This season so far has been all about wins, great form, confidence, great goals and reoccurring questions. In particular, there are two questions, pundits, presenters and whoever steals a living talking football simply love to ask. “Can Arsenal win the league?” and “Aaron, what is the difference with you this season?” Alternatively, the latter question might be put to Arsène Wenger as well. However, I want to focus on the first one. Mainly because it is as annoying as it gets, hearing and seeing pundits desperately trying to come up with ever more obscure reasons why Arsenal cannot win it, but also because I feel they are approaching this topic from the wrong angle. The standard response to the question is “No. XYZ will win it. Why not Arsenal? Because they haven’t had a real test yet..” We are all familiar with this spiel.
The problem however is that due to the way the Premier League has developed over the years, in my opinion, highlighting ‘real tests’ it is no longer a valid argument. The league has grown ever closer over the years and as they say: ‘there are no simple games anymore’. A couple of years ago, the gap between the top 3 or top 4 sides and the rest, was distinctly bigger – in terms of quality and subsequently points – and the results against your direct rivals were much more important. Essentially, you knew that they were unlikely to drop too many points against the rest of the league. Now however, the likes of United and City go to Cardiff City and draw and lose; United lose at home to West Brom; Chelsea lose at Newcastle and Aston Villa defeat Arsenal at the Emirates. Teams tend to drop more points against sides that have nothing to do with the title race. Hence, direct duels, while still important and worth six points, become less and less decisive in the title race.
But why talk if we can look at numbers. Last season, United took 10 out of a possible 18 points against their top 4 rivals (City took 11/18). Alternatively, they took 20 out of 36 from games against top 7 rivals – depending on your definition of ‘real test’ (City 17/36). Both numbers are not particularly impressive – admittedly, still far superior to Arsenal’s 12/13 record – but ultimately, these games had little impact on the final table as United finished the season 11 points ahead of City. Meaning in comparison, United gained more points/game on City in the games against teams that finished 8-20 (0.31 pts/g), than in the games against top 7 teams (0.25). In words, City dropped more points against non-rivals than United. Or put differently, United would have still finished top even if they had lost all four games against City and Chelsea. Obviously, we are excluding factors like confidence gained/lost from wins against direct rivals, but you get the main point. The point being that the games that are not classified as ‘real tests’ by pundits, actually had a greater impact on the final table than the ‘real tests’.
Similarly, you could look at the current table. Arsenal lost to Manchester United, hence you would expect United to be top. Or at least close. As games against rivals matter. But then you look at the table and realise that Arsenal are nine points clear of Manchester United – despite losing to them three weeks ago. How can you still maintain that point of view? Let’s pretend for a second, City, Chelsea and Arsenal were to win all their games until they meet on December 14th and 23rd. Let’s now imagine Arsenal lose both games v City and Chelsea; even though all those results coming true in that manner is actually highly unlikely. Arsenal would be on 37 points after 19 games, Chelsea on 39 and City on 37. Which means that despite losing all three ‘real tests’, Arsenal would still only be 2 points behind Chelsea. If Chelsea were to draw just one of their other four games, Arsenal would actually be top. Admittedly, all very abstract and theoretical, but it once more stresses that consistency throughout the season, against any type of team, is much more important than winning against direct rivals. Or you could argue, Arsenal could simply beat Chelsea and City and move even further clear… But it’s not about Arsenal – it’s about the principle.
What is about Arsenal though, is that I personally, would approach the whole subject from a different angle. It is not so much about what Arsenal do against their rivals, or what they will be doing in February or March. It is about what they are doing right now. As the Boss always says ‘we go game by game’. At the start of the season I wanted to see one thing in particular – and that was still being in contention by the turn of the year. People always say you can’t win the title race in December. Which is completely true, but you can already be out of it. Which is exactly what happened to Arsenal on too many occasions. Take last season for instance – 13 points behind United at the end of 2012. [Or take the current table, 31 points – last season 20 points.] If you are 13 points of the league leaders by the end of December, it is completely irrelevant what you are doing in February/March or how you fared in ‘real tests’. Because the reality is that you have already dropped way too many points against teams from every part of the table for any of it to matter. Thus, in my opinion, pundits should not be talking about whether we can keep the pace until the end of the season, but rather highlight the significant improvement from last season. But that would be pro-Arsenal, can’t expect that. There is simply too much to admire about this current Arsenal team to constantly go on about the failings of the past. There are many different reasons why at the end of the season, the champion might not be Arsenal, but failing in the ‘real tests’ will never be the only or main reason. We have already faced three ‘real tests’ and are still in a very comfortable position. At the top of the table. Can’t be that bad.
