“It’s not about the hope of winning the title,” Mikel Arteta worried after watching his side’s lofty aspirations come full force at St James’ Park on Saturday lunchtime, “it’s try to be the best every week.”
Arsenal were not the best a damaging 1-0 setback away to Newcastle United to start the tenth weekend of the Premier League season. Defending champions Manchester City went down at the opposite end of the country a few hours later, but Liverpool came from behind to defeat Brighton, opening up a cushion at the top of the Premier League.
A yawn of seven separate points arsenal and the rhythms of Arne Slot. Ten games into the campaign, more than a quarter of the way through the season, it has proved an almighty gap to close.
In three decades of Premier League football, only one team has trailed the league leaders by more than seven points after ten games and gone on to win the title. Blackburn Rovers overhauled an eight-point deficit at Newcastle United 30 years ago during the 1994/95 campaign.
|
season |
team |
Points behind the leader |
|---|---|---|
|
1994/95 |
Blackburn Rovers |
8 |
|
2002/03 |
Man Utd |
6 |
|
2013/14 |
Man City |
6 |
|
1992/93 |
Man Utd |
5 |
|
1996/97 |
Man Utd |
5 |
|
2008/09 |
Man Utd |
5 |
|
2010/11 |
Man Utd |
5 |
This iconic iteration of Rovers had only been promoted to England’s top flight two years earlier, propelled into the new Premiership (as it was then known) by Kenny Dalglish’s guile, Alan Shearer’s goals and gilded support from owner Jack Walker.
Newcastlewho had been promoted a year after Blackburn, soon disappeared as Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United emerged as their main challengers for the title. Had United been able to defeat West Ham on the final day of the campaign, Blackburn’s switch would have been for naught as the nervous newcomers lost to Liverpool on the same dramatic afternoon.
Blackburn, however, took 32 games to overturn their eight-point deficit. Arsenal have just 28 top-flight games to claw back seven points.
Since the division was reduced to 20 teams in 1995, no champion has been this far behind after ten games. both of them Manchester United (2002/03) and Manchester City (2013/14) came back from six-point gaps, but the Gunners are entering uncharted territory.
The unprecedented demands of Premier League Champions League makes Arsenal’s title even more unlikely. Seven of the last eight clubs to finish top of England’s top flight have accumulated at least 89 points, dropping 25 points or less.
The capital club have already dropped nine points from ten games and can therefore only afford to lose 16 in their remaining 28 games.
Faced with these damaging statistics, Arteta flatly refused any discussion of the title. “I understand that,” said the Arsenal manager, “but after eight, nine, ten games last year we didn’t talk about (discussing the title) and now we won’t talk about it.”
That may be for the best, given the worrying numbers piling up from Arsenal’s slow start.
