Words, like other clubs’ defences, sometimes fail me.
Sometimes it is difficult to know what to say. Before yesterday’s game it was 21 goals in the last five league games – could this continue? Well yes, another four keeping the average at over four goals a game across six consecutive league matches…
OK I wasn’t exactly thinking that when jumping up and down and shouting and clapping as each goal went in but I was indeed thoroughly happy, and also relieved.
Relieved because big club-arranged pre-match celebrations can have an ability to backfire and look like a real embarrassment, especially when organised by a club intent on telling supporters what to do (“Wave your flags now please you supporters!”). Yes it was fun in a way, but I am not sure we needed any more fun specially laid on by the club.
And that’s my point: we’ve been having fun on the terraces and in the seats at Arsenal for decades, and we’ve always done it ourselves quite well. Why do we need a light show and club made banners? (The AISA “Football should be an art” banner still sits proudly in the ground as the only banner celebrating a London based supporters group, so why not leave it to us?)
Certainly the players didn’t think anything extra was needed. They came out of the blocks ready to knock in another collection of goals, and keep up the averages. True, we are five points behind this moment last season, but scoring more and conceding fewer, and if we can avoid the catastrophe of the last nine games of the last campaign, that will be real progress.
Indeed we are scoring more goals than anyone other than Liverpool, and they have only got one more than Arsenal, so let’s not have more of this chat about needing a centre forward. We clearly don’t.
What we need, and what we have got, is a bunch of players who look like they really want to play for Arsenal, who look like they know what they (and each other) are doing, and have not only got the best defence in the league, but have achieved this while getting the lowest number of yellow cards of any club in the league.
Now that last point really is something worth noting because having a solid defence usually means ratcheting up the yellows, but not this time with Arsenal. Quite the reverse in fact.
Despite the attempts of nay-sayers across the years who have told us that Arteta is clearly not good enough and needs sacking, we have a manager who is keeping our club right up there with a rival that has spent unimaginable billions on the team; and done it while Arsenal is still paying off the borrowings that were made necessary with the building of the stadium.
Arsenal is a club living in, and winning in, the real world, which makes nights like Saturday night ever more enjoyable than they would otherwise be.
Added to which, next Monday we play Sheffield United, whose goal difference is almost the exact reverse of Arsenal’s. Anyone care to predict the score?
Tony Attwood 25.02.24