last season our draw at their ground was identical to our achievement there in the Unbeaten Season. Which suggests that people really shouldn’t read too much into one result.

Of course it is possible that we could still be without Coquelin, which will be a blow, but even so, the point remains, we are within striking distance of the top. We’ll need Man C to lose a few more points, but as WHU showed, they are not invincible.

Besides, with 16% of the season now completed, the number of away wins exceeds the number of home wins in the Premier League: 38% away, 32% draws, 30% home wins.

This is a complete reversal of normal statistics and I don’t think there has ever been a season in which the normal rule (more home wins than anything else, then away wins, then draws) have been thrown up in the air like this. So maybe an away win is on the cards.

And Arsenal’s position of fifth in the league prior to the Leicester match should not be taken as a sign that all is lost. In the second double season Arsenal were 5th in mid-November, after suffering a horrific 2-4 home defeat to Charlton, in the midst of a run of no wins in four.

Indeed by mid February we were still only fourth – yet we went on to win the league by seven clear points.

So trying to predict what happens after five games can be difficult if not utterly impossible, and this is why most pundits are careful never to go back to their predictions and see how well they did. Normally they get everything wrong.

What is interesting this season is that we had such a brilliant pre-season, winning every match for only the second time in the history of Arsenal’s pre-seasons, and then immediately fell apart in the league.

The implication must be that we really can’t be as bad as some people have been making out, and the fact that Alexis hasn’t woken up yet and that Giroud is lacking in confidence which he will eventually recover, (and who wouldn’t be taking the battering from the so-called experts that he has had), means that we can readily see where the results is going to come from.

Also, unwatched and unnoticed by all the “experts”, it seems, is the fact that Theo Walcott scored 10 goals in 10 starts across the end of last season and start of this. While the general perception is that he is still learning about playing down the middle, the reality is that he knows how to do it perfectly well.

Theo of course has his new contract, and the word is that Ozil and Monreal are next. Although there are people around who claim that Ozil is at best average, none of the statistics show this. In fact they show the reverse – he is at the very height of the game. Just as Coquelin is. And I doubt that anyone is not noticing the stunning improvement in Monreal’s game.

So what possible reason would there be for not extending two of our top player’s contracts? I can’t think anything at all. We have a team in place; all the nonsense about needing a new spine is just that – nonsense. We have a brilliant new central defender in Gabriel, we have two centre forwards, and we have one of the top four defensive midfielders in Coquelin.

Of course there may be further hiccups along the way, but leaving aside the odd game here and there in which we are kicked off the pitch and undone by a referee who deservedly has become the first in the history of the English game to have a petition asking for him not to referee one club again, signed by 100,000 people, I expect progress, progress and more progress.

Will we win the league? I am not sure, but actually I am with a small but growing minority who have more interest in the FA Cup. The Cup is not the League, but since no one has won the Cup three times in a row since the 19th century, I’d rather fancy witnessing that achievement, and telling the grandchildren, “I was there.”

And let us not forget that Arsenal do enter four competitions each season, and unless I’ve missed something we are still in contention in all four. Another Double would go down well, and really I don’t mind which Double it is.

I can only see bright times ahead.