Head to head rivalries Arsenal vs Leeds

Arsenal vs Leeds

Rocky: Didn't want to leave us

We Leed the way

Leeds are our rollercoaster team, we either seem to go on long unbeaten spells or they do. Some of our greatest names have been involved with them as well, George Graham, David O’Leary, David Rocastle and John Lukic spring to mind.  And I am going at the weekend to see them and I hope obviously, we win. It is particularly important as The Spuds have Liverpool away and they could easily drop points. We could be four or five points ahead come Sunday, making the showdown less of an ordeal on Thursday May 12^th.

He loved us both

We first played Leeds on 20 December 1924 and we hammered them 6-1 in the old first division. It was their first season up and we showed them what Arsenal meant. They learned from that to beat us in the return in April 1-0. But we have had plenty of big wins since and they have put 3 and 4 past us a few times and paid us back for that 6-1 with one of their own in May 1973. Those early clashes were little dippers compared to the later ones. We won 3 and they won 3 of our first six. Between 1932 and 1938 we were unbeaten for 11 games. In 1959 to 1968 they were unbeaten for 10 games. We beat them 4-3 in May 1968 (I would take that this May even if it gave me a heart attack) but then they were unbeaten the next 6 until 1971. And for that win 1-0 in April, we thought we had handed them the league but we came back to win the double on the last match against, well you all know, the hapless Spuds.

They like beating us in finals

They beat us the next year in the FA cup final 1-0 for their only FA cup win. But we truly had a torrid time against them in the 60’s and 70’s, scarcely winning a match and they went on a another long unbeaten spell from their famous 6-1 in May 1973 to 1977, winning most. That time, in the late 60’s through a lot of the 70’s was Leeds golden spell, with 2 league titles, one FA cup and 2 Uefa cups plus challenging strongly all the time. They should have won more and Johnny Giles famously said years later the reason was that Don Revie, their manager, had a blind spot, playing Gary Sprake in goal instead of David Harvey. Most fans regarded them as the best team in England for many years until Liverpool finally emerged to dominate.

3 of these boys on the scoresheet for Arsenal - surely a record?

But it all turned around in the 80’s. Just before that, in September 1979 we played them in the league cup winning 7-0 with 3 Irish getting on the scoresheet, Brady 2, Sammy Nelson 1 and Frank Stapleton 1, and that may be the only time 3 Irishmen scored for Arsenal in one game, I can’t remember another. After that match they must have hated us as we let them beat us 1-0 in the league in January 1980   because we just kept beating them like poor whipped puppies after that with a long unbeaten spell of 15 matches until March 1992. It was like little dippers on the rollercoaster after that with us winning some and them winning some until November 2003 when we won 4-1 at Elland Road in the Premier league. We haven’t been beaten since and I really want that to continue this Sunday. We are the Arsenal, let’s show it, team. Make it 12 undefeated, we are the undefeatables, after all.

We smash them on trophies

Of course when it comes to trophies we are well ahead, they have 3 league titles to our 13 and one FA cup to our 14 and they beat us for that one in 1972.  They have one league cup to our 2 but they also beat us in 1968 for their one. They seem to like taking trophies off us. They have 2 Uefa trophies to our one and one European cup final appearance to our one Champions League.

The other Alan Smith who liked playing for Leeds

So on most metrics we are nicely ahead, with 50 wins to their 41 and 33 draws. They have been up and down divisions regularly whereas we never have. I have to say I always liked Leeds even when they were a dirty team in their heyday in the 60’s and 70’s. They had Johnny Giles, one of our greatest ever, and a team of superb players such as Billy Bremner, Alan Clarke, Terry Cooper, Jack Charlton and many others.

They took our gorgeous great George

George Graham took them over when his Arsenal greatness disappeared with the bung scandal and he set about making them a top team again but didn’t stay too long as Tottenham, then pretending to be a big team, poached him from them. David O’Leary, his assistant took over and brought on lots of teenagers such as Alan Smith (the other one), Jonathan Woodgate (now England manager), Ian Harte, and others who went on a great run reaching Champions league semi-finals in 2001.

George and David - among our greatest

And so we have had lots of interactions, a true rollercoaster of emotions as we start winning and keep winning, then they start winning and keep winning and then we start again.  We need to keep it going. C’mon the Arsenal. Beat a team near the bottom and make us all happy.

Mikel needs Champions league, or does he?

I feel qualifying for Champions League will be the boost Mikel Arteta needs in his quest to gain respect from experienced professionals. My good friend Zdavko Talvi of this Arsenal parish ventured his opinion that maybe Europa League might be best in some ways next season as it will allow him to play the youngsters in that. I like the way he thinks longterm. This is a strong argument, for sure, but I believe a greater need is for Arteta to believe in himself and for the players also. When David O’Leary took over Leeds he may have had the same problems, experienced players giving him problems, and he preferred to play the youngsters. It mostly worked out for him but he was probably too nice to be a successful manager longterm. Arsenal are a far bigger team, expectations are far higher, and Arteta is not too nice to make hard decisions, we have seen that. But he must be able to have an experienced spine in the team and bring in big names if necessary, and not have them acting like prima donnas. A strong finish to the season, knocking over the Spuds on the way, will do that. It will do wonders for his confidence and the players attitudes. Let’s start with Leeds and continue our rollercoaster climb upwards.

Keep smiling till the end of the season, Mikel