By Opta Analyst | Created at 2024-11-22 09:17:26 | Updated at 2024-11-22 15:30:32
6 hours ago
Arsenal were widely expected to push all the way for the Premier League title this season, but their indifferent form sees them nine points off leaders Liverpool after 11 games. Bigger deficits have been overcome in Premier League history, but is the gap too big for Mikel Arteta’s side to recover?
Title races can take many forms: the runaway champions; a two-horse race; a surprise package. But it isn’t always the winners who make the main headlines, sometimes it’s the team that blew their chance that lives in the memory.
Newcastle United’s infamous collapse in 1995-96 is probably the most memorable after they threw away a 12-point lead that they held in January after 23 matches, while Man Utd blew a 13-point lead over Arsenal in 1997-98 and an eight-point lead with just six games remaining in 2011-12 to give Manchester City their first Premier League crown (albeit their final-day comeback against QPR and Sergio Aguero’s last-gasp goal grabbed the headlines).
But when it comes to title challenges falling apart, no team seems to have blown up more often than Arsenal in the Premier League era, who have seemingly had more blips than a submarine radar.
The Gunners made sustained title challenges in the last two seasons, but narrowly missed out on winning the trophy on both occasions. A significant part of falling short has been their propensity for stumbling at some point during the season, experiencing a blip that became a malaise and even a trough that ultimately proved costly to their ambitions.
A warning sign of this was evident in Mikel Arteta’s tenure at the tail-end of the 2021-22 season when Arsenal fell short of Champions League qualification after being in the box seat for so long and it has sunk their last two title challenges.
Arsenal went into this season with some confidence that they would once again be Man City’s main challengers. And, after wins away at Aston Villa and Spurs plus a creditable draw at the Etihad in their first three road trips, they seemed to be well placed to go on a title charge.
However, they have hit a run of poor form which has seen them already fall nine points behind leaders Liverpool at this early stage and there seems little margin for error left for the Gunners.
Mixed Start to 2024-25
There are several reasons for Arsenal’s struggles this season. Three red cards and the resulting suspensions, a string of injuries to key players and a constantly changing line up have interrupted the Gunners’ cohesion and diminished their strength.
A lack of clean sheets, especially at the Emirates, an attack struggling to score goals and giving up points from leading positions have all proved costly.
Arsenal have already surrendered eight points from winning positions, which is as many as in the whole of 2022-23 and just one fewer than last season (7). That has included two each against Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool – their title rivals in the current top four of the Premier League.
Worryingly, the key data shows that Arsenal are performing worse than in either of the last two seasons, both in attack and defence.
Not only are they creating fewer chances, but they are also missing the few good ones they have managed. This is not confined to the Premier League either, as they have netted just three goals in four matches in the Champions League this season and failed to score in their last four away games in that competition.
In defence, the ever-changing backline and the red cards have seen the team look fragile, and they are on their longest run without a clean sheet since that poor run in April and May that cost them the title back in 2022-23 when William Saliba had been missing through injury (seven games without a clean sheet).
Hope Springs Eternal
Recovering from a nine-point deficit seems like a tall ask for any team, especially one that hasn’t really shown any form this season, but there are a few points in Arsenal’s favour.
Their fixture list has been very tough. They’ve already played five of the top seven teams from the 2023-24 campaign away from home this season, plus Liverpool at the Emirates. Other teams have many of those difficult fixtures to come and if Arsenal can find some form, they have already shown that they are capable of putting together long winning runs.
It’s also interesting to note that despite their significant lead, Liverpool have exactly the same number of points from their opening 11 opponents as they took in the equivalent fixtures last season. City have minus three and Arsenal minus four, but if teams replicated their results from last season, both teams would still overhaul Liverpool.
This isn’t the first time that Arsenal look to have been well set to make a title challenge, but eventually failed to go on to win the Premier League title. In several cases it has seen disastrous runs of form or moments of self-destruction that have derailed their aspirations.
Gunners’ fans with a nervous disposition may want to stop reading now…
Arsenal’s Previous Unfortunate Title Challenges
2002-03
Arsenal were double winners in 2001-02 and won the league unbeaten in 2003-04, but 2002-03 probably should have seen Arsène Wenger’s side make that a hat-trick of titles.
This was the famous season where Wenger inferred his team could go through a whole campaign without losing, which was proven premature after Wayne Rooney scored a winning goal for Everton against the Gunners in mid October.
Despite that, Arsenal had made it to early March eight points clear of Man Utd. However, trying to juggle FA Cup, Champions League and Premier League commitments took its toll. Arsenal went on a run of seven league games with just two wins, three draws and two defeats.
They saw Sol Campbell sent off against rivals Man Utd and miss the rest of the season, while Patrick Vieira also got injured in that game. It all culminated in a self-destructive draw after being 2-0 up at Bolton (who would finish 17th), and then a 3-2 home defeat by Leeds (who finished 15th) which handed the title to Alex Ferguson’s side.
2007-08
Wenger’s youthful reinvention of Arsenal saw arguably its best iteration in the 2007-08 season. After Thierry Henry had departed for Barcelona, the team was now built around the talented Cesc Fàbregas and blitzed through the first half the season in impressive style.
After 26 games they were five points clear of Man Utd and eight ahead of Chelsea. Trying to compete on all fronts seemed once again to be an issue, so Wenger rested his team for an FA Cup match at Old Trafford and the team were routed 4-0. They then went to Birmingham and suffered the infamous injury to Eduardo da Silva and a late penalty equaliser took the wind completely out of the Gunners’ sails.
They won just two out of 13 games in that run, with just one victory in eight in the league and were knocked out by Liverpool in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Injuries to Tomas Rosicky, Kolo Touré, Bacary Sagna and the trauma of the Eduardo injury severely impacted the team who finished third with 83 points, just four behind Man Utd and two off Chelsea who would also contend the Champions League final as the two strongest teams in Europe that season.
2009-10
Arsenal were once again challenging in 2009-10. With just seven games left in late March and just two points behind Man Utd, the Gunners looked well placed to challenge. However, another traumatic injury, this time Aaron Ramsey’s broken leg away at Stoke impacted the team in the lead up. Further injuries to William Gallas, Fàbregas and Thomas Vermaelen at the business end of the season saw Wenger’s side run out of steam.
Birmingham’s St Andrew’s was once again the catalyst for the start of a bad run that saw another title tilt peter out with four defeats and just one win in six league matches, along with another Champions League exit, this time to Barcelona in the same period.
2010-11
The following campaign also saw Arsenal in touch with the leaders in spring. On 5 March, the Gunners were four points behind Man Utd with a game in hand and had just beaten Barcelona in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16. However, Wenger’s side once again had come undone against Birmingham City, this time in the League Cup final where they lost 2-1.
A 0-0 draw at home to Sunderland started a poor run which saw the Gunners lose to Barcelona after having Robin van Persie sent off for shooting after the whistle was blown and lose to Man Utd in the FA Cup.
In addition, they won just two of their remaining 11 Premier League games taking just 12 points out of a possible 33. Bizarrely one of those two wins came against eventual champions Man Utd in between the two legs of the Red Devils’ Champions League semi-final.
Again, injury to talisman Fàbregas and inconsistency of selection and loss of form at the wrong time saw the Gunners’ challenge falter.
2013-14
It took Arsenal some time to regroup after the departures of key players like Fàbregas and Van Persie, but in 2013-14 they looked back to being a contender. In early February, Arsenal were two points clear at the top of the table.
Once again, they were still in the FA Cup and Champions League and struggled to juggle the demands of all three competitions. The big shock to the system was a 5-1 hammering by Liverpool at Anfield. This led to a run of just two wins in nine Premier League matches, taking nine points from 27 available.
An exit to Bayern Munich was perhaps not unexpected, but one of the two victories in that run was at White Hart Lane of all places. But in the very next game they lost 6-0 at Stamford Bridge in Wenger’s 1000th match in charge of the club. Injuries to midfield were again a key factor with Mesut Özil, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey and Mathieu Flamini all missing lots of time.
The Gunners went on to win the FA Cup as some consolation but finished seven points off top place in fourth with this poor run costing them the chance to make a better challenge.
2015-16
On 14 February, Arsenal beat Leicester City 2-1 with a last-minute Danny Welbeck winner and momentum seemed to shift in the Gunners’ favour as they moved just two points behind the leaders. Rveryone expected the Foxes’ title challenge to falter.
However, Claudio Ranieri’s team were out of both cups and were able to focus completely on the league, while once again Arsenal were distracted by both FA Cup and Champions League commitments.
Another European exit to Barcelona was no surprise, but a home defeat against Watford in the FA Cup was a significant blow on top of a run of league form that saw the Gunners take just 16 points from a possible 30 across 10 games, while Leicester took 27 from a possible 33 in the same period. Injuries to Flamini and Per Mertesacker were a factor, but the most significant impact came from a drop in the creative form of Özil and the Gunners title ambitions faltered with him.
The German playmaker racked up 16 assists in his first 18 Premier League games of the campaign and seemed odds on to smash Henry’s Premier League record of 20 in a single season. But Özil set up just three more goals in his final 17 league games and fell one short of the Frenchman’s tally as the Foxes lifted the trophy.
2022-23
After a scintillating first half of the season where they picked up 50 points from their opening 19 matches, Arsenal looked set to win their first title since 2004.
A mini blip in February, where they lost to an Everton side enjoying a new manager bounce after the appointment of Sean Dyche, a draw with Brentford where VAR failed to draw the lines to show Ivan Toney’s equaliser should have been disallowed for offside were followed by a 3-1 home defeat by Man City.
Arsenal recovered to win seven games in a row and seemed on course to win the title, but then three consecutive high-scoring Premier League draws against Liverpool, West Ham and Southampton in April saw the gap at the top of the Premier League reduce to just five points, with rivals Man City having two games in hand.
The Gunners were two goals up in the games against Liverpool and West Ham and even missed a penalty against the Hammers. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “to lose one two-nil lead may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
Those draws proved costly as did the next game against a rampant Man City side who handed out a 4-1 drubbing to the Gunners at the Etihad. Arsenal recovered briefly but defeats to Brighton and Nottingham Forest sealed the first leg of the treble for Pep Guardiola’s side who won 12 games in a row until the title was sealed.
2023-24
Arsenal started the 2023-24 season well and were top of the table after a late goal secured a 4-3 away win over Luton in early December. Man City’s defeat the following evening to Aston Villa left them six points adrift of Arsenal in fourth place. But the Gunners were the next visitors to Villa Park and they lost 1-0.
Arteta’s side managed to beat Brighton the following week, before drawing with Liverpool at Anfield just before Christmas. An extended blip didn’t seem likely as Arsenal took on West Ham at the Emirates, but despite having over 30 shots, they lost 2-0 and then followed it up a few days later with a lacklustre 2-1 defeat to Fulham and then a 2-0 defeat at home to Liverpool in the FA Cup.
A mid-winter break to Dubai energised Arteta’s men, who then won 16 and lost just one of their next 16 Premier League matches – an incredible run of form for any team. But the damage had been done. A six-point lead over City had evaporated and they went into that run in fourth place.
As Aston Villa were beating Arsenal, Man City started a 23-match unbeaten run with 19 wins and four draws that saw them take the title by two points. Even taking 43 points out of a possible 48 wasn’t enough for Arteta’s side.
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