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Rest of the season preview, with a sneak look at the League cup and Champions League Table of Doom Arsenal Now 70 Max. 91 Manchester City Now 61 Max. 85 Manchester United Now 54 Max 78 Aston Villa Now 51 Max. 75 Liverpool Now 49 Max. 73 Chelsea Now 48 Max. 72 Fixtures Arsenal: Man City A Man City: Chelsea H Arsenal H Villa A Aston Villa: Liverpool H Man City A Man Utd: Chelsea A Liverpool H Chelsea: Man City H Man Utd H Liverpool A Liverpool: Man Utd A Chelsea H Villa A How come the bottlers didn’t drop points? And so another significant week for the bottlers of Arsenal. We have secured the Wenger trophy of qualification for the CL almost for certain already. Villa and Chelsea dropped 3 points and Man City and Liverpool dropped 2. Only Arsenal can get to my original target of 89 points and the revised one at 84 is almost out of reach for even Man City. City would have to win 8 in a row to get 85 as they can’t actually get 84. A draw against us and 7 wins gets them 83. That would mean we would have to lose 2 and we would be level on points. At the moment we have 7 plus in goal difference but that could certainly be made up for them as they would have 3 extra wins as they have an extra match. They do have to play both Chelsea and Villa whereas we play nobody at the top for those other fixtures. Brentford will play a big role in the Champions League places I said when I started this years Table of Doom that the final six at the time would be the final six. That seems to be most likely. But if Brentford beat Wolves tonight they will be knocking on the door. I would love to see them do it and the teams above them must drop points as there are still games between them, however, Brentford do play Liverpool, Man City, and Man Utd all away. They will probably not make the final CL spot. They have the potential to be Champions league makers though as it is unclear how many positions there will be as it looks like several teams are about to drop out of this year’s trophy. Bye bye Chelsea and Liverpool The other news is that I gave a revised total of 75 points for being relegated from the Table of Doom. Guess what? Chelsea and Liverpool are gone and I suspect that anything above 60 might be good enough for the final CL place. Villa also are ready for the drop and I doubt if Man Utd will be there much longer. Even City, if they don’t put their winning boots on, could drop out early. City beating Real Madrid would be great for us If they scrape through Champions League against Real Madrid, Pep may take the Ange Postecoglou attitude that all effort goes into winning in Europe. They will qualify for CL through the league for sure so he would feel that the biggest trophy in Europe is within reach. Even an average of a point a game gives him 69 and that will easily get his place next season. Would that be in Pep’s mentality? His reserves would easily get him a point per game. All or nothing in the CL? He might also win the League Cup and/or FA Cup without stretching his resources too far. CL and another cup or 2 is a great season. C’mon Man City! That would make life easier for Arsenal. To be straight, if I was in Pep’s position and somehow get through Madrid, I would definitely go that route. Relieving the strain of the players in the Premier League might even lead to easier wins for his team as the pressure is off. Pushing them to the limits in 4 trophies could leave them with none. Pushing them to the limit against Madrid and in the League Cup for one game and then throwing everything at the CL for five more games could give him a great season. He might say we can win 7 matches and let the others fall as they may. I would, but then I have never been a great manager. Pep is. Is that what a great manager would do? Are you Ange Postecoglou in disguise? Anyway, I am up for Pep and City against the Royals. And then we beat them in the League Cup, PL and CL without having to worry too much about City trying to catch us in the PL as their effort is in the CL. We wrap it up early and concentrate on wining the CL. Which would be the double of all doubles for me. They may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. After the Wenger trophy, the League Cup Of course a win on Sunday would give us a great chance of a double or more. Who will play? I suspect a strong team with probably Dowman and Saka in reserve if we need a goal second half. A lot may depend on the Leverkusen match. Anyone with a hard game there may be on the bench. It is what I would do. But we might be lucky and get away with an easy win. I certainly hope so as City are guaranteed a very tough match and possibly extra time. That is the ideal scenario. We tuck Leverkusen away first half and City scrape through after an almighty battle leaving their players only ready for bed for the rest of the week. Can Max Dowman be the youngest scorer in a Wembley final? The League Cup is not our cup. Wenger couldn’t win it. It is a long time since we won it and among the top teams we have the lowest amount. But history can always be changed. I predict a very cagey match, with both teams afraid to lose. 1-0 to the Arsenal would do me.

Where can we finish 2026? The final 8 Everton (H) Bournemouth (H) Man City (A) Newcastle (H) Fulham (H) West Ham (A) Burnley (H) Palace (A) I once again have Dave Hardy by my side as we find a way to look into the future for what could be a great season. Dave Hardy’s predictions are in blue. So, what can we say for certain? If we win all we will get 91 points, our best ever. Better than the 90 of the Invincibles. Also if we do that we will win with a guaranteed 2 matches to spare but probably more like three. Which makes winning our last 3 probably harder as we might be on holiday in our mind. Will Arteta be desperate, though, if beating the Invincibles is possible, to win all just as Wenger pushed his guys not to get beat long after the title was won? I think yes, and Gabriel Heinze will be screaming at everyone to treat every match as critical, as well. I think he has added a killer mentality to Arsenal which Arteta, as his strong buddy, regards as that extra push to get us over every line. Has this proven winner Gabriel Heinze been brought in to get us over the line? So can we win all 8? Everton at home we will know very soon. We have a good record against them and Arteta knows David Moyes inside out. I feel 2-1 will be the scoreline but a bit easier than that score indicates. Dave Hardy says we start this final marathon with Arteta's former team. Even with Moyes at the touchline, they've been quite inconsistent, plus we do have quite a decent record against them at home, so I reckon we'll keep it that way. 3-1 for Dave and 70 points for both. So 70 points which I feel will get us Champions League and our first Wenger trophy of the season. Buddy number one David Moyes does us a favour I don’t know whether it is strange or not but probably the three managers that Arteta is closest to are our next three. The aforementioned David Moyes who Arteta was captain for at Everton, Andoni Iraola was alongside him as a youth footballer in the Basque country and they have remained close ever since, and of course, the famous Pep Guardiola with which he is strongly entwined. An advantage or disadvantage? We will find out soon enough. Bournemouth, again at home, is surely one we cannot afford to lose. They have only 9 wins all season but a massive 13 draws, by far the highest of any team. A potential banana skin, then? A draw could put City a potential 2 points behind us and reawaken their hopes and make us nervous. I would take a 1-0 to make George Graham happy. Buddy number two Iraola also does us a favour After the international break, and probably quarter finals in the FA Cup and the Champions League, we host Bournemouth. Last season they've managed to turn the game around and do the double on us, but this season their form is a bit different, so I'll go with a steady 2:0 win here. 73 points each And then the biggie, the match of the season, A Man City away which has been inconsistent for two seasons in a row. Still, at home they have only lost once all season to Liverpool and a draw may well be the best we get. I would take 2-2 and keep our title hopes strong. Something of a favour from last buddy Pep Probably the big one for this season. Two years ago we were in pretty much the same situation, and we've thought that a point here will be a good result. It almost was, but that damn Aston Villa had different plans for us. Back to the main point, I still don't think that we can go and win every single game all the way to the end, but I have a sense that the Carabao final against City, will be a vital turning point for us. 74 points each Newcastle at home and they regularly give us hard matches. Eddie Howe packs the defence and uses the speed of his forwards to to get breakaways. If he gets lucky he could win. But his away from is dreadful, they are way behind us on points, and there can be no excuses, we must win. I say 3-0 as they have an uncharacteristic bad day against us. After City, we've got another bout with Newcastle. Last season a Declan Rice belter was enough to seal us the final 3 points of the season, so I reckon that we can beat them once more. Plus historically, they have just a single league win over us at the N5 ever since we moved there. 77 points each We then head into 3 out of 4 London derbies the first of which is against Fulham at home, which is a sort of Arsenal lite with several ex players there. They have been good at home, and taken some nice scalps and Marco Silva must look on with envy at another young manager who has far bigger resources than he has. They are not so good away but I feel that this could be a draw and a wobble and 2-2. A London Derby is always a 50/50 game, and Fulham are quite a decent team this season, even though they are far off the European places. At this point with only 3 games left after that (and with the possibility of City's game in hand being played), this game comes as the first match point in our quest for the title. Dave goes 2-0 to us. 78 points for me and 80 points for Dave West Ham away next but here I feel more confident. They are worse at home than away and I think a nice win here at 4-1 puts us back on track. Another London Derby, with a huge stake for both teams. On one side we have the Hammers who are fighting to stay in the Premier League and on the other are the mighty Arsenal cruising on the way for a first league title since 2004. Over the past two seasons, The London Stadium has been a very generous place for us, as we scored 11 times in those two games. So I think that it'll be another free scoring game, and another 3 points to The Arsenal. 3-1 to Arsenal 81 points for me and 83 points for Dave Burnley at home in our final home match and I just can’t see them getting anything from us. I think they will finish bottom as Wolves will put in a great fight to stay up. I feel 3-0 will give us 84 points. That may even give us the title and cue huge celebrations at the Emirates. The last home game of the season, could potentially mean that we can celebrate the first league title at the Emirates. By the time this game comes, Burnley would most likely be relegated with nothing else but their honour to play for. So I expect a fabulous performance from us, and a rampant win before we can drown in beers and tears of joy. 4-0 for Dave 84 points for me and 86 for Dave And finally Palace away and presumably Oliver Glasner’s last match. They have had nothing much to play for, for a lot of this season and we also may have nothing to play for but I think if we get the first goal we will win. I say 2-1 to us and we win the title with 87 points Will Glasner be dreaming of this team by then? For the final matchday of the 2025/26 season, we have a London Derby with Palace. I can only hope that by that time everything will be decided, as I'm not ready for a repeat of the 23/24 season and that Everton game at the end. Since Ebe Eze won us the 3 points at the Emirates, it would be written in the stars for him to do it once more at his old ground. Also 2-1 for Dave to us, so that leaves us 87 points for me and 89 points for Dave. Us bottlers will enjoy our beers We win the league and the bottlers all lose. 4 teams have been better than us since the new century, Man City, Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool but somehow we are the only ones called bottlers. We will enjoy all our bottles and our draughts and our cans. Up the Arsenal!

Red cards – no, a red and white team David Seaman Lee Dixon Sol Campbell Tony Adams Ashley Cole Santi Cazorla Patrick Vieira Gilberto Silva Declan Rice Ian Wright Dennis Bertgkamp What’s unique about the players above? They have all been red-carded for the Arsenal since the Premier League began. I have tried to pick the best team from the list but it was hard. All our top defenders have been no strangers to red cards and it’s the same with our midfielders. I ended up with a 4 4 2 but I figured that Gilberto and Vieira would stay back and Rice and Cazorla further forward so more like a 4 2 2 2. Bergkamp and Wright up front. Forwards don’t get red-carded so much so I hadn't got a lot to choose from. Still, that is a top side. Leandro didn't make my great red-card team Trossard was a candidate as our latest but I couldn’t pick him above those two. In the Wenger era we picked up many red cards with our man Patrick being our king—eight red cards which is almost an average of one per season. Red cards were very common in the Wenger era and it probably cost us some trophies. They were big feisty players a bit like now. Let’s hope it doesn’t cost us many trophies this time. Arteta will stop the flow of red cards We have had 51 players red-carded since Sky invented football. And while Patrick Vieira had eight, Granit Xhaka had four in a slightly less timeframe, although one of his sendings off is probably the most famous of ours. Everyone remembers that one. And you can fuck off if you don’t. Good kick, Pep, you haven't lost it The way it is looking, we could have a bad year for sendings off. Arteta needs to move quickly to stem this flow. I believe he will, it is where he excels, looking at our flaws and correcting them. I am pretty certain that the second half of our season will be better in this regard. Rice, who picked up his first red, will discipline himself against further lapses. Partey and Gabriel still have reds in them, I feel, and Timber may join that bunch as he seems feisty. Pep Cantona gets no discipline Mr Pep surely could have been disciplined for an Eric Cantona attack on his car seat, and he probably imagined a ref sitting there as he let fly. That ref would not have got up. In fairness to Guardiola, he did not finger the ref for the Calafiori goal but his team for not having cover for Walker as he remonstrated with Mr Oliver. That is correct, you cannot expect a ref to wait as a player jogs back to his right position. Play had to restart, and in this case Oliver did nothing wrong. You can't give a red-card to a blue guy However, there was one incident at the end which the BBC panel of Alan Shearer and Shay Given thought was a big joke and that was Erling Haaland throwing the ball at Gabriel’s head as he rushed back to take the restart. I am sorry but deliberately throwing the ball at someone’s head is against the rules and a red card should have been the option. I am certain an Arsenal player would not have got away with that. It would have been letter of the law time again. A record year for red cards? We seem to have got an enormous amount of ambiguity this season in refereeing decisions and bookings and cards are on the increase. Seven yellows in Sunday’s match and one red in what was, despite its intensity, a fairly law abiding match, indicates that this could be a record year for cards. It is hard to see to what good effect. Arteta does need to ensure that we don’t get any more unnecessary ones. Ricardo Calafiori scored a simple tap-in... from 25 metres The match showed that we can win the league this year. City needed luck to scramble that late goal which didn’t seem likely given the amount of defenders lashing the ball over the net or wide for far out. Defenders can’t score from outside the box, Calafiori will confirm that for you. He knows it's impossible. Oh! Are we now better than City? We can only be happy though. We all feel that without Trossard’s indiscipline we would have won at the Etihad, something no team seems able to do. We have improved year on year. Martin and Merino are still to come and we might just get a target in January. Raya has proven me wrong The other area I feel I need to address is David Raya. I am a big fan of Ramsdale and still believe that he will get to the top. I had a similar belief in Martinez and he has proven himself. Arteta, Emery and Wenger were wrong and I was right. And I think Ramsdale will also prove to be truly top class. But David Raya surely must be in the reckoning for the top spot in Spain. Unai Simón is in his sights and Raya’s ability to calm down his defence, make multiple stops, lead the attacks and pluck crosses out of the air, definitely makes him a candidate for the best goalkeeper in the world. The Arsenal are back I also want to address playing Calafiori in Timber’s slot and Timber in Ben White’s position. I suspect it had to do with Savinho and the belief that Calafiori would be best to deal with him. He did that well but for the goal he was out of position as he was a few other times. Maybe that was Savinho’s doing but White is our best defensive full back in my opinion and the other area he excels in is linking with Saka. Saka had a quiet game and was taken off for White to bolster the defence. A good move, I feel as Saka needs to be protected. He will need that boy for many matches ahead and any time he can be rested is good. No,you fuck off, ref The team are good, this game proved that. We are still unbeaten. We got 7 points away from City, Villa and the Spuds, a run that we feared could be much worse. We do need to sort out the discipline, accept that certain referees are biased against us but not give any of them an excuse. We don’t want red-cards to spoil what could well be a great season. Mikel, do what is necessary, and bring a level of discipline unseen in football similar to the level of discipline in our playing ability. We know what we have to do and we do it. We support each other and we have made City need a red card to draw with us and even then, their fans went crazy that that was all they could achieve. I think we are Arsenal again. Time to send all the rest home crying. We are back. Let’s start with Bolton.

A Spanish DNA and what role has the Academy? We have a Spanish manager, a Brazilian director of football, a French set-piece expert and a German Academy manager. Plus we have American owners. I am not sure how much of our current DNA is English but surely the most crucial element is the Spanish one? And our biggest rivals also have their most crucial element a Spanish one. Are you happy, Pep Guardiola? I have often returned to the theme of how English Arsenal are and it is contradictory. Virtually all the Academy are English bar 2 and yet the full team has only three regulars, Saka, Rice and White. 2 or three others will get games but are unlikely to become regulars this season. We had a huge clearout this season with some 28 players going, mostly from the underage squads. Lots of these were English. Brexit obviously plays a part in the logic but it seems that selling the players is the biggest draw. The Academy, then, is a money-making machine? Wherefore art thou, England? We have six UK players in the first team squad (assuming Nketiah goes, and not counting Academy) with Ramsdale, Nelson and maybe Tierney also possibles for an exit. This is well under what is normal in top teams in the other top European leagues. Most could field a team from their own country (although not necessarily first choice). Definitely most would have more than 3 first choice. And Arsenal are not the worst in this regard at the top of the Premier league. Man City didn’t start one UK player on Saturday against Ipswich. Spurs had 2. Man Utd had 3. Chelsea had 3. Wenger and Emery liked bringing in youngsters Not long ago, Willock, Saka, Smith Rowe, Nelson, Nketiah, Maitland Niles, Balogun and others came in within a few years of each other. Wenger and Unai Emery liked bringing on youngsters. I am not so sure the same is with Arteta. I feel that he believes the old football saying: “You never win anything with kids”. No Academy player has come through with him so far and nailed down a top spot. Set to continue? Looks like it to me. Generate money not a place in the first team? Which means that the Academy needs to be a money machine, capable of generating sales of 10m plus per player to give us money to spend on established pros. Up to £34 million for Smith Rowe, up to £30 million for Nketiah, around £20 million for Balogun and so on gives us a return on the Academy. But under Arteta and Edu, not a road to the first team yet. Are you happy, Mikel Arteta? The average age of the squad has gone up now with most over 25. Only Martinelli, Saka and Timber were under that in Saturday’s game against Villa. We now have a seasoned team, many of whom have won big trophies and are established superstars. Even Arteta now is more in the middle for age for managers as five are now younger than him. Seems like only yesterday he was the youngest manager in the division. The Spanish are Supreme What we do have is a Spanish manager and they are the best. How can I say that? 3 of the CL sides are managed by a Spaniard, Pep, Emery and our boy. The three English managers are nowhere, Howe, Dyche, and O’Neil. Nor the three UK ones. That probably won’t change this season. Eddie Howe and Sean Dyche - a hard year? It seems to me that we have all the elements in place. A top Spanish manager, experienced pros who have won big trophies, 2 players for every position although I covered my reservations about this here last week. We also have players coming through the Academy who can fetch money or maybe even snatch a squad or first choice position. We have one of the biggest stadiums, we have smart business people owners whose main interest is sport, and we have a worldwide fanbase. We seem to have a united team and backroom staff. We have top class training facilities. A gigantic negative It is hard to think of a negative. Maybe our colour as red seems to have slipped down the ranking since 2000. There have been 11 red teams winning the Premier League, Man Utd 8, Arsenal 2 and Liverpool 1, to 14 blues, Man City 8, Chelsea 5 and Leicester 1. But we are left with one big negative, I reckon. Pep Guardiola just seems to up his team when necessary. They truly have strength in depth as top players seem to leave most seasons yet they keep on winning. No player seems truly indispensable. Saka, Odegaard, Rice, Saliba, and Raya look necessary for us. Possibly Gabriel as well. I believe we now have to flip-flop with Pep. Whatever he does, we have to do better. Anything you can do, I can do better 2 seasons ago he got 89 points so we knew we had to match that. We did but he got 91 points. This season we have to beat 91 but will he also then beat that? If we get 95 will he get 96? There is huge pressure on us as there is on him but he seems to get his players into a winning zone when necessary. They always do enough. Klopp, at the end, had a defeated look Our template has to be Klopp and Liverpool. In 2018/19 Man City took everything Liverpool threw at them and won by one point 98 to 97. The following year Klopp was merciless, he kept winning all the time, not giving Pep any chink of light until eventually City sank defeated, on 81 to Klopp’s 99. We must do the same. We must be ruthless, we must be mean, we must kick away all the lesser teams every week until Pep says, ok, boys, we will concentrate on the cups. The problem is that effort seemed to finish Klopp off, Liverpool never seemed to be that brutal machine again, as Pep upped his game from that point to win four in a row. Klopp was defeated by his mighty effort. Is the young lion better than the old one? So can we ask Arteta to take on Guardiola, not just for one season but year after year? Would he burn out like Klopp did in his mighty effort? We know Guardiola is ready for the fight nonstop. This season could be when we find out if Mikel Arteta can go one better then Jurgen Klopp, if he steps up to win and doesn’t have that hunted, haunted demeanour which Jurgen Klopp had in his last years as Liverpool boss. Guardiola was like a supreme predator, who lost one battle, but then destroyed his opponent. Can the old lion Pep be sent off with his head down? Can a smiling, babyfaced Spaniard be the king of the jungle and send Guardiola into retirement? I believe we will have all the indicators in place after this season, even if Arteta doesn’t manage to wrest the title from the lion. I will be watching Pep’s face, and I will know if he cannot stomach another fierce battle. That will be key, not giving Pep any joy until the very end. Arteta has to make it tough, no sleep, no rest, just pressure that never stops until Guardiola is squealing enough, whether I win or lose, I cannot go through this again. Pep did it to Klopp, now Arteta must do it to him.