Having already done our job on Saturday, yesterday was a lovely day in which to watch Premier League football that didn’t really have too much at stake and didn’t actually impact us that massively. Liverpool and City had both won on Saturday like us, so I had mild desire to see the likes of Chelsea, United and then the Scum slip up. So it was a bit of fun watching yesterday, as all three teams dropped points, along with Villa, to make it an amusing Sunday afternoon as I did a Sunday roast in the kitchen. The sh*tting of the bed by the Scum was particularly juicy and at half time in that match I switched off the telly and went to walk with the wife. When I got back to fire up the ovens for the roast I saw that Brighton had pulled one back and so it was at least back in to a competition, but I didn’t expect them to melt down so spectacularly.
Great stuff.
As for us, there’s still a long way to go and there are still plenty of matches to concern ourselves with, but if you’re looking at the table right now you’re probably saying as a neutral that it is already taking shape. Liverpool are currently top on 18, with us behind on 17 along with City. Then there’s Chelsea on 14 along with Villa on 14 and Brighton on 12. That feels pretty accurate after seven matches, even though they say you need to give it until 10 matches before you see the Premier League table taking shape.
So today I decided to have a look at when that point in time is and what the table might look like. We sort of touched on this yesterday on the Same Old Arsenal podcast towards the end of the show when we started to look beyond this horrible international break period we’re now in; i.e. ‘how many points are we getting in our next three games’ and so I thought I’d explain my thinking for the next three matches to take us to that “table is taking shape” part of the season.
In the next three games we have:
- Bournemouth – away
- Liverpool – home
- Newcastle – away
It feels like we’ve only just got through one period of tough games and we’re already coming across another, eh? By the time we get to the beginning of November we’ll have knocked down all but Chelsea and United, although the Chelsea game away comes straight after that Newcastle game, so we’ll have that one done by the time 11 matches have been played in the season. And I tell you what, depending on the results for this little run to mid November, could also see how our season is defined, because after 10th November we’ve got a whole bunch of home games against the big teams in the second half of the season. That could be big for us, for sure.
As usual somebody asked whether we’d win the league and of course all of us said it’s too early to be making those assumptions. We make a prediction at the beginning of the season and I said we’d once again finish runners up to City, but yesterday I said “ask me after Liverpool” to that listener. I’d probably actually revise that to “ask me after Chelsea”, because I think if we’ve picked up 10 points from those four games, we’ll be in a really good position. Bournemouth are a good side, but we have a good record there, so I’d fancy us to get three points. Liverpool at home, well, that’s going to be tough. We’ve won at home for the last two season’s in the league and a third one in a row would be huge. There have been plenty of questions that were asked before a ball was kicked about how this Liverpool team would react to a new manager in Arne Slot, but he’s been doing the business so far and six wins out of seven says that they will be competing this season for the title. But to win that would lay down a massive marker for our credentials. Then, if we go to Newcastle and pick up a win, it’d be another big test that we’ll have overcome. That’s a lunchtime Saturday kick off so I’m hoping the atmosphere isn’t as raucous as last year when it was a Saturday evening, but let’s wait and see. After that it’s Chelsea at home and if we can play more like the Arsenal we’ve come to know over the last two season’s and not the one that seemed to be a bit bamboozled by Chelsea’s two fluke goals there last season, then I’d like to hope we could get the win.
Four wins and I’m going to be starting the noises about a title charge. Four wins in the next four and we’ll be on 29 points and I wonder if we would be top of the league. Man City play Wolves away, Southampton at home, Bournemouth away, Brighton away. Very similar matches to us, although they don’t have Liverpool at home, so there’s is a slightly easier run than ours. You’d probably think that they would win all four of those games and be level on points with us, so perhaps if we’re winning all four we’re not top on goal difference, but I wouldn’t care. That’s because we’ll have gone through a much harder start to the season they they would have had and I’d still be delighted with that points haul. In fact, even if we pick up 10 points in that time and are a couple behind City on 11th November, I’d still see that as us being in a really good position.
Liverpool have Chelsea at home, us away, Brighton at home and then Villa at home and if they’re on 12 points (which would mean they’ll have beaten us), then you’d think that they will be looking like favourites for the league, because that’s a really tough run. Yes, they play three of those at home which of course is an advantage, but those games are not foregone conclusions, so I think by that 11 game point we’ll know just how good Arne Slot’s Liverpool are.
So I guess on that basis, 10/11 games in to the season is a pretty good marker to see where your team is at. We’re in a good place now, but we need our players to come back from the internationals not crocked, so we go in to a holding pattern for the next 11 days as these horrible internationals all play out.
Back tomorrow with some more ramblings. Catch you then.
Excellent summary of where we’re at, and I agree that 7 or 9 from the next 3 fixtures will definitely put in us in poll position (especially as we’re already the bookies favourite).
Something that I noticed the other day:
After our next three fixtures, we don’t leave London in the league until January. Nine straight London-based matches!
That’s a great spot Matthew – staying in London! Didn’t realise that!