Now Arsenal’s luck with injuries has seemingly run out, we will find out just how good the Gunners are.
While a lack of discipline in collecting red cards won’t help their cause. However, for the first time in the last three seasons, Mikel Arteta has to deal with an injury crisis of sorts.
Good teams drop points when they lose key players. Great teams find a way to win. Like Manchester City are doing without Rodri and Kevin de Bruyne. They’ve lost the latter player for big chunks of seasons and still won the big honours.
Can Arsenal cope? They’re facing a mighty test tomorrow when Liverpool visit the Emirates and there’s doubts over the fitness of their best players. Bukayo Saka is in a race against time to be ready while Martin Odegaard has been missing for weeks with summer signing Mikel Merino just after returning from an early-season injury.
Jurrien Timber and Ricardo Calafiori could join them in the treatment room while William Saliba is suspended for his red card in last week’s defeat by Bournemouth. Now after already dropping points this term, defeat would see the Gunners fall seven points off top spot after just nine games.
They’ve managed to be the only team to contend with City in the last two seasons. Liverpool toppled Pep Guardiola’s men in the 2019-20 campaign to win their first title for 30 years.
But these chases with City always seemed to come at a cost the following campaign when injuries stacked up. Arteta and his medical staff managed to keep their players fit to push City in the last two years.
When they finished five points behind them in the 2022-23 season, Saka, Ben White, Gabriel Magalhaes and Granit Xhaka all made 38 appearances with Odegaard missing just one league game. Last season, Saliba and Declan Rice both played every game in the league while White and Kai Havertz missed just one.
Odegaard and Saka were available for all but three games as they finished on 89 points. Whether that was luck or good squad management, it looks like Arsenal will now have to show their squad strength.
Arteta can’t complain about lack of numbers given the club have spent £700m on players during his reign. While his players are not helping themselves with silly red cards – notably Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard for getting second yellows for kicking a ball away.
But if Arteta and Arsenal are here to stay as title contenders then they have to show they can dig in without their key men. Starting tomorrow against Liverpool.
Manchester City are claiming they’ve beaten the record for the longest unbeaten run in the Champions League. The club say they’ve not lost in 26 games in Europe’s premier competition to overtake a record previously set by rivals United.
Well, my mind must be playing tricks on me because I’m sure I watched Real Madrid beat Borussia Dortmund in last season’s final at Wembley. No, that’s right. Real knocked City out of the competition in the quarter-finals.
It was on penalties but it is still a defeat. This isn’t a bet with a bookmaker over 90 minutes. So come off it with the unbeaten run claim. If they were unbeaten for that many games then they’d have won back-to-back European Cups. City are a great side. They’ve broken enough records. They don’t need false ones.
ONSIDE: Jose Mourinho. Out in Turkey but still delivering back page lines for the UK media this week.
OFFSIDE: Russell Martin. Southampton sticking to a style of football instead of getting results. Relegation looms.