Arsenal v Newcastle: the referee and the result as predicted by past matches
Next Post Coming Soon...
By Tony Attwood
We know of course what the top of the league looks like, with the 12-point gap between the top two and the third club, but down the bottom, it seems to be more fun with Tottenham firmly in a relegation place, although with a game in hand over Forest. Tottenham are away to Wolverhampton, who are so low in the league we are not even showing them, and Arsenal are of course, at home to Newcastle who are in 14th.
P W D L F A GD Pts
1Manchester City 33 21 7 5 66 29 37 70
2Arsenal 33 21 7 5 63 26 37 70
3Manchester United 33 16 10 7 58 45 13 58
14Newcastle United 33 12 6 15 46 49 -3 42
15Leeds United 34 9 13 12 44 51 -7 40
16Nottingham Forest 34 10 9 15 41 45 -4 39
17West Ham United 33 8 9 16 40 57 -17 33
18Tottenham Hotspur 33 7 10 16 42 53 -11 31
I am not sure any of us could have suggested at the start of the season, a league table looking like this with five games to go.
Arsenal currently report four injuries, while Newcastle have five, according to our usual source of such data. Top of the injury table is, as usual, Tottenham with eight, and one really does start to wonder what on earth they are doing in training to get this run of injuries. At the other end is West Ham with zero. Manchester City are slightly better off than Arsenal with just three men down.
Of the four Arsenal men down, Mikel Merino is still top of the list and completely ruled out – he has had surgery, and there is just a chance he might play before the end of the season, but I would suspect only if he is really needed. Jurrien Timber is said to be “quite close to a comeback” but not ready yet.
Bukayo Saka is now rated at around 75% and said to be likely to be in the squad for the match, although that suggests on the bench rather than starting, with a chance to come on in the last third or quarter if Arsenal need him.
And a similar situation now relates to Ricardo Califiori, who again could well make the squad.
As for Newcastle, they have Emil Krafth, Valentino Livramento, Fabian Schar, and Joelinton Apolinario de Lira. Anthony Gordon might make it onto the bench.
So not too awful a scenario for Arsenal. Newcastle, however, as we have seen, have only won one of their last five games, which leaves them in 15th place, but they are nine points above Tottenham with six games to go so any thought of dropping into the bottom three seems very exaggerated. Yes, it is possible, but it is also extremely unlikely.
Thus, the recent run of three seasons in the top seven is coming to an end, and the club is drifting back to the reality of ending up in the bottom half of the league. But worse than that, this looks like being Newcastle’s worst league finish since they returned to the Premier League after their year in the Championship in 2016/17.
The problem for Newcastle seems to be that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the chair of Newcastle, is reviewing the investments his Saudi organisation has made in the club – and that’s the trouble with investors. They will keep on reviewing!
And indeed it does leave us thinking about just how many of these overseas investors have actually benefited their clubs. We know with ManC they have ended up with over 100 charges against them being proven, while Chelsa, getting money from a totally different type of source, seems to be in permanent chaos, as we saw in a recent piece. And now we find that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is wondering what to do with Newcastle, having just sold their 70% share in Al-Hilal of the Saudi Pro League.
The problem for clubs owned in part or in full by Saudi Arabia is that the country recorded a deficit of $73bn last year, which is quite a lot even for them. The war in Iran and worries about the cost of the 2034 World Cup seem to be largely to blame. Although, to be fair, they say that their investment in Newcastle is not affected.
On the plus side, it is said that there has been a lot of investment in the facilities, the women’s team and the academy, so maybe they are getting it right with a long-term project. But part of the funding has come from a Chelsea-like arrangement in which the lease of St James’ Park was sold to another company owned by the owners of the club. And moves like that always raise an eyebrow.
We shall watch next season with much interest.
Recent Posts
Arsenal v Newcastle: the referee and the result as predicted by past matches
Next Post Coming Soon...