The 4th season at the Emirates: preview + prediction
SO, 12 long weeks have passed and once again it is time for the season preview.
Time to deliver
And as you’ll have noticed it’s a new looking blog too. See yesterday’s post below for an explanation of what’s changing and before I forget a big than you to the very generous, publicity shy reader who has so generously given so much of his own time to make this site look a million times better than I ever could.
The season preview means the one time in the season when I get off the fence and actually make a prediction. Ask me to forecast the outcome of a particular match and I run a mile but when it comes to forecasting the next nine or so months, I’m always happy to chip in with a blunt view.
Two years ago I confounded the doom-mongers and got it just about spot on when I said that though I doubted we had enough to win the league, I expected us to keep our top four place and break the 80 point barrier. Which we did, finishing third on 83 points.
Last year I said, with two weeks of the transfer window remaining, that if defence and midfield were not shored up our place in the top four was insecure but that if they were we could challenge. They never were boosted and for a while that top four place was in serious jeopardy, until Aston Villa imploded.
So I’ll get to the point now: Right now, I’m not putting money on us winning the title. I also admit there is a small chance that the uber-pessimists who view the last four years as a story of continual decline will see their projections of Armageddon come to fruition as the team falls short again.
But the good news is that overall I am optimistic and certainly a lot more so than at this time last season.
The reasons are thus:
1) In goal we are no worse than a year ago.
2) Up front, though Adebayor will be missed, the presence of Arshavin trumps him. Throw in a fit Eduardo and possibly Wilshere too and even without a new signing, we look fairly well stocked.
3) Arshavin also brings quality and experience to the squad that it badly needed.
4) The situation in midfield still ain’t great and it’s got to the point where Arsene and I are going to have to agree to disagree, but the problems are less acute than a year ago. Song has improved massively, Denilson has much more Premiership experience and Ramsey is an important year older. Cesc was also knackered a year ago after the Euros and while he played some football for Spain this summer he enjoyed a three month break earlier this year and from what little I’ve seen of him seems fresh.
5) Adebayor has gone. The relationship between him and the fans was terrible last season.
6) A year ago, Arsene did nothing to improve the defence. This year he has at least done something by replacing Kolo with Vermailen. But potentially more important is his recent admission that if Senderos leaves, he will be looking to bring in another defender.
Think about that for a second: Senderos was not part of last season’s squad. This is not replacing like with like. It is adding. It means the less than reassuring Mikael Silvestre moving from fourth choice to fifth choice and that’s really important because statistically a fourth choice central defender can expect to play quite a few games, whereas a fifth choice should be called upon very sparingly.
If that extra signing happens (and it is hard to believe Senderos is still at the club for any other reason than we have not signed his ‘replacement’), Arsene would have taken proper action in the area where we are potentially most weak.
So those are my reasons for genuine optimism.
The next thing one needs to do is look at the points totals. It’s all very well saying Manchester City or Villa or Spurs will pip us to fourth or whatever but in reality you have to look at the points and exactly how such an event could occur.
We got 72 points last season, six less than the 97-98 title winners and in any season a fairly decent total for fourth place. We did enjoy a decent record against the top four and I think if we’re honest, we may lose some of the nine points we accrued in those six games.
Let’s be pessimistic and say we drop five of them. That takes us down to 67 points.
But this was exactly the case two years ago when the season previously we had got 10 points from the top four. We went on to drop points to them in 2007-08 but we ended up with 15 more points overall because we made huge gains against the rest of the division.
And the point is that once again we have far more points to gain from the rest of the division than we do to lose from the big four.
If, unlike last season, we could beat Fulham and Stoke away and Hull at home and Sunderland home and away we would hit 80 points and that is STILL allowing for getting just four points from 18 against United, Chelsea and Liverpool, losing at City, at home to Villa, drawing twice with Spurs at home by Fulham and West Ham and at Wolves etc etc.
You get my point, which if I’m honest, I’ve probably laboured a little.
But to conclude, we dropped loads of rubbish points last season that I genuinely believe this squad, if properly focused and committed can do far better than last season, improving on last season and being an outside bet for the title.
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