The Great Arsenal Myths - Part One
I mentioned in my first post about rubbish from the press, one of the things that keeps coming up and getting repeated almost everywhere when mention is made of Arsenal's next home game is how we are struggling in our new home. Sunday's result might have put pay to that (in some part) but it still seems odd people are still going on about it.
In the closed season any mention of a title challenge from Arsenal was questioned because we would be getting used to a new stadium, the old examples of Man City and Southampton were trotted with one important factor missing, that both Man City and Southampton hardly set the world alight at home before they moved.
I listen to the Guardian football podcast (and fantastic it is too) and almost as soon as they mentioned the Arsenal vs Liverpool game our iffy home form was mentioned. Yet before Sunday we found ourselves in a position of having played 9 games at the Emirates, not a single one of those resulting in a defeat. We have scored in all but one of those games (against CSKA Moscow whom we dominated like no other team I have ever seen without scoring). Despite the fact we have drawn 3 of those premiership games we have scored just 1 goal less than Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool (all on 13 goals at home, Arsenal on 12) and conceded just 3, the same as Chelsea and Liverpool and only 1 more than Man Utd on 2. As mentioned above we are unbeated, only 3 other teams can say that Liverpool, Chelsea and Villa.
The other thing we keep hearing is how great Liverpool's home record is and it's just their away form that's the problem, but who exactly have they played at home, Reading, West Ham, Newcastle, Spurs, Blackburn Rovers and Villa, all teams that anybody with half an eye on the league title should be knocking over without question. Now I know that we failed to beat Villa and Boro but the point isn't that Liverpool's home record is better than ours (it is) it's the fact people keep going on about how great Liverpool's home record is and how terribly bad ours is, how Arsenal are having problems adapting to their new home.
Let's hope we can go through the whole season having the problem of being undefeated at home.
In the closed season any mention of a title challenge from Arsenal was questioned because we would be getting used to a new stadium, the old examples of Man City and Southampton were trotted with one important factor missing, that both Man City and Southampton hardly set the world alight at home before they moved.
I listen to the Guardian football podcast (and fantastic it is too) and almost as soon as they mentioned the Arsenal vs Liverpool game our iffy home form was mentioned. Yet before Sunday we found ourselves in a position of having played 9 games at the Emirates, not a single one of those resulting in a defeat. We have scored in all but one of those games (against CSKA Moscow whom we dominated like no other team I have ever seen without scoring). Despite the fact we have drawn 3 of those premiership games we have scored just 1 goal less than Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool (all on 13 goals at home, Arsenal on 12) and conceded just 3, the same as Chelsea and Liverpool and only 1 more than Man Utd on 2. As mentioned above we are unbeated, only 3 other teams can say that Liverpool, Chelsea and Villa.
The other thing we keep hearing is how great Liverpool's home record is and it's just their away form that's the problem, but who exactly have they played at home, Reading, West Ham, Newcastle, Spurs, Blackburn Rovers and Villa, all teams that anybody with half an eye on the league title should be knocking over without question. Now I know that we failed to beat Villa and Boro but the point isn't that Liverpool's home record is better than ours (it is) it's the fact people keep going on about how great Liverpool's home record is and how terribly bad ours is, how Arsenal are having problems adapting to their new home.
Let's hope we can go through the whole season having the problem of being undefeated at home.
posted by Andrew Gilfrin at 5:01 PM
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