Arsenal vs The Celebration Police

We're two-thirds of the way through the league season so now is a good time to look at how the fight for the title is shaping up. Arsenal sit third, one point behind Manchester City and five behind Liverpool, who have played a game more. Most pundits think it will be a straight fight between the teams currently in first and second place, with Arsenal failing to keep pace and City favourites because they have won the last three titles (and five of the last six, Liverpool winning the other). In other words, the assumption is that history will repeat itself: the early promise of Arsenal's challenge fading, City putting together a winning run over a dozen games and Liverpool making one of their periodic dashes for the finishing line. People rarely go broke betting that tomorrow's weather will be the same as today's, but there are reasons to believe that a new script might emerge. After all, it has to happen at some point. A feature of modern football is that as teams have become more drilled on the pitch, and as players have become more diligent and unassuming off it, managers have increasingly taken on the burden of providing personality and colour in the game, so that is as good a place to start the analysis as any.

Both City and Liverpool have managers either leaving or likely to leave in the not-too-distant future. Jurgen Klopp has already announced that he will be taking a sabbatical at the end of the season and while there is nothing official, or even rumoured, I think most people expect Pep Guardiola to fancy a change now that City have won the Champions League. His increasingly spiky dealings with the press suggest a man eager to burn his boats, and it's hard to believe he sees turning Jack Grealish into a world-class player as a suitably engrossing project any more. The counterintuitive integration of players like Haaland and Doku into the City squad looks like a master craftsman tinkering with his mechanism out of idle curiosity. He has always cut a dissatisfied demeanour on the touchline, but it's noticeable how much more morose he looks these days. Just as Klopp's manic grin has come to seem like the mask of a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, so Guardiola's irritability suggests that he's near the end of his tether, or at least sufficiently bored to want to walk away.

In contrast, Mikel Arteta remains wound up to the point of mania, which means he's still on the upward curve of the managerial trajectory. It's nothing more that relative age, but it does suggest that the growth potential at the Emirates is greater than that at Anfield or the Etihad. This has been reinforced this season by the frequency with which other members of the coaching staff have been given prominence in the media, notably Nicolas Jover's contributions to set-plays and the rumours of suitors for Carlos Cuesta, and by the near-legendary status accorded the warm-weather training trip to Dubai. Even the goalkeeping coach, Inaki Cana Pavon, has been mentioned in dispatches in the context of the background to David Raya displacing Aaron Ramsdale. What this suggests is the emergence of a new narrative in English football, which is partly down to Arsenal's undoubted progress in recent seasons and partly the boredom of the media with the established narrative embodied by Guardiola and Klopp. Attempts to create a positive narrative out of Ange Postecoglou appear to have faltered, mate, while the negative narrative of Manchester United under Erik ten Hag also appears to be fading.

This has given rise to some odd behaviour in the media, most notably the arrival of the celebration police with their demands that Arteta and his coaches comport themselves with greater dignity, as if winning a game of football was akin to laying a wreath at the Cenotaph. Given that the same sources were always able to find fault with the touchline behaviour of Arsene Wenger, a man who was never less than dignified even when confronted by rank imbecility, these snipes are not worth responding to, but they are worth thinking about as evidence that certain pundits with North West affiliations are becoming uneasy. This doesn't mean that Arsenal are bound for glory, but it does suggest that the foundations are there for a sustained period of excellence that will unquestionably improve the chances of said glory. This is perhaps best understood if we look at the data. Over the first 12 games of the season, Arsenal garnered 27 points, scoring 26 and conceding 10. Over the next 13 games they took 28 points, scoring 32 and conceding 12. This looks like consistency, even if you'd ideally have liked 2 or 3 more points per third. The question is: can they maintain this pace and perhaps even improve on it?

Last season, the points haul per third was 31, 29 and 24: a fast start and then an accelerating decline at the business end. In Arteta's first two full seasons, Arsenal secured 13+21+27 and then 20+28+21. In other words, he has overseen periods of top-four performance (25+ points) but has been unable to sustain this over a season. 2022-23 saw title-challenging performance (28+) over two thirds, which was enough to achieve an 84-point second place finish. The hope is that this season will see a steadier return and thus a consistent table-topping points tally in the 85-90 range. 35 points from a possible 39 remaining is achievable, but 30 is more likely. However a final tally of 85 might be enough to win the title. It's worth noting that Man City had 55 points after 25 games last season and went on to take the crown with 89, but I suspect they'll drop a few more points along the way this season. Their games away to Liverpool and at home to Arsenal in March could well be decisive.

In terms of the squad and style of play, Arsenal look more balanced and varied. There have been hiccoughs and a periodic struggle with low-block defences (the defeat away to Porto this week being the latest), but there have also been examples of Arsenal confusing their opponents with their movement and the attention to detail on set-plays has been real and rewarding. As is usually the case at this stage of the season, Arsenal are going to need some luck on the injury front: specifically that they don't lose key players like Ødegaard, Saka and Rice. Given that they've lost Timber and Partey for almost all of the season, and Tomiyasu, Zinchenko and Jesus for part of it, you could say that they've already proved that the squad has greater resilience and depth. The question is whether they can now raise their game for the title run-in and take either or both of Liverpool and Man City to the wire. The one thing we can be certain of is that whoever manages to win the title this year will be fully justified in tearing off down the touchline to celebrate.