As is the way in the modern game, a defeat is followed by an overreaction on social media as the Arsenal incels creep out of their mum’s basements to spread their negativity.

In the last 24-hours, you would think Arsenal were in crisis. that the defeat to West Ham had left us 10th in the league, 17 points off top. But that is Chelsea.

So let’s start with a bit of perspective. We are 2nd in the league, 2 points off top. Yes, the West Ham defeat was frustrating, but what makes football great is that it often springs up odd results that go against the norm. Results are not as predictable as cricket, rugby or basketball.

And the West Ham result sits in the “how did that happen” category.

West Ham oddity

74% possession
30 shots
77 touches in the opposition box (the most on record for a team who failed to score)

95% of the time, a team that has the possession and dominance that we had wins the game. But this is the 5% of time that the result goes the other way.

Last season, Manchester City had 75 of the possession and 29 shots at home to Brentford. They lost. Liverpool had 74% of the possession against Luton Town. 24 shots at goal. They needed a 95th minute equaliser to snatch a point.

West ham had 3 shots on target – the two goals and the missed penalty.

It really was one of them crazy old games that makes football magic, as long as you are not the team on the end of the result. But despite all this, some have claimed the result shows Arteta has been sussed out and that “you can not win the league if you do not beat West Ham at home”.

Arteta been sussed out

Half way through this campaign, we are 2nd in the league, 2 points off top. Not bad position to be if your managers tactics have been “sussed out”.

We have lost 3 games in the league this season, each of which has seen us o nthe wrong end of a debatable refereeing decision:

Newcastle – Was the ball out? Was it a fould on Gabriel? Was Gordon offside?
Aston Villa – Was it handball for our disallowed equaliser?
West Ham – Was the ball out?

Something really needs to be done about the use of technology in incidents like this.

With the introduction of VAR, officials no longer make tight calls, prefering to leave it to the video assistant ref to confirm if it was or was not an infringment. But this failure to make a decision puts the onus on VAR to establish whether the refs call was incorrect, which is a much higher bar than establishing whether the call was correct.

The issue is the ref did not allow the goal to stand because he (or the linesman) thought the ball was in. They let it stand because VAR allows them to not make a decision. Without VAR, the flag goes up in both the West Ham and Newcastle games.

If you are going to rely on VAR to make the decisions, you need to ensure the technology is actually suitable – and it is clear in two of our defeats this season that when it comes to determining whether the ball is or is not out of play, the technology is not suitable.

Newcastle, Aston Villa and West Ham did not beat us because they had sussed out Arteta. They beat us because VAR made incorrect calls, backing up on-field refereeing cowardness.

Can’t win the league losing at home to West Ham

I find the view that you “can’t win the league losing at home to West Ham” a strange one. Most reading this blog would have watched football for enough seasons to know that one defeat at home against a lesser team rarely determines where the title ends up.

If you buy into this thinking, then you agree that you can not win the league title losing at home to Brentford – which is exactly what Manchester City did last season and they ended up winning the treble! And in each of their 4 most recent title winning seasons, they have lost at home to a lesser team:

2022/23 – Manchester City lose 2-1 at home to Brentford
2021/22 – Manchester City lose 2-0 at home to Crystal Palace
2020/21 – Manchester City lose 5-2 at home to Leicester City (they lost 4 home games this year and still won the league!)
2018/19 – Manchester City lose 3-2 at home to Crystal Palace

So that kind of blows the theory out of the water that you will not win the league if you lose at home to a lesser team. The key is how you respond and whether you can jump straight back on the horse and put a run together.

The West Ham defeat is a result that almost every Champions in the history of the English game have suffered.

Looking forward

Beat Fulham on Sunday and we go back top of the league, no matter what other results are. Not bad for a team in crisis and whose manager has been sussed out.

With Fulham (A) , Crystal Palace (H) and Nottingham Forest (A), these next 3 league games will determine if we remain in the title race.

Get 9 points from 9 and I would expect us to be top of the league (with needing to have played a game more). If we only get 1 win from 3, I will concede that we are probably not in the title race.

My last thought on this is would it really be a disaster if we finished 3rd this season, behind Manchester City and Liverpool? Liverpool and Manchester City are fantastic teams with brilliant managers who have been there and done it.

In the last half a decade, we have been financially hamstrung in comparison to Liverpool and Manchester City due to a lack of Champions League football. We are closing that gap on and off the field, and now need to stay top 4 for a few years, reap the financial rewards and continue to invest.

Yes, we might not win the league this year, but the fact we are back competing again is what we demanded during the 2010s. The only difference now is some fans have moved the goalposts from “I just want us to compete for the league” to “anything below 1st is failure.”

I will give the final thoughts of this blog to author Darren Berry:

You can lose a game of football without having to drop everyone for the next game, sell everyone, kill the manager, change the ticketing system, and set fire to the ground with everyone in it. It’s how football used to work. Grow up, get over it and move on to the next game.

— D (@HighburyAFC102) December 29, 2023

UTA!

Keenos