Arsenal 1st Team
Arsenal Football Club
Highbury House
75 Drayton Park
LONDON N5 1BU
Hi Guys,
I won’t be presumptuous. In the unlikely event any of you saw my open letter last week, either through the Arsenal media office or through your PR person, you may be aware that many of us Gooners have not given up on the season and are anxious to convey this to you. With 17 games to go, despite the usual nonsense from journos in mainstream media and the self-appointed experts in blogs and on twitter, an eight (8) point gap with Chelsea is not insurmountable.
I spent a lot of time in my last letter showing in the 1997/98 season, after New Year’s Day, Arsenal was dead and buried, in 5th place, 12 points behind Manchester United:
| Club | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| Man United | 20 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 47 | 13 | 34 | 46 |
| Blackburn Rovers | 21 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 38 | 21 | 17 | 41 |
| Chelsea | 21 | 12 | 3 | 6 | 46 | 21 | 25 | 39 |
| Liverpool | 20 | 11 | 4 | 5 | 36 | 19 | 17 | 37 |
| Leeds United | 21 | 10 | 5 | 6 | 30 | 23 | 7 | 35 |
| Arsenal | 20 | 9 | 7 | 4 | 35 | 23 | 12 | 34 |
By the end of the season Arsenal had made up the difference to beat United to the title by one solitary point:
| Club | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| Arsenal | 38 | 23 | 9 | 6 | 68 | 33 | 35 | 78 |
| Man United | 38 | 23 | 8 | 7 | 73 | 26 | 47 | 77 |
| Liverpool | 38 | 18 | 11 | 9 | 68 | 42 | 26 | 65 |
| Chelsea | 38 | 20 | 3 | 15 | 71 | 43 | 28 | 63 |
A win against Leicester in late December 1997 was to be the start of a remarkable 48 points from 18 league games. You should take hope that yesterday’s win against Swansea is the start of a similar run by the class of 2017.
I would suggest that you face an equal if not slightly less of a challenge than the class of 1998. As of the completion of round 20 on January 4, the table read as follows:
| Club | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| Chelsea | 20 | 16 | 1 | 3 | 42 | 15 | 27 | 49 |
| Liverpool | 20 | 13 | 5 | 2 | 48 | 23 | 25 | 44 |
| Tottenham | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 39 | 14 | 25 | 42 |
| Man City | 20 | 13 | 3 | 4 | 41 | 22 | 19 | 42 |
| Arsenal | 20 | 12 | 5 | 3 | 44 | 22 | 22 | 41 |
That is only eight (8) points, compared to 12. Some people will try to convince you that things have changed; this time it is different because Chelsea have spent so much money on quality players. Bollocks. Let’s rely on the words of the Boss, when he described the competitive environment of 1997-98:
“I soon realized when I came to Arsenal that teams raise their levels when they play against us. I would watch opponents on video tape and then see a completely different performance when we played them because Arsenal is such a big club and other sides badly want to beat us.”
This was the exact scenario in Saturday’s match vs Swansea. In the first half they came at you with guns blazing, similar to Bournemouth in the previous PL game. But you guys reacted beautifully. Soaked up the pressure, limited their chances, gradually took control of the game, hit them on the counter and score goals repeatedly. Four (4) goals on the road and a clean sheet to boot. As the Boss said you were “relentless” to the end.
As most of you guys know from experience, things can change very quickly in football. In one round of matches, after 21 games, Arsenal has moved from 4th to 5th, snapping at the heels of both Liverpool and Tottenham who at 45 are only one point ahead. Trust me, none of those two teams immediately above us have the depth in quality players as the Gunners and sooner or later the cream will rise to the top.
Despite the margin of that victory over Swansea, the usual infantile, barely literate gaggle of ex-pros who pose as unbiased pundits in mainstream media were doing their best to belittle your chances. Now most of them, you think, having played and suffered against the Arsenal, would be intimately knowledgeable of recent 20-year history under Arsene Wenger.
- Arsenal has finished an average of 3rd; no other club except Manchester United has a better average.
- No other team has a better absolute deviation from their average league position than Arsenal at 0.985, meaning that on the average the club’s position will deviate by less than 1. United is the next best at 1.28.
- All other big -6 team have in 20 years finished lower than Arsenal; City fell away to as low as 47th, way down into the 3rd
- Arsenal has never finished less than 4th.
- Arsenal has never finished below Tottenham
Yet last Saturday, after you guys hammered Swansea, Paul Scholes, Owen Hargreaves and Robbie Savage came up with the lame trope that the top-six is more competitive than ever and Arsenal will fall out of the top-four. From the mouth of Scholes on BT Sport:
“I’ll go for Tottenham and Arsenal, fifth and sixth,
“Because I think the other teams are better than them.
“Simple as that, yeah.”
Knowing as we do the unbiased data of the past 20-years, this is truly the opinion of a simpleton, yeah.
Savage is no better:
“I’m going to say Man City because Man City fans absolutely love me and I’m going to go with Scholesy, Arsenal.”
Equally a part of the blind, stupid herd was Hargreaves:
“Yeah I don’t think Arsenal are going to make it this year,”
Those of us on the western side of the pond are similarly afflicted by this mindless punditry by, of course, ex-pros from the English game. We had to put up with the two Robbies of NBC-Soccer (Robbie Earle and Robbie Mustoe) who discounted your demolition of Swansea and kept bigging up Spurs as title contenders. These are guys who played for clubs which in their day were regularly thrashed by Arsenal. Uhm. Do you see a pattern here?
(A friend of mine on twitter (The Big Apple@lagrossepomme) described this as “Pret-a-Porter” analysis, meaning ready to consume, standardized opinions-analyses that follow the same narrative.)
Like us fans, you guys must be wondering how silly these guys feel when, less than 24-hours later, their favorite team Manchester City is routed 4-nil by Everton, giving another shambolic display of defending. How bad was it? The Toffees had 4 shots on target; all of them scored. As for league position, the only team that moved up and into the top-four over the weekend was The Arsenal. Ouch!
There is still a long way to go in this season but there are hopeful signs. As someone noted on twitter:
” Xhaka/Ramsey pivot have played 312 minutes together we’ve scored 13 (one every 24 min.) 2 against.”
In my opinion, while this is a small sample size it is a good omen. I am sure you guys will build on that. With Santi looking set to once again go under the knife, Elneny at the AFCON until late January and Coquelin recovering from injury, Rambo and Xhaka will simply have to grow up in the heat of battle. You all know they can’t do it alone in central midfield. Teamwork is essential to overcome any weaknesses in our set-up. Fortunately you are a stronger group than last year. At the same time last January you had to depend on good old Flamini (god bless his pointy-shouty efforts) while Elneny was feeling his way into the league.
Have no fear, Chelsea is due their run of bad games. Every club has a dip in this Premier League marathon of a season. Based on the data, if the injury gods can rein peace on us, you the class of 2017 will make this a real title-race. I am convinced of this, especially because you are under the leadership of the greatest manager in the league, whose been there, done that.
Up The Arsenal!
Positively yours
@shotta_gooner, The Contrarian
Positively Arsenal 
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fcstuff @afcstuff Jan 18
More
Arsenal’s next 6 fixtures:
Burnley H
Southampton A (FAC)
Watford H
Chelsea A
Hull City H
Bayern Munich A (CL)
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little old Leicester City FC are now, according to Deloitte, after their league winning season 20th on the income list, up from 24th the year before
And LCFC are still fighting charges that the broke Financial Fair Play rules in their promotion season.
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the media is full of the view that Pep, the greatest coach of his time, just does not have the quality of player at man city, and needs to spend at least another £250M to build a squad
well in season 2009/10 this was the 18 players to start the most games for afc in the bpl, the starting team is the 11 players with most starts, and the 7 subs are the next most started players, bar mannone as he has less starts than campbell, he is the second most used keeper that season. Of those on the bench Eboue had the most starts with 17. Of our actual strikers, Van Persie started only 14 games + 2 as sub.
And this squad finished 3rd in the BPL(11pts off top) and reached the last 8 of the CL – one of our “failure” seasons, some would have us believe
Almunia
Sagna Gallas Vermaelen Clichy
Denilson Song
Diaby Cesc Nasri
Arshavin
subs Mannone, Eboue, Rosicy, Van Persie, Eduardo, Bendtner, Walcott
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former gooner Henri Lansbury is set to join Aston Villa
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‘MY LOVE FOR THIS CLUB IS AUTHENTIC’
Per Mertesacker has extended his contract with us – and our skipper has used his captain’s notes in the upcoming Burnley programme to outline how delighted he is to be staying at the club.
Read on to see what Per has had to say, and download the digital version of the programme for free right here:
Per Mertesacker:
I would like to say how very grateful I am to have extended my contract here. It makes me really proud and also a bit emotional. I’ve been out for six months now and to have such trust and belief from the manager makes me very humble and thankful.
Trust me, I’ll do everything possible on a daily basis to make myself better and everybody around me better. I’m working really hard to come back and show that I’m still capable on the pitch, because I want to help make this great club as successful as possible.
My love for this club is authentic. I care a lot about team-mates, about fans, and I want people to identify with us. It’s very important to me now and it always has been. I feel like there’s always been a link between myself and Arsenal.
I’ve told the story a few times about when I came to London as a young boy and came back with an Arsenal shirt. I’ve never thrown that shirt away, and in fact it’s framed and is on the wall of my office back in Germany. I’ll always keep it because it’s a reminder of the circle, of the journey I’ve been on with Arsenal, and of the people who have supported me and have helped me to reach my goals. Wearing an Arsenal shirt is genuinely something that is special to me and that shirt always reminds me of that.
So the way I feel about this club is genuine, it’s real and I’m very pleased with the manager’s decision to keep me. I’ll continue to give my absolute all to make this club go forward. We deserve to be successful, we have a good group and I’m convinced we’re on the right path now.
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170120/-my-love-for-this-club-is-authentic-#Ju1V6s0guv2Gr2UX.99
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Calum Chambers is 22 today, and he is just 2 games short of a career total of 100 first teams games.
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Callum Chambers and Rob Holding are fantastic investments in Arsenal’s future.
Hopefully Per will be a great mentor to both of them.
Add Bellerin, add Gibbs – maybe Otwell in the future – what a steal of a defence in terms of cost.
Wenger still has to balance the books more than any other rival manager – this is the only way our Club can even consider doing 200k a week deals for Alexis and Ozil.
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DC if you mean brandon ormonde-ottewill, he is long departed from Arsenal, we recently signed left back Cohen Bramall, and we have also Bola who plays left back
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a couple of years ago the soundbite from the malcontents was that we started the season with only 2 CB’s, now those same idiots are complaining that we have extended Per’s contract as we now have 8 senior CB’s – Mustafi, Koscielny, Gabriel, Mertesacker, Holding and Chambers.
we also have the normal nonsense from them regarding right back, last week after the swansea game many of them said Gabriel is our best Right Back and should replace Bellerin, but with the news that Jenkinson and Debuchy might be allowed leave this window, they are demanding we sign a new right back as we only have Bellerin.
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afcstuff @afcstuff 3h3 hours ago
Joey Barton on Arsenal interest in 2011: “A meeting with me was in the manager’s diary for the first Tuesday of the new season.”
Barton: “He [Wenger] had the perfect opportunity to monitor my form [when Arsenal visited Newcastle], a goalless draw at St. James’ Park.”
Barton: “I went down like a sack of spuds when Gervinho slapped me. His outrage, on being sent off, was worth my booking.”
Barton: “Pat Rice sent Pete [Barton’s mentor] a text soon after: ‘Arsene says Joey will never play for this club’.”
the funny thing is that its clear from Barton’s comments that he has no self awareness at all, and does not understand that his actions in the drawn game cost him his move to Arsenal, its so obvious that he can see nothing wrong in how he cheated, or why this should affect his move to the club he had cheated against. In many ways its sums up Barton as a person, his on and off field antics have been ignored, just cos he is fairly handy at football, he has been paid massively, and been pampered all his career, and this has distorted reality for him. It can be said Barton is just one of hundreds if not thousands of players who due to ability at the game and money earned, have never matured as people and live in a very protected bubble, where nothing is their fault, and they never have to deal with the consequences of their actions. they have never fully grew up.
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I would not want Barton at Arsenal. I would not want Barton on the sole of my shoe and, to be fair, I hardly know him.
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I am confused – why does Fonte, one of he best centre backs in the PL imo, want to join West Ham ? Why on earth have Citeh ( especially), or Liverpool, or Manyoo, or even his old Saints managers at Spurs and Everton not steamed into snap him up ?
Baffling
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Eds soes that all mean that Bellerin now counts as a first team squad player?
You can continue to look and hope but I wouldn’t expect any improvement from the unwell people who came down with a fever when “Venga was playin’ on da beach”, whilst signing Alexis Sanchez.
But you can laugh at them!
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anicol I assume the fact that Fonte is 33 years old is one of the main reasons why none of the big clubs are in for him.
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remember when Fonte’s younger brother Rui, was at Arsenal for 3 years, played for the youths and reserves, it was an odd deal, AFC had him for 3 years with the agreement that he would return to Sporting if we did not extend the deal,(and pay a bit extra). AFC did not take up the option and back he went but never played for them, he was loaned out to several clubs, left them for Benfica who also loaned him out to several clubs, and he is now with Braga.
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Fat sam says Jenkinson move to Crystal palace is still “on going”
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according to the FA List, Santi Cazorla signed a new deal with AFC on 20/12/16. They also say Laurent Koscielny signed a new deal one month before it was announced while Per Mertesacker’s deal was signed three weeks ago despite only being announced this week on Arsenal.com.
so that is five down – Kos, Per, Coquelin, Santi, Giroud – and five to go – Ozil, Alexis, Ox, Jack and Szczesny
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Klopp asked whether ending the offside rule would work: “I thought some teams we’ve played this season already haven’t had the offside rule”
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must be his age eddy – looking at his stats Fonte has hardly missed a game in the past four seasons
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Joey Barton is the only person I have heard talking up that proposed move
I said this before and I’ll say it again
‘Fake News!’
Sad!
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I don’t think it is fake news, its my understanding he was an option and that indeed his antics in the drawn game ended our interest.
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I just checked it’s fake news
Very sad!
Love!
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Is it something about playing for Newcastle – nzogbia used to go on and on about Wenger being keen to sign him, sissoko was the same almost begging to be saved from Tyneside – and even the fuckwit Barton comes out with this fantasy ?
Presumably their agents tell them “oooh yeah – I had Arsene on the phone last week etc very keen to sign you ……”
And the clowns believe it
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Leo Retweeted Lee Dixon
Good on Stevie G, he could have taken big money from Sky or China but he’s coaching kids instead. Shame more don’t do it…Leo added,
Lee Dixon @LeeDixon2
A club legend going back to his old club. Now there’s a good idea
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You never catch Arsenal doing anything like that, I just cant imagine the likes of Brady, Bouldy, Pat Rice, Pires, Freddie or indeed TH anywhere near. I also cant see the club allowing lesser known players like Kwame Ampudu or Greg Lincoln anywhere near the youth sides either.
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Racing Specialist @RaceSpecialist 22 Jan 2013
Brian Clough Quotes no.5 ‘Players lose you games not tactics. There’s so much crap talked about tactics by people who can’t win at dominoes
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Jon Toral is in the Rangers starting line up today, good luck to Hectors best mate.
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“…reunited with Mark Warburton, who had managed him at Brentford”
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Surprise, surprise. Liverpool making heavy work of the Swans bank of 4 in defence and a bank of 5 in front.
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maybe a good place for Chuba,Bielek,Willock and a few others to go, Mark seems to look after them well done well with Gideon last season.
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An outstanding story I stumbled across;
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Heh
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LoLerpool
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Graham Taylor was a gentleman.
Liverpool stumble against the Swans. Conceded three from stupid plays. Klopp: No Pashun.
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This is Loserpool playing only 1-game per week for the rest of the season. In my pre-season blog I predicted them for 4th based on the historical data. They may make a fool of me.
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Jeorge Bird @jeorgebird 4h4 hours ago
Giroud, Coquelin + Walcott in full training. Maitland-Niles + Macey trained with first-team.
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*coughs*
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Spuds getting their usual help
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Predictably so!
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a fine day for Arsenal,
Liverpool lost
spurs drew
man city drew
man utd drew
if Arsenal win tomorrow we go second
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If we can win tomorrow, good day all round, but boy, are the Spuds getting the decisions this season, reminds me of a team who did rather well last season.
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AJ @UFGoonerAJ 19m19 minutes ago
Gotta give Spurs credit for incredible squad depth. Dean relegated to the Championship but Marriner more than ready to step in.
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Chris @chrispople14 5h5 hours ago
Can you imagine if Wenger lost at home to bottom of the league? Klopp will get away with it cause he’s full of pashun and says “boom”
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Wow, I’ve been undercover for about a week and look at what has happened! Win tomorrow and we are second…..
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Josif on UA has just posted that The Spuds have gone 62 games without a red card …..on the field of play that is……haven’t checked if this is EPL games or all games.
that defies everything, they are a pretty dirty team…..and then you see what our players….like Xhaka get reds for.
Some strange things going on…..even if that result was ok for us
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spurs is this year Leicester… seems pretty decent and augment by getting away with murder as backs by favourable decisions all round
the pL has picked its romantic team to replace Leicester
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Spurs are a very strong team……
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Spurs get the rub of the green, GP.
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