{"id":8525,"date":"2023-10-14T09:07:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T08:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8525"},"modified":"2023-10-20T19:10:13","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T18:10:13","slug":"so-far-so-pretty-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8525","title":{"rendered":"So Far … So Pretty Good!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As the celebrations continued after the win against Manchester City, it seemed reasonable to take stock, for the first time this season of how the 2023\/24 season had started. In this second Interlull, I will look at three things. How Arsenal have started the season, how have other teams fared so far and finally, what big issues have emerged as the season has got under way? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, and very importantly, how are we doing? After the excitement but ultimate disappointment of last season, how have we begun our attempt to go one place better than we did last term? Well, if you look at things statistically it looks pretty similar. Last season we were the early pacesetters but lost one of our first big tests to Manchester United. We dropped three points in our first eight games. This season we have dropped four and we are second by the narrowest of margins but are unbeaten in the league and the  team ahead of us are top on goals scored by dint of having scored two more. Unfortunately that team is Tottenham, also unbeaten but benefitting enormously from having played five of the bottom six teams including all three promoted clubs. More of them later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big difference from last season is that we are back in the Champions League. A sublime performance in our first game against PSV (a team unbeaten in 27 consecutive games in the Eredivisie) was followed by our only defeat of the season to date at Lens. We also eased through a tricky looking Carabao Cup tie away to Brentford with a shadow side. So the season has begun pretty well, although qualification from our CL group is by no means a gimme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unpacking that start one could look at the situation from two perspectives. We have yet to produce much of the high octane football that characterised our play last season in the League. Three home games have been won, against Forest, Manchester United and last week\u2019s potentially vital win against Citeh. We\u2019ve frustratingly dropped points at home to Fulham and Tottenham, both 2-2 draws and both games we really should have won. We\u2019ve conceded six goals in five home games. In the three away league games we\u2019ve yet to concede despite playing at Palace with ten men for almost half the game! Overwhelmingly superior to Everton, we triumphed only 1-0 but put Bournemouth to the sword by winning 4-0. This would suggest that we perhaps adopt a different approach home and away with a less expansive way of playing on our travels. But it would be a massive curmudgeon who would criticise an unbeaten start domestically and a one point lead over Manchester City who won their first six games. A couple of weeks ago Twitter was full of people saying the title race was already over. Our big fear pre-season was that a slow start might see us fail to regain the momentum we generated last season. Without recapturing that, we have accumulated points very efficiently and one senses there is so much more to come from this side. It still intrigues me that we have slipped into the role of the most highly rated challengers to Citeh when at this stage two seasons ago a large portion of our fan base were screaming for Arteta\u2019s dismissal after a disastrous start! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any start to a new season is  fascinating  because of the impact of new signings and new playing styles. The Arsenal\u2019s transfer activity was very decisive in terms of acquiring key new personnel. Havertz was acquired from Chelsea, Jurrien Timber from Ajax and to most people\u2019s surprise David Raya was recruited, initially on loan as a rival to one of the big successes of the new era, Aaron Ramsdale. By far the most important signing and an Arsenal record in terms of the transfer fee was the addition of Declan Rice. Looking at their impact so far (and these are very much my opinions), Rice has been a stunning signing, every bit as good as we dared to hope. Timber also looked likely to be a massive success only to be injured after one half of his first game. He is likely to be out for most of the season. Havertz has been underwhelming, both in terms of his effect on our goalscoring abilitiy and his performance during games. However it is still early days and he still has time to prove himself. The biggest surprise has been the replacement of the unfortunate Ramsdale who finds himself ousted from the side by Raya after doing very little wrong and much right over the past two seasons. This move more than any other underlines just how focused Arteta is on achieving incremental gains to the quality of his squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fans at our first few games were excited and alarmed in equal measure by a defensive set-up that saw no Gabriel, Partey at right back and a bewildering array of positional switches. Zinchenko\u2019s addition has led to even more  tactical complexities and my sense is that Arsenal players must retire to their beds after training reeling from the unusual ideas that Arteta is drumming into them to create the dynamism and creativity that he seeks. You have to be a very intelligent player to survive at the modern Arsenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We waved permanent goodbyes to fine servants like Xhaka, Holding and  Turner and bade  temporary (for now) farewells to Tierney, Tavares and Lokonga. All three of the loanees have immediately suffered significant injuries. Folarin Balogun departed to Monaco without being able to strut his stuff in the Premier League. Auston Trusty likewise moved on to Sheffield United after being voted player of the season at Birmingham. One wonders about the reason for his signing given that we made very little profit and he seemed the sort of talented player who could strengthen the squad. Yet caveats aside about the profitability of our transfer dealings, no one can deny the cold-eyed logic and intent behind Arteta\u2019s team-building. Arsenal are being led by a generational coach, fully supported by owners who clearly believe in him and who have put together a cohesive and talented management team. These are good times and they should  become even better provided we can avoid injury setbacks especially to key players like Saka, Rice and particularly Saliba whose injury against Sporting Lisbon arguably derailed our season last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year Saliba and Gabriel have reforged an increasingly durable partnership, Rice and \u00d8degaard are leaders of character and immense ability, Saka, without looking at his best probably because he is kicked from pillar to post with little protection, has been enormously influential. He is a bona fide world star. Martinelli\u2019s absence has highlighted just how important he is to the side. A personal hope is that we can reintegrate Smith Rowe into the team as he brings so much dynamism and drive to our play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of improvements which might be made. One cannot escape the concern that we lack the prolific goal scorer that all top teams seem to have. The balance in midfield does not yet feel right although the alliance between Partey and Rice in the last twenty minutes against Citeh, augmented by Jorginho\u2019s performance beforehand does suggest we may have solutions there. Certainly, we have to hope that we will see greater contributions from Havertz, although it is not clear in which position or role he can add most to the team. Perhaps the biggest conundrum is the goalkeeping situation. Whatever he may claim publicly, Arteta has chosen Raya as his number one, ostensibly because of his superior distribution. The jury might be out on whether that is a correct decision but our manager generally makes the right moves and he will get the opportunity to explore the success of his beliefs in action. Ramsdale\u2019s future may well lie away from the club. That would sadden me but the lad has a career to forge and is not a number two keeper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Particularly cheering is the fact that the support at the Grove remains hugely committed and enthusiastic. That is a vital aspect of any potential success that we hope to achieve. The toxicity of the latter Wenger years and end-stage Emery is gone and it is obvious that a re-energised support believe in the process and the direction of travel. So, who represent the greatest threat to us achieving our targets for this season?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best of the rest <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our noisy neighbours started the season by losing Harry Kane (to a much bigger club) but have shown, under their new manager (whom I will refer to as Ange) that all is not lost. Optimism at the Toilet Bowl should be tempered by the fact that, as previously mentioned, they have managed to play all the newly promoted sides so far plus two of the three sides immediately above them. One of them, Sheffield United, who shipped eight at home to Newcastle was only overcome with two goals deep into injury time. The less said about the victory over Liverpool the better. Let us just say it was a refereeing and VAR disaster. We were profligate in our game with them but in Van de Ven and Maddison they have made good signings and Ange is making a good fist of things so far. Reality will bite as it always does for them with harder fixtures. Liverpool look a formidable outfit without producing the convincing football of recent seasons and will be in the mix but Manchester United and Chelsea have started the season shockingly to our collective sadness and distress, although there are slight indications that Pochettino is starting to make progress despite the chaos around him. The other serious contender appears to be Newcastle who continue to develop under Eddie Howe and have begun well in Europe. Brighton continue their remarkable progress leavened with the occasional poor result and Wet Spam have shown there is life after Declan Rice with some intelligent signings. However, for Arsenal the real challenge lies in overcoming the behemoth that is Manchester City. We look much closer to them judging by the two games we have played against them so far, winning on  penalties in the Community Shield and then triumphing last weekend. They remain the benchmark but will be taking our challenge increasingly seriously. However, the loss of Gundogan and Mahrez particularly, appears to have affected them and the temporary absence of Rodri was keenly felt, whilst KDB\u2019s return will undoubtedly add to the mix and not every centre back will deal with Haaland as brilliantly as Saliba did. If we finish above them, we will be champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three promoted sides have really struggled, including Kompany\u2019s Burnley, perhaps surprisingly. Gary O\u2019Neill has looked a much better manager than his successor at Bournemouth, Iraiola, in piloting Wolves to some good results and the GHF Predictathon has reflected the uncertainty of early season results with some of the established members of this bar struggling, temporarily of course, in the relegation zone . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old cliche that there are no easy games has been slightly refuted by the performance of the newly promoted clubs but generally it remains  a very tough league in which to thrive. Credit to Arteta for getting us to the right end and avoiding the sort of pressure descending on Erik Ten Hag. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big talking points <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, the season has been dominated by rows over VAR and the competence or should that be incompetence of referees? We suffered a ridiculous sending off at Palace when Tomayisu was effectively yellow  carded for Havertz delaying a throw-in and then yellow carded again for the most innocuous of challenges. Compare that with the Kovacic challenges that Michael Oliver deemed not worthy of a red card or two yellows and the inconsistency is stunning . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The low point was the aforementioned Tottnumb \/ Liverpool match where the quality of refereeing made a mockery of the result. It is, in my opinion, better for Liverpool to drop points rather than the Spuds but it illustrated what a farce and a lottery the combination of bad refereeing and VAR mishandling has made of what is ostensibly a professional game. Our colleague, Pangloss, made a very reasonable case for scrapping VAR totally a few weeks ago and there was considerable Holic support for a form  of automated offside system similar to the one used in Europe. If a system can pin the point of pass and the position of the attacker (and the offside rule is revised so that we don\u2019t get the ridiculous distortion that caused Martinelli\u2019s goal to be disallowed at Everton) we might be able to utilise technology for offside and goal line decisions and then let the corps of Premier League referees do their worst with other decisions. If the PGMOL could  be transformed into a quasi competent and professional organisation (as if?) without its strong bias towards recruitment from the North West we might have a hope of avoiding refereeing debacles, especially if we can introduce some of the best international referees to join forces with our \u2018elite\u2019 group of referees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My other wish is that we get to a situation where the Arsenal get access to TV rights for all their games so that when a game is not being shown live, loyal fans who can\u2019t travel or get access to tickets can see it live in the UK. The embargo on 3pm televising of matches should be lifted. It would prevent the search for streams, many of them illegal, and bring in an extra revenue stream for the clubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as international football goes the current England team is the most exciting for years and Scotland have also done wonderful things in their qualifying group for the European championships although the recent international between the countries illustrated the gap between them. England have a group of genuinely world-class players, among them – Walker, Maguire (only joking!), Rice, Bellingham, Saka, Foden and Kane who might be able to secure silverware over the next few years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also hope the Arsenal ladies, in whom there has been heavy and ambitious investment, can steady the ship and make another title challenge after their early exit from the Champions League. Jonas Eidevall has signed a new three year contract so KSE clearly have faith in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we move into winter, we will see the squad stretched by the combination of Premier League and European football. Let us hope we avoid serious injuries, referees give our players more protection than they have so far and we can slip into the sort of rhythm that we generated this time last year. It\u2019s an exciting prospect but football seasons last a very long time and the intensity of competition increases each year. Let us hope that we are the best prepared club for a very long haul this season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the celebrations continued after the win against Manchester City, it seemed reasonable to take stock, for the first time this season of how the 2023\/24 season had started. In this second Interlull, I will look at three things. How Arsenal have started the season, how have other teams fared so far and finally, what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8525"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8525"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8529,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8525\/revisions\/8529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}