RETHINKING ARSENAL TITLE RACE CREDENTIAL (LONG READ)

AN OBJECTIVE LOOK AT ARSENAL'S CHANCES THIS SEASON

Dec 02, 2024

Football is a cruel beast, I tell ya. Moonwalking across the neighbor’s lawn Saturday afternoon, calling the hotlines for support on Sunday night.

That is the beautiful game.

Liverpool f**ked up my weekend, not because I truly believed Pep was going to offer up a miracle, but because the momentum is firmly with them now, and we’re going to have to slip into perfection mode to catch them.

So, let’s have a perfectly rational conversation.

Liverpool have had a blessed start to the season. They were given the easiest fixtures of the top six, they were given mostly home games; it was like whoever planned the games had a Scouse accent. This is objective fact (bar the baseless accusation).

Arsenal had the worst fixtures. Big games, mostly away, utterly relentless.

But, easy games mean little if you don’t win them, and win them Liverpool have done.

We also have to consider our reality, which is also objective.

Injuries
We’ve had a lot of injuries, but the one to Martin Ødegaard really did break our flow in the early season. We don’t have to speculate how City would do if they lost their best player, because they did, and they’re on their worst-ever run under Pep Guardiola. Liverpool have not had those same problems… yet. But we’ve seen what losing VVD has done to them in the past. Remember, Liverpool’s record under Klopp was one Premier League win and 2 second places in 9 seasons. The season they finished with 99 points, VVD played 38 games, the season after when he played 5 games, they finished 3rd with 69.

Red Cards
Again, objectively, at least two of our three red cards this season were absolutely disgusting decisions that were unacceptable to the entire footballing community. All three of them were harsh. Even the Bournemouth one, which was closest to being a red, was not given when Micky did something worse against Palace, or Chelsea did the same against Liverpool.

Those reds cost us 2 points against Palace, 2 points against Brighton, and 3 against Bournemouth. All 7 points take us to within 2 points of Liverpool. But if you were to be harsh and say Saliba deserved his red, then we could fairly say that the Liverpool lead would be just 5 points right now. A more manageable task, you have to say.

You can say things like, “just another excuse,” or “deal with it,” but we have to be adults here. Arteta can’t manage the referees and their agenda, and he can’t control what international teams do to our players when they’re away on three breaks in the opening four months of the season. It’s bad luck. It’s our lot. That’s why we’re behind Liverpool—not because they’re the superior team.

The Case for Liverpool
My hypothesis at the start of the season was that there would be a lot of distractions this season, and the team that deals with them the best will become kings.

Manchester City has gone from an unstoppable juggernaut to a team that seems severely weighed down by a multitude of problems that might be metastasizing into a tumor too big to beat.

I think the players knew Pep was leaving at the end of the season and that he wasn’t interested. He signed a new deal, but they still understand he’s done, which is why there’s been no bounce.

They are suffering normie problems. They didn’t get proper coverage for Rodri, and now they lack power, mobility, and laser-guided quick passing from deep. But it’s not just Rodri that’s the issue. They have a collection of old dogs who’ve won it all, and they haven’t found good enough succession players. Recruitment is about skill, but there’s also a lot of luck involved. Good scouting reports can lead you to a KDB skillset, but so many factors have to work in your favor to make it work. Liverpool and City have done tremendously with players over the years, but City look like they have some duds on their hands, and some of the kids they’ve put a lot of energy into don’t seem to be the full ticket.

The consequences of the charges might also be in the system. Gossip is difficult to manage, but if the worst happens in their case, players will have to find new clubs. Stability is the most important thing a dressing room can have, and it doesn’t take many players to start gassing for the court case to be a problem. If you’re fighting to win a title you might not be awarded… that can’t be fun, can it?

Whatever it is… Pep has a helluva job on his hands to fix it. Best man in football to have trying to solve the problem, but it’s hard to see them the way we did last season.

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Liverpool dealt with the distraction of losing Klopp by hiring a high EQ manager who was famed for getting a lot out of a little. He’s hit the ground running, he has the players purring, and he’s getting the absolute maximum out of everybody. Their biggest distractions are Trent, Mo, and VVD leaving in the summer. So far, that hasn’t affected them… but there’s a long way to go, my friends. Pre-agreements can be made in January when papers are signed. You’d be hard-pressed to tell me that these players won’t be affected by having split allegiances.

The key attribute Liverpool have that Arsenal don’t is battle experience of winning things. Again, this is objective fact we’re talking about here. Liverpool have a back four that have won the Champions League and the Premier League together, and they have been perfection this season. They have the most productive winger on the planet right now churning G&As, and he’s also a serial winner. They have McAllister in their midfield who has won a World Cup. This isn’t Leicester charging at the league here; this is a really good team of players who had a crack last year but fell short in March. Their back four will become even more experienced soon when Alisson returns. They’ll basically be like our 97/98 back five. Winners winning is hard to stop. Did I expect they’d find this extra wind this year? No. But here we are.

The biggest thing going for Liverpool is the luck.

Everything is going their way this season. Sometimes that lasts a full season, just look at Emery last year compared to what’s happening to him this season. How many teams finish 4th conceding 61 goals? He did because he was on the right side of a variance, and now he isn’t (where is his fan club now crying about losing him too soon? Embarrassing creatures). Liverpool played City in the mud, Wolves and Southampton with no centre backs (Southampton with Ramsdale out), they luckily drew to a desperately depleted Arsenal who had a teenager and our worst defender on the pitch at the end of the game, they’ll play City without Isak, Spurs without Micky and Vicario… sometimes, things just roll for you. But, it very rarely lasts a full season.

The Case for Arsenal
Topline: I’d rather be chasing Liverpool than Manchester City at their peak. The Premier League has a way of humbling those who think they’re unstoppable. Arsenal were 5 points clear at the top of the League on April 8, 2023; we thought we were going to win the Premier League. Then we lost Saliba to a back injury. We drew to Liverpool after going two up, then drew to West Ham, then drew against Southampton, then got hammered by City 4-1. The rest is second-placed history.

Why is this important? This same crop of players lost a 5-point Premier League lead last season while we took it to the last game of the season—a 12-point swing from February. And you don’t think bad things can happen from December 1st?

They’ve got all their tough away games coming up. We’ve done most of ours: Newcastle, Everton, Spurs, Bournemouth, City, Villa, Brighton… they still have to play Arsenal at home.

Arsenal players were in this fight last season, and they slipped past Liverpool. We are a better team. Things haven’t gone for us. But when you’re trying to make history, you have to ignore what has gone before and do something new.

We have to close a 9-point gap. That means the near perfection of the back half of last season needs to start now. We have to rack up 24 points from 27. United midweek? Needs to be a win. League Cup? I want to see kids. Losing Arsenal players in training sessions like Arteta alluded to in his presser? Unacceptable. All our energy needs to be focused on shaving points off that Liverpool lead. Get to the new year and bring it down to 5, then we’re in spitting distance. Let PGMOL or ourselves get in the way; it’s looking very, very unlikely we’ll catch.

But we have to believe every team in THIS Premier League will have a rough patch of games. We have to believe in physiology and Father Time’s ruthless insistence that older players who play every game will eventually fatigue and their muscles and tendons will ping, snap, and melt. The idea that VVD and Salah are going to manage an entire season at this level feels fanciful. Let’s see how they cope if one of those guys falls… I suspect VVD is the more likely to be cataclysmic to their title aspirations, but we’ll see.

The hope for us is that the bad luck has been shaken from the system, we’ll have our players fit for the remainder, and they can find savagery like never before.

Our margin for error is really low—but I truly do not believe we’re up against a peak-Man City here. Our rivals are weaker, they showed us the way last season, and we just have to keep within striking distance so when the fall does come, we have it within our powers to take advantage.

To Conclude
Cutting through all the “Arteta ain’t generational” nonsense that comes after anything disappointing… we’re on the best path in the Premier League. City is in big trouble—aging players and an unclear future. Liverpool are very unlikely to keep three of their superstars, and good luck replacing them to the same level after losing £100m as a club last financial year while managing a £370m wage bill.

Arsenal are still three players short of perfection, but it’s clear we have a younger squad more capable of taking over from City over the next 5 years than anyone else.

The one question that hangs over Arteta is this: Is he a lucky general? Having the best squad but rough luck every season isn’t going to bring home the big trophies. Jurgen Klopp wasn’t as lucky as Pep Guardiola

He had great battles, but he lost more of them than he won. Arteta can’t manage luck, he can’t control freak injuries, and all he can do is hope that at some point… the gods decide his time has come, and we can get some of the good stuff to come our way. Because the work has been done, we’re capable, but the final push is securing hardware, and to get that in the abundance we want… things need to roll for us.

Let’s see if that happens this season. No reason it can’t. Slot has had it easy so far; let’s see if the Premier League gods will indulge that for a full 9 months. My hunch is they might have other plans.

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LE GROVE

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