Arsenal perched at the top : End of Part 1 - Arsenal analysis

Phase 1 of the season is over. 12 games have been played by Arsenal and they lead the table on goals scored with a game in hand (Away against Newcastle) over Man U.

Lets break it down:

H Fulham 2-1 The team was still getting used to playing together and Lehmann didn't help things early on
A Blackburn 1-1 Lehmann's rubber hands - the bugger
H Man City 1-0 Man City despite all their attacking prowess came to play with 10 men behind the ball
H Portsmouth 3-1 quite impressive
A Spurs 3-1 This is when the team began to really gel
H Derby 5-0 Everyone was doing this so nothing really out of the ordinary
A West Ham 1-0 Quite impressive i must say - considering that Arsenal lost both home and away against them
H Sunderland 3-2 They learned a thing or two on what not to do when 2-0 up
H Bolton 2-0 Their patience bore fruit, with Bolton's physical and highly negative approach
A Liverpool 1-1 Ought to have won it
H Man U 2-2 Two thoughts:
- Arsenal were abit nervous in the first half, abit of inexperience, Man U people insist that their celebrations were somewhat overboard. I disagree. Anyone who scores an equalizer after going down by a goal so close to the end of the game would cheer with as much enthusiasm)
- The away game - they will have learned quite alot by then so lets not assume that Man U will roll over them - experience out of the window)
A Reading 3-1 Hmm who was away really. Arsenal really needed to be patient though. Should have been more.

Games In total - 7 Home; 5 Away - The fixtures have somewhat very slightly favoured Arsenal (its just 1 game difference really), it can be argued, though in games against top 4 teams home advantage does not really count.

6 Points dropped from a total of 36 available.
27 Goals Scored
10 Goals Conceded
An average of 2.25 goals per game (not bad at all)
An average of 0.833 goals per game (could improve on this)

MVP over this period - Cesc Fabregas (also leads the scoring charts with 10 goals in all competitions)
Most Improved Player - Mattheu Flamini

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Phase 2
The balance of home vs away games evens out by the end of Dec 2007:

H Wigan
A Aston Villa
A Newcastle
A Boro
H Chelsea
H Tottenham
A Portsmouth
A Everton

5 Away
3 Home
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24 Points up for grabs. The trickiest stretch is the Chelsea Tottenham Portsmouth Everton bit. The Newcastle game is the one in hand. RVP should be back by the third game.

Player to watch - I would say Cesc, but also watch out for Adebayor - I think from last season he really picked up his game over December.
Player I would want to see improving - Adebayor's finishing needs a bit of work still. Eboue disappoints me most of the time.
Player I would like to see play more often - Diarra. Full stop.


Lets reserve judgment till Dec 29. where they will have played 20 games - 10 home and 10 away.... if they are still top - that will be very great....
and if Arsenal win these 8 games they will win the premiership IMHO.

Now we understand why Fabregas wanted that potential suspension out of the way as soon as possible... Better miss out on the easiest looking tie of the 8.