Happy New Year!

It shows how high Mikel Arteta has pushed the bar of expectation that we are looking at the 2023 calendar year as a poor 12 months for The Arsenal.

We finished the year with a whimper. A defeat to Fulham which denied us being top of the table on New Year’s Day. That followed a defeat at home to West Ham United.

Back to back defeats lead to the usual over the top reaction. Fans saying that they “will not be spending more on this rubbish in 2024” and booing the team at the final whistle. And this is my issue with many of our moaning fans.

When we are playing brilliant, top of the league, they take to social media and complain that they can not get tickets. We then have a slight downturn, more tickets become available, and they stand their saying things such as they will not be going anymore.

I have long maintained that the biggest ticket problem at The Arsenal was that we were playing good. And those fans that abandoned us in our truly tough years wanted to start going again. The recent defeats have proved me right, and hopefully when those demanding Arteta Out do not come back. Leave the tickets to the fans that will go through thick and thin. That love Arsenal whether we are top of the table or 13th. Only want to go when we are top? Do not bother turning up at all.

The reality is, we are a 72-75 point team right now. That is a solid top 4 team (average across Premier League seasons is 71.5), and is that not what we all demanded 18 months ago? A return to us being regulars in the top 4 again and then mounting a title challenge?

The first half of last season we were unbelievable good. This lead to some fans expectation level going through the roof. Many football fans are naturally bi-polar – everything is either absolutely fantastic or it is the worst they have ever seen. That first 19 games saw some of our fans hit the highs.

We then dropped off in the 2nd half of the season, and have rebuilt in the first 19 games of this season:

First 19 games of 2022/23: 50 points
Last 19 games of 2022/23: 34 points
First 19 games of 2023/24: 40 points

For me, what this breakdown does is highlight that the team was playing ahead of where it should have been in the first half of the season. We then dropped off a bit and finished 2nd. You take the last 19 of last season and the first 19 of thise (takes you up to the Fulham game), we gained 74 points.

I am not going to throw my toys out of the pram because we are only a 72-75 points team right now. And that form can not be when we begin considering sacking a manager – do we really want to turn into Manchester United? Going through managers every 18 months and each new one coming in taking us backwards.

Some will say “but we spenmt so much in the summer. We should have moved forward”. And we have moved forward from the last 19 games of last season.

The commenting about how much we spent also does not take into account how much others have spent – mainly Liverpool and Manchester City. And not just how much they have spent in the summer of 2023, but over the last 5 or 6 years when they have had Champions League football, and we have been in the Europa League.

That drop is worth around £70-80m in revenue a season. That is £70-80m more they have been able to spend on wages and transfer fees over the last half a decade. It should not be surprise that we are still behind on the pitch considering that investment.

We are catching up, and last summer we spent big. But so did Liverpool.

All the noise is “Arsenal spent £105m on a midfielder”, but Liverpool spent £145.4m on 4 midfielders! And you only have to look at their attack options against Newcastle to see the gulf in investment in the clubs.

Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard and Reiss Nelson cost us a combined £72million.

Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo and Diego Jota cost over £225m. Should it be any surprise that Liverpool have more attacking options when they have spent over 3 times as much on forwards as us?

This highlights just how much we are still in the building stage. Our next step is to get players at the level of Gakpo and Jota to back up Jesus, Saka and Martinelli.

Last summer was not a summer where we spent big to take us champions. It was a summer where we spent to solidify our position in the top 4. And that is something we are looking like doing.

What we now need is another 2 or 3 summers like last summer. Multiple years in a row of Champions League football, and investing the additional revenue into the club – buying better players than what we have now, continually improving the squad.

And we will have ups and downs, some transfers we will get rightm others we will get wrong. But proper fans stick by the team. They do not bail at the first sign of trouble.

If you spent New Year’s Eve demanding Arteta out, throwing your toys out the pram and saying you no longer have an interest in going to a game again, then please never comment about ticketting issues again.

The majority reading this are like me. You stick with the club through thick and thin. It is the minoirty making a lot of (loud) negative noises. They will say they are just holding the club to a high standard, that they will not accept things not being good enough. In their minds, it is champions or failure. There is no middle ground.

And they do not seem to understand that football is not just about your team being champions – the league would not maintain 92 teams if that was the case.

Love The Arsenal for The Arsenal, not because of the trophies. Go when times are good, go when times are bad. 

I bet in this second half of the season, we see succesful ballot applicants increase. Hopefully that means more fans that will go rain or shine getting tickets, and we lose those that only want to turn up on a sunny day.

My final thought is if back to Liverpool. They have only gained more than 75 points on 5 occassions in the last 14 years. If we finish on 75 this season, it will really not be a bad total. Just not good enough to win the league.

Enjoy your first day back at work!

Keenos

Our fantastic range of Arsenal fleece blankets!https://t.co/SFrGVBAZww pic.twitter.com/hvcgolB022

— Kick Off Merchants (@KOMerchants) November 30, 2023

Fulham (1) 2 Arsenal (1) 1

Premier League

Craven Cottage, Stevenage Road, London SW6 6HH

Sunday, 31st December 2023. Kick-off time: 2.00pm

(4-3-3) David Raya; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Jakob Kiwior; Martin Ødegaard (c), Declan Rice, Kai Havertz; Bukayo Saka, Eddie Nketiah, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel Jesus, Emile Smith-Rowe, Cédric Soares, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Leandro Trossard, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny.

Scorers: Bukayo Saka (5 mins)

Yellow Cards: William Saliba

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 61%

Referee: Josh Smith

Assistant Referees: Eddie Smart, Nick Greenhalgh

Fourth Official: Tim Robinson

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Paul Tierney; AVAR Scott Ledger

Attendance: c.25,000

After last week’s disaster against West Ham United, it is more than imperative then ever that we take all three points here at Craven Cottage this afternoon. We cannot afford to slip behind, as the Premiership race is always an extremely tight one (as we know). so we have to hope that our strikers are in scoring form today.

Within two minutes of the start, a superb shot from our captain flew just inches wide of the Fulham goal, which certainly showed our intent from the beginning. We had started the match in fine fettle, chasing every ball, closing down every Fulham attempt; in fact, after just five minutes, playing out from the back with David Raya distributing the ball to Gabriel Martinelli who took the ball up the field and after his shot was saved by Bernd Leno, our man Bukayo Saka was quick on the scene to tap the ball into the back of the net from just four yards out. A superb start. The home side were trying to look for spaces and gaps, and as such were attempting to attack us down the wings, but to no avail, thankfully. However, our flying winger Gabriel Martinelli continued to threaten the opposition by constantly challenging Fulham’s defenders down the left wing as we tried to extend our early lead. However, we were almost caught cold when Antonee Robinson ran down the left wing and crossed a deceptive low ball for Raúl Jiménez, whose right-footed shot from the centre of the penalty area was well saved by David Raya confidently. Although we were in the lead, Fulham were challenging our control with penetrating runs from their strikers, with a right-footed shot by Willian, who cut inside from the left wing, that went mighty close inches past David Raya’s left hand post. It was becoming apparent that ex-Gunners Alex Iwobi and Willian (along with Raúl Jiménez formerly of Wolverhampton Wanderers) and Antonee Robinson are indeed causing us issues when they run at our defenders, which is something that needs to be addressed quickly. David Raya appeared to have an issue with his eye, but after it was looked at by the medical team, he was fit enough to continue playing between the sticks. Sure enough, our fears were realised when Fulham caught us on the break, and after a quick low ball from the left wing exposed our defence, and all Raúl Jiménez had to do was merely tap the ball past a diving David Raya to score the equaliser. Arsenal appeared to wake up a bit after the goal as we started to be on the hunt for more goals, but again, we allowed the opposition to get back into the match, which is quite worrying, to say the least. After a superb shot by Gabriel Martinelli from outside the penalty area which flew over the bar, Bukayo Saka was shoved in the back by Raúl Jiménez which should, by rights have been a free-kick, but the referee ignored our appeals. Four minutes from the break, after some clever ball work from the right wing, a superb Gabriel Martinelli side-footed shot from the centre of the Fulham penalty area went inches wide. During the four minutes injury time, both Eddie Nketiah and Declan Rice came close to scoring with strong shots, but we went into half-time a goal apiece.

The home side started the second half, and with the only replacement being Takehiro Tomiyasu for Jakub Kiwior, we had the first chance to score within the first two minutes, when a Gabriel Martinelli shot went wide of former Gunner goalie Bernd Leno’s post. After a Fulham attempt on goal which was blocked, we counter attacked, but sadly, all of our work went nowhere, after Ben White moved forward down the right wing, but he chipped a cross way over the crossbar. The match appeared to go flat, and to be fair we looked like we were running out of ideas with a real inability to break the home side down effectively. It was not good to see Gabriel and Declan Rice having a disagreement after a Fulham attack which led to a corner for the home side. After yet another corner, Fulham grabbed a second goal on the hour when Bobby De Cordova-Reid scored from close range after sone messy defending on our part. Dear God, not again; a very poor, amateurish goal to concede, and at this level, it is just not acceptable, I’m afraid. We really need to wake up and start looking like Premiership contenders before it all starts to slip away (again). Anyway, we did attack the home side, and to be fair, Bukayo Saka was unlucky not to score when he volleyed a ball over the crossbar from close range. After Bukayo Saka was brought down just outside the penalty area, the resulting Martin Ødegaard free-kick simply flew wide and high over the crossbar. Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard replaced Ben White and Gabriel Martinelli after sixty-six minutes in order for us to get something out of this game, and we switched to three players at the back as Ben White has now been substituted. Declan Rice was now sitting in front of those said three defenders with Eddie Nketiah and Gabriel Jesus up front, whilst everyone else appears to have a free hand to move where they like on the pitch. A brave move by Mikel Arteta, and time will tell if this plan is successful or not. The rain is absolutely pouring down at Craven Cottage to add to our misery, and Reiss Nelson then replaced an ineffective Kai Havertz with about a quarter of an hour left of this match. Leandro Trossard put a tremendous curling ball in the penalty area from the left wing, but it was beyond Gabriel Jesus and a diving Gabriel to connect with it, sadly. After a couple of Fulham attempts which were kept out by David Raya, our centre-back William Saliba was booked for a foul outside the penalty area, and the subsequent Fulham free-kick bounced off the crossbar with David Raya beaten all the way. The home side truly have the upper hand, and we were doing all we could to try and stop them from scoring a third goal. In the five minutes injury time period, Bukayo Saka put a weak ball into the Fulham goal, in which Bernd Leno found it a simple task in merely falling onto the ball. We came forward, won two corners in succession that went absolutely nowhere, and after some more nondescript play, referee Josh Smith brought matters on this miserable New Year’s Eve to a close.

Of the three Premiership matches that we have played since 23rd December, we have attained just one point out of a possible nine, which is nowhere near acceptable for a team that has lofty ambitions to pick up their first Premiership title since 2004. What on earth has gone wrong? We lost the midfield battle early on, and the spark that we have seen in earlier matches this season was missing. The team look as if they have lost self-belief and confidence, and this is neither the time nor the place to do such a thing. Every team has a dip in a season, and perhaps this could be the wake-up call that we desperately need. The next Premiership match is against Crystal Palace on 20th January at the Emirates, so let’s hope that they can sort themselves out by then. Happy New Year everyone.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Liverpool at the Emirates on Sunday, 7th January at 4.30pm (FA Cup). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon

As we reach the end of another year, I would like to thank everyone who has read, shared and enjoyed my badly written Arsenal blogs this year. As always, I do not write for money. This is not my job and I have no interest in it ever becoming that. Blogging for me is an outlet, it is therapeutic.

It is the way I start my morning and stops me cracking straight on with the day job at 7am. It works my brain at weekends and gets those thoughts that stop you sleeping at of my head.

This year passed through 8 million blog views, with over 650,000 unique visitors! We have also seen our Facebook grow beyond 65,000 as we focused on quality content and tried to block out those extreme views. I would fully suggest joining if you want to have a grown up discussion – something youno longer get on Twitter.

So what were out top 10 blogs of the year? Well before we revaeal that, our most read page was our home page! That means people are visiting the blog because they are regular readers rather than needing to have a clickbait title to catch the eye on NewsNow or Twitter.

We would also like to thank all those who have contributed this year, especially Steve who writes his fantastic Match Report’s.

Our top 10 most read Arsenal stories of 2023 are…

William Saliba contract extension “bad news for Arsenal”

Arsenal set to welcome two new “signings”

£6million man “the best Arsenal signing in 20-years”

Arsenal set to sell an entire starting XI this summer – raising almost £150m

How long is Arsenal’s season ticket waiting list?

Tottenham go backwards under Australian Harry Redknapp

Declan Rice news embargo

Ignore the noise around Declan Rice

Balogun shows he “does not have the heart for a challenge”

The uncomfortable truth about Mykhailo Mudryk

Tomorrow we will have a short blog previewing the Fulham match. Enjoy your New Year’s Eve. Stay safe. And see you in 2024.

Keenos