Arsenal v Leicester. Arsenal caught up again by “the other”

Arsenal are now the third top scorer, three behind Chelsa, and have the second best defense with five conceded (although tied with several other clubs). and the fourth best goal difference, three behind the leaders. And these things are worth noting since all summer long people have been demanding that Arsenal buy a striker. Our top scorer, so affectionately denounced upon his signing, is of course Havertz. leaving him behind Brentford’s Haaland, Palrmer Diaz and Mbeuno.

As for how this season compares to previous seasons…. this is pretty much in line with the last two years and well ahead of 2021. So everything seems pretty solid to me.

3	Arsenal2024	6	4	2	0	12	5	7	14
5	Arsenal2023	6	4	2	0	11	6	5	14
1	Arsenal2022	6	5	0	1	14	7	7	15
10	Arsenal2021	6	3	0	3	5	10	-5	9

So overall I would say things are progressing pretty well. But we must not forget the powerful Tottenham Hots who have a match in hand, which is being played today. If they win, they could move up to eighth place, which would almost certainly excite the media.

At the bottom, three of the five teams at the bottom of the table are teams who progressed from the Championship last year, which shows even at this early stage just a repeat of the three going up, then down. Which says a lot about the gap between the top league and the Championship.

And given Aston Villa are at Ipswich today, that could mean Arsenal could drop a place, as a Villa win would mean they move up to second in the league, level on points with Liverpool.

But there is another factor to keep in mind: injuries. The Premier League injury table today shows seven players missing: Odegaard, Zinchenko, Tomiyasu, Trossard, Merino, White and Tierney.

Tottenham, it may be noted, have no excuse for failure on their part as they only have three players out, while Manchester City have four. But the worrying factor remains the cards, one of the weapons that referees can use against Arsenal during the match and journalists in their comments.

Arsenal have now received 17 yellow cards and two red cards. (Not the highest, of course it’s Chelsea with 21 yellows but no red. Manchester City have 15 yellows, but Liverpool and Villa only have 12 each. If things continue like this, Arsenal will end up with 108 cards over the course of the season, which inevitably means a whole host of suspensions True Chelsea will end up with 133, but the number of suspensions will be huge and if these suspensions come at the same time as injuries we could field many more youngsters than that. foreseen.

But more worrying is the fact that Arsenal have already received eight yellow cards for the ill-defined classification of ‘other’ cards – meaning something other than a foul, unprofessional conduct or diving. No other club comes close – and of course, with this category being so poorly defined, it gives referees a huge opportunity to do whatever they want.

At the very least, PGMO should be honest and tell us what “other” means in yellow card classification.