Arsenal News » How Arsenal are doing compared with last season

By Walter Broeckx

We are late in September; the season has been going for some 6 weeks. Time for a first overview. Are we doing better than last year or not?

The best way to make a comparison is to see at the games from last year and same games this season.

Our opening game this season brought a 1-6 victory on the field of Everton after a true demonstration of Arsenal.  Last season against Everton we drew 1-1 and it was a rather terrible match with Robin Van Persie giving us, in overtime, a rather undeserved point. A gain from last year of 2 points and a much better performance.

The next game was at home against Portsmouth. This year a very  deserved 4-1 victory. Last year we won at home with 1-0 after Gallas headed in, few minutes before the end of the game, a free kick. As many points as last year but a better performance on the field.

The next match was away to Old Trafford. We lost 2-1 and even  United fans after the game admitted that this result had more to do with luck than with their good play. Last season we played a 0-0 draw against United who just needed a draw for the title.  We lose one point in comparison with last year but the performance on the field was better than last season.

Followed the international injury week we had to go at Manchester City. A 4-2 defeat was our part. With a ref who had seen what Adebayor did to Van Persie, the course of the game would perhaps have been different. We had enough chances and a draw would have given a better view of the performance which  was much better than last season when we were pretty miserable on the day.  So no points, just as last season.

The next game was against Wigan and was won 4-0. Last year again a narrow 1-0 victory. So as many points, and again a better performance.

The game last weekend brought a trip away to Fulham. Last season this was one of our darkest days of the season when we lost 1-0 after a rather weak performance of Arsenal. This weekend was the result reversed and we won with 0-1.

Both the Fulham and Wigan performance were better than last year.  We could have scored more goals against Fulham but as usual Match Of The Day  refused to show our chances towards the end of the game.  But and we took three more points compared to last season.

Last season we had a total of 8 points after these games out of a possible 18 points and this season we have achieved 12 points in these games.  Obviously a gain of 4 points over the same matches last year.

But look at the goal scoring:  we have scored 18 goals this year instead of just 3 goals last year.

Last year, we had only 5 goals against, compared to 8 goals this year so this is slightly less good.

Regarding the performance on the field, which of course is subjective, they are usually much better than last season – so I think there is some cause for optimism so far.

Walter Broeckx

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