RANT SPORTS: With 11 games played, Premier League title challengers Arsenal find themselves nine points off the top with Liverpool leading the table.
You’d think this would rule them out of a title, but think again. Things aren’t as straightforward as the table makes them seem.
“When you don’t win it affects the mood and energy. But the positive thing is that it is impossible that anyone in this room or outside wants to win more than I do, and these guys in the dressing room want to do,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said.
“Today I had a meeting with them and sensed it straight away. What I sense as well is a big belief about how good we are as a team. But you need to take that into a winning football match because, in the end, that is the only thing that anybody is going to judge, not how superior you were to the opponent, that you outrun the opponent, you out-performed the opponent in every single way. It is about how they scored a goal and you didn’t. We have a problem, and that problem has to be resolved by scoring more goals than the opponent.”
Tough Start of Fixtures in Premier League title race
Seven of Arsenal’s first 11 games have come against teams in the top half of the table. Their next is against fifth placed Nottingham Forest. In all these games, they recorded only one loss to Newcastle despite playing a full half with 10 men against both Brighton and champions Man City.
Arsenal managed to get a draw against all of the top three teams (Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea).
These tough fixtures didn’t just come consecutively but also most were away from home.
The first trio of tough away games was north London rivals Tottenham. Then, they had a midweek trip to Bergamo to face Atalanta, followed by a trip to Etihad to face Man City.
Arsenal got through this period of fixtures with a win against bitter rivals Tottenham. Then the Gunners got draws in the other two fixtures.
The second run of tough games consecutively started with a home fixture against leaders Liverpool. Then a cup game against Preston. Followed by three away trips to Newcastle, Inter Milan and Chelsea in a week.
This time Arsenal lost two against Newcastle and Inter; drew the two against Liverpool & Chelsea; whilst progressing through the next round of the Carabao cup after a 3-0 win against Preston.
Injuries & Suspensions
During these tough run of games Arsenal had struggled with injuries several times to key components of the team which affected the way they planned to play.
Club captain Martin Ødegaard got an ankle injury on international duty and was ruled out for two months, missing 12 games for Arsenal. Some of the key games missed were: Tottenham away, Man City away, Liverpool at home, Newcastle away, Atalanta away, PSG at home. Ødegaard then managed to come off the bench for a few minutes against Inter and started the next game against Chelsea.
Ødegaard leads the press and is the most creative player in the team so without him, Arteta shifted the set-up to playing two in midfield and two false nine’s up top rather than their usual midfield three. From a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2. Trossard came in for Ødegaard to play alongside Havertz, which worked in some games but Arsenal struggled to control games without their captain.
During this period of time, Ødegaard wasn’t the only player out injured. Jurriën Timber struggled with muscular injuries post ACL tear recovery and Riccardo Calafiori had ongoing knee issues.
In Arsenal’s loss to Bournemouth, they were without both Saka and Odegaard through injury and got another first half red card too. Which then wasn’t much of a surprise when they lost 2-0.
Defense has been ravaged by injuries
White missed several games. Zinchenko has missed most. New signing Merino was injured in his first training session and ruled out for two months. Tomiyasu has missed all but one game. Tierney has missed all games.
Ben White and Declan Rice have both played injured in recent fixtures too.
So far this season Arsenal have had three red cards all within the first 49 minutes. Last season they had only 2 in the whole season across all competitions, but this year in 28% of their games they’ve had a red card.
To put this into perspective, Liverpool hasn’t had any major injuries. More specifically, none to key players, but still lost 1 game and drew 1 game.
Arsenal Haven’t Clicked Yet in Premier League title race
Last season Arsenal started the season poorly too, it was far from perfect. By the end of December, Arsenal had lost against Fulham, West Ham, Newcastle and Aston Villa. They’d drawn against Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham and Fulham. Arsenal had also already been knocked out of the Carabao Cup in the first game against West Ham. By the start of January Liverpool knocked them out of the FA Cup in their first game.
In all these fixtures they had only two red cards in smaller games where they were already winning and managed to end the game with a win. There were no major injuries at all. Despite this, Arteta shifted their set-up and finished the year with a long run of wins. The Gunners finished 2024 with 17 league wins, 1 draw against Man City and 1 loss against Aston Villa.
Arsenal’s midfield has been imbalanced in recent games. They’ve looked disjointed without Ødegaard. Timber and Calafiori missing has hurt Arsenal’s build-up play.
Now Arsenal have most key players back. They should start to shift back to their original system and win consecutive games again.
