Good morning to all.
There is a lot of talk, given that we are top of the table, about whether or not Arsenal are in contention for the title this season. That kind of talk is inevitable, especially when you’re above a team as good as Man City, even early in the campaign.
The world we live in drives that to a great extent. Everything is #content. Everything is mined until there is nothing left. You can’t just have a quiet day when not much is happening because the way the media sections work means there is no value in anything other than clicks and views. As far as they are concerned, it is better to say as much nonsense as possible than to do nothing. Rapacious publishers won’t allow it anyway.
But this is not just a conversation exclusive to click farms. It’s also happening on established channels. Game of the day. Monday night football. Arsenal have surprised people this season, and that also has an influence. We’re the unexpected trailblazers, and after almost a quarter of the season, I can understand why that’s being talked about.
One thing that stood out about the post-match interviews after the 3-2 win over Liverpool was the way the phrase ‘match by match’ appeared. I heard Gabriel Martinelli used it on Sky Sports; Ben White used it in one of his interviews (not in the hilarious Norwegian TV interview where he claims not to have noticed Liverpool playing with four attackers, which he expresses in a wonderfully deadpan style).
Mikel Arteta was asked about what this team can do this season and said:
For now, enjoy where we are and have even more determination to believe that we can play at that level, only when we go at that pace and play with the courage that we played in the second half and we go step by step.
Step by Step. Game by game. That’s going to be the mantra around training camp, I’m sure. I remember when we beat Leicester last season, which I think was the game where people started to think that something was really starting to develop with this Arsenal team.
Arteta later insisted: “We haven’t done anything. We won a couple of games. We are not yet where we want to be. There are many things to improve. Let’s stay humble, work hard and go game by game.”
This season will be no different. It means that no one gets carried away when we are winning and, more importantly, especially as Arsenal have had a tendency to lose games two on three under Arteta, the inevitable defeats do not derail the confidence and trust of the team. This season will be about how quickly we react when something goes wrong. The reaction to the defeat of Man Utd is really positive in that sense.
Objectively, you can’t look at this current Man City team and not make them clear favourites. We are above them now, but the season is long and they have a clear advantage in terms of depth and experience being at this end of the table from August to May. We’re in new territory here for this team anyway, and that’s going to be part of the challenge.
Still, what else can you do but give the best you can? When Edu did his media blitz over the summer, he referenced the gap between us and City and Liverpool, teams that have produced so much consistency in recent years. He said:
We have to be realistic, there is City, Liverpool, it’s fine, I accept it. But also, you can’t accept that. Here, when you join this club, when you see our size, we cannot accept it.
You can’t argue with that, although it’s still a tall order. I have a theory that part of Liverpool’s malaise this season is due to a kind of exhaustion from producing what they have done in recent seasons, but with only one title to show for it. Can you imagine achieving 97 points in a league campaign and not winning it? It’s crazy, and surely demoralizing.
But this is the reality of the Premier League now. Arsenal could achieve a club record points total, getting more than the Invincibles, but still not come out on top. That’s why I’m with the coach and the players on this case. I’m not thinking about the title. It’s just game by game, and trying to enjoy what this team offers, because it’s good and it’s fun. And being beaten for the Premier League title by Man City won’t change that.
It’s great to see us improve and progress. The football we play these days is much more in line with what I want to see from Arsenal. And I look at this team and I find that I like this group of players much more than any other in recent times. It’s enough? Obviously I would like us to win things, to maintain that trajectory and win the grands prix, but I am also realistic enough to know that we have a lot more to do to achieve that.
As a club we have to keep pushing forward, to close those gaps even more, and who knows what can happen. But there’s something to be said for doing things the ‘right’ way and allowing yourself to simply enjoy what you’re getting at the moment, even if it’s only good enough for second place.
Well, that’s all for this morning. We’ve got an episode of The 30 on Patreon, looking back at this week’s Premier League action. Mikel Arteta meets the press later before our match against Bodo/Glimt tomorrow, so we’ll have all the news from the press conference on Arseblog News.
Have a good.
