Search the Community

No Table of Doom this year Liverpool Max 99 points Arsenal Max 92 points Target 88 points As regular readers will know, early on I reckoned that the target this season would be 92 points. I then shifted that down to 88 as virtually no teams could get there some time ago and I can’t have a table of doom without teams in it. And once again, with 13 games to go, I am in the same position. Only Liverpool and Arsenal can get 88 points. I feel that I can’t drop it any more as Liverpool can drop 11 points and reach that and they probably will at least do that. That leaves two teams in the table of doom and only one match at Anfield between them on the third last match. It means that if Arsenal win all Liverpool can still get 96. May or may not be our biggest game this season What can we say for now? Forest can get 86 if they win all 13 matches. They are out, simple as that. They won’t do that and Liverpool won’t lose enough points to get close to Forest’s final tally. We play Newcastle at home and Southampton away after Liverpool. Both winnable despite the fact that both teams have caused us blips in recent years. Liverpool play Brighton away and Palace at home, both also winnable. They seem to have a slightly more difficult task but not much more. 3 matches to decide the title? Where I do think they have the harder task is their next 13. They play Villa and City away and Newcastle at home in their next 3. We play West Ham at home and Forest and Man Utd away. Certainly looks easier for us but we need 3 wins. This may be our biggest game of the season Then Chelsea and Fulham at home and Everton away for us. If all 3 are at their best it will be difficult but we probably need 3 wins. Liverpool are home to Southampton and Everton and away to Fulham. They could easily win all three. Liverpool then have home to West Ham and Tottenham and away to Leicester. We will definitely need Potter, Postecoglou and Van Nistleroy to have their teams firing by then and even so it is hard to see any points dropped. Maybe if the Spuds have all their players back? C’mon you Spurs! We have Brentford and Palace at home and Ipswich away. We can have no excuses, we must win. Maybe all games are loseable? Then we have Bournemouth at home, Liverpool away, and Newcastle and Southampton as mentioned. They have Chelsea away, then us, Brighton and Palace. We must beat them to start the mindgames Probably the most crucial for both teams is the next 3 matches. If Liverpool win all 3, then I doubt if we can catch them even if we win 3. If Unai Emery can get Villa playing like they do against us they might just get a point. It is tomorrow so a failure to win gives us a great chance to put a lot of pressure on them before they play City on Sunday. We have West Ham on Saturday. As they have 2 matches we will spend a period with a game in hand. Can we get inside Liverpool's heads? We have to beat the Hammers. No question. Potter has form against us as have the Hammers sometimes but drop points here and we have lost the chance to get into Slot’s head. Then Liverpool play City away, and last weekend against Newcastle they looked more like the old City. 4 goals and the new players gelling well. That surely is the match we are hoping for something, even a draw. Liverpool will travel all the way to Manchester, if they have dropped anything to Villa and we win against West Ham, knowing that their season could unravel with a defeat. This is the period when mindgames, that the mind plays with itself, is critical. By now, Liverpool’s players, many of whom have never won the league, will feel that it is theirs to lose. They need that cold clinical head to get them over the line. Any blip could devastate their confidence. They would know a defeat would leave them potentially only 2 points ahead. Forest away our hardest aside from the big game? But we are away to Forest, who are flying most weeks. That will be a pressure game. It seems like the hardest match other than Liverpool on our run in. A midweek win, in the scenario above, would push a hammer blow into the frailty of a team later that night then bracing to play Newcastle at home. Eddie Howe will be desperate to do well after being destroyed by Man City. They are rarely an easy team to play against. Then the following weekend we play Man Utd away and Liverpool play Southampton at home. As long as Utd are still playing rubbish we should win and Southampton scarcely have a chance at Anfield. Can Ramsdale do us a favour at Liverpool? So they will have 4 matches to our 3 at this point. After this point, while there are games Liverpool can lose, they can also probably afford to lose them if they win these 3 plus a banker against Southampton. Everything is already decided? So that is where we are. Liverpool seem to have a tougher run in. They absolutely must drop points soon or we are only scrapping for second place. Yes, Champions league looks certain at this point. There could well be a scrap for the rest of the places as even Brighton on 37 points might feel that a strong run gets them up there. I have a feeling that the points total for Champions League may not be too high as lots of teams are dropping points. I suspect the current top four of Liverpool, Arsenal, Forest and City could well make it. I will be surprised if the current top two do not remain the top 2. They are pulling away and a win for Arsenal against Forest would put them further behind. It is almost decided already? At the bottom, Southampton look doomed leaving Ipswich, Leicester and Wolves to fight it out for one spot. So in the middle of February, it looks like the bottom four are obvious as is the top two. I can’t really remember it being like this before. Sadly, no table of doom It is disappointing for me not to have a table of doom this season but unless both Arsenal and Liverpool drop a few points soon and the chasing pack start winning there is no point. Nobody believes that anyone other than Liverpool and Arsenal can win this time so there would be no tension. I will suggest that February 26th could be the marker for this season. We play Forest away and Liverpool play Newcastle at home. The league at that point could well indicate whether we can have a tight end to the season. And Arsenal will have to compete with none of our first choice forward line for that period! Did I ever say that it is tough to be an Arsenal fan?

A Wenger Wonder It’s been a long time since I returned to this series. Mostly because they are the hardest to write as I have to try to pump a whole season into one column, and decide what to mention and what not. Also I have to try and remember how I felt at the time and it is surprising, I remember better my emotions when I was a kid. I think because nowadays you can get football 24/7 and I would have seen virtually every match and can’t really remember too much of it. Such is the joy of being a writer. Wenger gave us hope and big matches with a weaker side than any he had had before It was a big year though. Many momentous things happened. We also never really threatened the Premier League too much and we didn’t win any trophies, in fact we hadn’t won anything since the Invincibles year. Even the shiny new Emirates stadium was going to be 3 years old. By the way, it is heading closer to 20 years now, the time flies. The Emirates brought us up and brought us down The Emirates has been the colossus that defines us since it was built. The big trophies are in the past and paying for it was painful in these years. We were not good enough, it is as simple as that. And we couldn’t buy to make us at the top. We relied totally on Wenger’s genius to give us hope every year but that was all we had, and it is still all we have, today, hope. We needed it to stay competitive but we couldn't afford the right players We still had a pretty good season, one the Spuds would love, or Manchester United at the moment. I will go through the various trophies and see how we did. I know most of you lived through this season, although for the younger ones you probably saw things differently. I understood that we had to get a bigger stadium with a far bigger commercial footprint to stay competitive. The Kroenkes had appeared as minor shareholders the year before but I didn’t see them as likely to ever take over. It seemed to me that money was their only motive and top Premier League teams were cash cows. I got that wrong. American owners do not have a great track record in England and that is still mostly the case. But the Kroenkes have improved us. That cannot be denied. Do they have the ambition to get us to the top? We shall see. The ins and outs weren’t too bad But first the players in 2008. We got rid of some top guys, Jens Lehman, Mathieu Flamini, Alex Hleb, Gilberto Silva, along with Justin Hoyte, but the only good sale was Hleb for £11,900,000 to Barcelona. The rest were frees or for little. The most exciting for me was Andrey Arshavin, who I really loved as a player. I truly felt he was top, and was the type of player we needed. He cost big money at £15,000,000 and we also bought Samir Nasri, who I knew little about, for £12,000,000 and Aaron Ramsey for £4,800,000. Amaury Bischoff came but rarely played but the biggest niggle for me was hiring Mikael Silvestre from Man Utd. He was past his best and showed we had little ambition by taking Utd rejects. He never did too much at Arsenal. Aaron we loved but Nasri? Uh-uh In fairness to Nasri, he came and showed he was good, he played most games, scored a few goals. You all know how it finally ended for him so I won’t talk too much about him, other than to say he was good. Aaron Ramsey became a fan favourite, everyone loved him. He played at 100%, always gave his best but injuries were the bane of his life. I was sad when he left. At his best he was really impressive. We will always love Andrey Arshavin for this Arshavin came in January so was not an ever present but there was one thing he did in his first season that defined him for Arsenal supporters. He went to Anfield and scored four goals, the first and only time in his career he managed 4. Injuries probably stopped him becoming a true Gooner great but it was the same for so many players post Invincibles. Tomas Rosicky, Diaby, Walcott, Wilshere, Eduardo, Carlos Vela, Alex Song, Lord Bendtner and others who were on our books at this time all had bad or persistent injuries to contend with. It is a wonder Wenger kept us competitive. Fast out of the blocks And so to the pitch. We started well winning 4 out of our first five and were briefly top. Hope sprang in our hearts only to be plucked away with 4 defeats and 2 draws in our next nine. 4th place was the best we did after that. Aaron Ramsey became a fan favourite You will all remember the astonishing long unbeaten spell we then had in the league. From the 30th November 2008 when we beat Chelsea 2-1 at Stamford Bridge to May 10th 2009 when Chelsea beat us 4-1 at the Emirates, we never tasted defeat. Defeats by Stoke, Fulham, Hull, Man City and Villa before then, plus lots of draws (the famous 4-4 at Liverpool in April) had done for us long before then. We ended up 4th on 72 points a long way behind Man Utd on 90, Liverpool on 86 and Chelsea on 83. We fell too far behind at the start to get up there and challenge. So there was little hope in that season other than our strong finish gave us hope for next season. Ah, what it is like to be a Gooner. Our only sustenance is hope. A penalty shootout to test our hearts The Champions League was good for us, though. Hope jumped up as we thrashed Twente in the first playoff. Then we had no-one to frighten us in Porto, Dynamo Kyiv and Fenerbahce in the group stage. We advanced nicely to qualification and then Wenger put out a weakened team against Porto, our main rivals in the final game, as he always did once we had qualified. Despite thrashing them 4-0 at home, they won 2-0 in that match and we came second, meaning we faced a group winner in the knock-out. That was Roma and we won 1-0 at the Emirates but they returned the score at the Stadio Olimpico giving us a heart-stopping penalty shootout after Eduardo missed the first. Luckily, Vucinuc missed their second to ease the pressure. It kept on till the 8th when Tonetto missed and Diaby became our hero. Man Utd were better than us We tossed aside Villareal in the next 4-1 on aggregate. But then came the semi-final and Manchester United, soon to be champions and well above us in the league. John O’Shea fired in a goal to give them a 1-0 lead to take to the Emirates. Did that mean we had a chance? I didn’t really think so. They had Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez, Berbatov, Park and Giggs to choose from as forwards. We had Lord Bendtner! We did have Van Persie, Adebayor and Walcott but we were well inferior everywhere. Fabregas would have got his game for them but maybe no-one else. They won 3-1 at the Emirates and that was the closest Wenger was to get to the final after that. We were clearly behind and we needed something big to happen to get us back to the top. We no longer had this class of player as the 2009 Champions League final I should mention that Barcelona clearly beat Man Utd in the final and they were better again than them and us. We were truly falling behind in class. Chelsea beat us twice at the end of 2009 and were also better than us Burnley beat us 2-0 in the League Cup but we did get to the semi-final of the FA Cup against Chelsea, we had hope when Walcott fired in an early goal but then Malouda equalized and our hate figure from Chelsea, Didier Drogba lashed in a late goal to give them the win and extinguish our dream of a trophy. Stan made his move but Wenger was still the master It is important, at this point, to say that Stan Kroenke increased his share to 28.3% in May 2009 making him the biggest shareholder. I didn’t like him as I felt Americans knew nothing about soccer and I favoured Alisher Usmanov the Russian billionaire simply because I felt he would understand football. I guess we are all glad I was wrong as surely Usmanov would have been kicked out like Abramovich. It didn't work out between Arsene and Stan But that is where we were, the team were a definite downgrade on the Invincibles, injuries were a constant problem and ownership was full of uncertainty. Somehow, with all that, Arsene Wenger got us to 2 major semi-finals and qualified us for the Champions League. Thank you belatedly Professor even though the fans weren’t happy, you had achieved a miracle. You kept giving us hope.

The Cannon – the best football logo? I guess we were lucky in our past. We started out as Dial Square but quickly changed to Royal Arsenal and then soon after to Woolwich Arsenal. All of these were connected to a munitions factory and gave us our cannon as the heart of our logos. We got a cannon, so shooting, firing, aiming, and yes, winning at these were what we did. It is cool, it is red, and it is ours So we have a cannon, what do other clubs have? A lot of birds and bees, lions and mythical looking creatures including Manchester United’s Devil. Some are not bad, some are quite good, some are simple, some look ancient and one, well, one poor team has a cock as its logo. But we should never laugh, they chose it, they must have known it would turn out to be true. Sorry, I can’t help it, I have to laugh. Arsenal outfire all other teams Even the newspapers and media must love our logo. It gives them all sorts of headlines whether we do good or bad – our young guns are firing or misfiring, The gunners are out gunned or Arsenal outgun the opposition. The gunners are firing blanks, the gunners are firing howitzers, Top guns, or dead guns. The headlines write themselves. Lazy sub-editors just wheel them out every time. I can’t think of any other team’s logo that suits football so well. I mean you can’t really say Brighton’s Seagulls shat on the opposition, can you? Or that Spurs had a cock rammed up their arse. Or that Manchester United’s Red Devils have been thrown into hell. It wouldn’t be nice, would it? You couldn’t say that on Sky or in a newspaper, but you could use any combination of guns and cannons, firing and shooting, hitting and missing for Arsenal and never once have to resort to a bad word. The Devil is about to sink their ship But also for us fans, we get to have a cool logo on our chest, and it has been shaken up many times so we can go retro and have it firing left or modern and firing right. If we buy socks, t-shirts, bedspreads, mugs or any sort of memorabilia, they are always enhanced by our sexy sign. We don’t have to get into bed with a lighthouse (if that is what Everton’s building is), or bees, or Newcastle’s weird looking whatever they are animals, or Manchester City’s boat that looks like it is about to be sunk by a red target, and I am not going to mention the Spuds again. Ours is cool and it is sexy. And above all it is relevant. Football is about shooting. We are Arsenal The great thing is that our logo says what we are, the greatest shooters ever. We were the first real greats of the current top three in England when we dominated the 1930’s and 1940’s. What does Liverpool’s strange bird say to you? I have no idea but maybe the flower it is carrying symbolizes that they will walk alone into the fire at the side of their crest. Manchester United’s Red Devil has a boat above it and it looks like the Devil’s fork is going to sink the boat. Man Utd are doing a good job of that at the moment and City may also have sunk their boat. Maybe all their logos are true? Is that a red target about to sink their ship? West Ham do have a pretty good crest with the two giant hammers which is their nickname and Crystal Palace do have an eagle which looks very serious as it goes about its business. Brentford’s bees I suppose show that they buzz around but never really get anywhere. Burnley’s is… The birds and the bees and whatever else The real kicker is Burnley’s. Did they make a trip to Spain at some point and got Picasso and Dali drunk while conning them into designing their logo? I can’t make any sense of it anyway but what do I know about art? And seriously, what is that bird doing on the top? We outgun them all The truth is, most clubs logos and crests are strange, weird, vaguely mythological looking, and I can’t really see what they have got to do with football. Ours does. And ours looks good. Even the old black and white cannons indicate that we have some strength within us, they look formidable. And our shields which came afterwards have a happy, uplifting feel about them as well, the stars with their Christmassy feel allied to our positive motto give us a class that other teams don’t have. Walking into the fire? The modern one has been pared down. It is sleek and powerful. It can go 3D or it can go small or big and still be impressive. I don’t feel there is any argument. Our logo is the best. Our next task is to live up to our crest and logo and become what we once were, the best team ever. Go Arsenal!

We have one job now - Win Update to the Table of Doom Table of Doom Fixtures Current points Max Arsenal 80 89 Man City Spurs (a) 79 91 Liverpool’s implosion has seen them drop out of the Table of Doom, something I would not have seen as likely not too long ago when they were fighting like demons for their points. They were battling harder than anyone else and scrambling unlikely victories. Very recently they had their destiny in their own hands and threw it away. We, most likely, will not have our destiny in our own hands at all now. The best we can hope for is that City drop points which none of the pundits deem likely. Jurgen Klopp:I will never understand why he didn't wait till the end of the season to announce he was leaving What I know and what I don't And so Bournemouth, Man Utd and Everton are next. All winnable? Yes. Will it be good enough? I don’t know. Which is the hardest? I don’t know. Will City win all theirs? I don’t know. Will Tottenham take something from City? I don’t know. Are we all going to be Tottenham supporters for one day? I don’t know. The Spuds 1961 double winners beat Man City 1-0 at Maine Road -C'Mon you Spurs I can hear you saying, Gus, do you know anything? Why are you getting your huge salary if you know nothing? So I will concentrate for now, on what I do know. If City win all, there is nothing we can do. They must slip up. However, if they draw then we can win as our goal difference will probably be better than theirs if we win all. A seven goal turnaround in 3 matches is difficult allowing we have to improve by at least three which makes ten. I do know that you have to win by at least one goal. You see, I do know something. A nervous City? But I will give some good news. If, such a big if, Tottenham manage to get something from City it might just give them a wobble at exactly the right time as they face West Ham at home on the final day. City have lost 3 times away and only once at home. Tottenham may well be fighting for their Champions League spot and if they have a good day, something could happen. And that means that West Ham becomes a must win on the final day. A twitchy City could be a vulnerable City. Bournemouth are coming good at the wrong time for us So can we win our three? I have to give you the bad news that Bournemouth are on a very strong run with only 3 defeats since February by Aston Villa, Luton and Man City. They will feel that Europe is now possible. They are in form at the moment and we must kill them off ruthlessly. We do not need a hard game from them, and we know what they will do. Defend like demons and try to give Dominic Solanke the ball. We will need to be good for 90 minutes. No idiocy like David Raya as one goal may decide this game. No glory glory Man Utd? Man Utd? They will give us more chances I reckon but they also make chances every game. They have a tough looking last 4 games with a resurgent Palace away, us at home, Newcastle at home and Brighton away. They could end up with nothing from these games and they will be aware of that. 6th place is there for them if they win matches and they are running out of time. I have a feeling we may need a clean sheet for this one. Ten Hag will try to get them to defend and hope for a breakaway even though they are at home. They have players who can score from sudden breaks. This is one game where tactics can make a huge difference. We must hope that Arteta is the man here. They don't have Best, Law or Charlton Everton on the last day. The good news is that if we win the previous two, this match is live no matter what happens. If City win all they will be two points ahead but probably with an inferior goal difference which means if we win and they draw we are the champions, my friends. If, by any chance, City have already been beaten by Tottenham, then they will be one point behind us, and if they draw, we can get away with a draw. Of course we can never know that as a draw can turn into a win at the last kick of the match. If they get a draw in any of their matches they will be level with us on the last day but we should have a clear goal difference which means two draws gives us the title. Saliba and Gabriel vs Dominic Calvert-Lewin Is the glass half empty? The danger to assuming we will have a superior goal difference is that City could run up a hatful against Wolves and Fulham in their first 2 games to catch us up and we win by one against Bournemouth and Utd. The most optimistic scenario is that City suffer a bad run and hand us the title before we play Everton. It seems like absolutely nobody believes that can happen. I have been around football long enough to know that you cannot predict matches. If you could there would be no betting companies. City got beaten when they had the initiative against Real Madrid. And they badly wanted that two time in a row Champions League. Just like they badly want this four time in a row Premier League. We are Arsenal and we must show it One thing I do know for sure and that is no Gooner wants to hand Man City the title as Liverpool has. We did that last year, made it easy for them. We are now the last man standing in the Table of Doom. Liverpool cannot get 86 points and their next two are the Spuds at home and Villa away with both teams scrambling for the Champions League. They may not get many more points. I will never understand why Jurgen Klopp announced his retirement mid season. The way they were playing they could have won it this season. He has tarnished his legend. How did retaining that trophy work out for you City? At the start I asked many questions that I couldn’t answer. So now I will give you my opinion. We can win this league. I feel City will drop points but I reckon only in one match. So 2 or three. We must win three and I think we will. It will come down to this, and we must be ready. It is also that the only time City may drop points is on the last day against West Ham. We will only know that we must win in that scenario. Are we winners? Yes we are.