What will happen in Arsenal’s remaining games this season « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
By Tony Attwood
If you have a good memory, or study your Arsenal history, you will know that Arsenal hold the record for the most consecutive wins in the Premier League: 14 wins between 10 February and 24 August 2002. You will of course also know that we have just won our last 7 games in the Premier League, scoring 22 en route.
And you will know that if we carry on doing better than Tottenham, Chelsea and Newcastle we will easily slip into third place and be secure for next season, no matter what Chelsea do in the champs league.
So, it is one of those things where we could do brilliantly and secure the spot all by ourselves, or moderately, but still get there because the others don’t do so well. Goal difference won’t help us much, for although our goal difference is better than Tottenham’s, if they win some and we lose some, the goal difference between the clubs will of course change in their favour.
So, here we are as of today, as revealed on the official Barclays web site of such things.
| POS | LP | CLUB | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
(2) | Manchester United | 30 | 23 | 4 | 3 | 74 | 27 | 47 | 73 |
| 2 | |
(1) | Manchester City | 30 | 22 | 4 | 4 | 72 | 22 | 50 | 70 |
| 3 | |
(3) | Arsenal | 30 | 18 | 4 | 8 | 61 | 39 | 22 | 58 |
| 4 | |
(4) | Tottenham Hotspur | 30 | 16 | 7 | 7 | 53 | 35 | 18 | 55 |
| 5 | |
(5) | Chelsea | 30 | 14 | 8 | 8 | 49 | 34 | 15 | 50 |
| 6 | |
(6) | Newcastle United | 30 | 14 | 8 | 8 | 44 | 42 | 2 | 50 |
And just before I go onto the details of our games, one interesting thought is that if both Man C and Arsenal do the same thing this weekend (both win, both draw or both lose) but then Arsenal beat Man C in the next match, we will be just 9 points behind them – and we all know that leads of that sort or nature are nothing these days. Should we win this weekend and they lose then the gap would be six. A lot, but not impossible.
Second place this year? Well, unlikely I know, but hell, the sun is shining in the village of Great Oakley where I live, so why not dream a little.
But back to the facts…
I start with the whole issue of sequences and runs because a run of wins comes to an end sometime – and when it does it can often end in disaster – a load of wins followed by some awful results as the players try too hard, lose their natural game, and stop believing that they will win no matter what.
So in predicting the results for the remainder of the season, do we factor that in? If so, do we say…
| QPR | A | W |
| Man City | H | L |
| Wolves | A | D |
| Wigan | H | D |
| Chelsea | H | L |
| Stoke | A | W |
| Norwich | H | W |
| West Brom | A | W |
| Points | 12 |
That does not look like getting us to third. But supposing we keep going and having won the last seven win the next seven – then that could even give us a shout of second!
| QPR | A | W |
| Man City | H | W |
| Wolves | A | W |
| Wigan | H | W |
| Chelsea | H | W |
| Stoke | A | W |
| Norwich | H | W |
| West Brom | A | L |
| Points | 21 |
So my point is that when trying to do predictions like this there is more to it than saying, “We’ll beat Wolverhampton easy” – what one has to do is look at the run of results and the psychology of the players.
During the Unbeaten Season there was a feeling that it would never end – we would just keep going. Defeats in the cups were irrelevant because no one would beat us in the league (until the terrible final game against Leicester when we were 0-1 down at half time – but then came back to win it 2-1 and we were invincible once again).
Trying to keep all this in mind, here’s another scenario
| QPR | A | W |
| Man City | H | W |
| Wolves | A | W |
| Wigan | H | W |
| Chelsea | H | W |
| Stoke | A | L |
| Norwich | H | L |
| West Brom | A | D |
| Points | 16 |
Stoke away is tough not because they can play football, but because no one will fancy having their leg ripped away from their body and their football career at the highest level ended. From such events it is hard to recover.
On paper five games should be straight forward
| QPR | A | W |
| Man City | H | |
| Wolves | A | W |
| Wigan | H | W |
| Chelsea | H | |
| Stoke | A | |
| Norwich | H | W |
| West Brom | A | W |
| Points | 15 |
everything comes down to those remaining games – after all if we can’t win those five we are not on our great run any more, and it will be a case of who drops points where and when. A draw we could get over, but a defeat in any of those five games will lead to a lot of comments about “flattering to deceive” and that Arsenal were not really as good as they pretended, and there being a need for a total clearout.
I certainly think we have nothing to fear against Chelsea so I’ll go for a win there too. At Stoke everything depends on whether the ref is willing to stop wholesale violence or not, and what happens there will affect the next two games.
Which leaves Man City. A draw will be psychologically very respectable. A win will make us feel like champions and see us through to the end of the season.
In terms of the chasing pack, all of them have had their problems and the two main teams behind us have their minds on cups not the league. Chelsea are primarily interested in the Champions League and know they might not qualify in fourth, so they will do everything under the sun to get that cup, including resting players with minor injuries who in other circumstances would play.
Tottenham will… well, you know. As I said a couple of months back, they are due a bad run, because they are not a team in the same league as we were in our double and unbeaten seasons, and now they are in such a depression. All teams get it – the issue is always, how long does it last. My guess is that as they come out of it, it will still be a case of the occasional win and occasional draw and occasional defeat, with the FA Cup being their big thing.
So quite probably 15 points would see us to third. But just imagine an unbeaten run to the end of the season and as a result beating the all time premier league record for consecutive wins, currently held by, oh, yes, I remember, Arsenal.
Second is not first, but in the era of match fixing it is not bad.