Assessing Arsenal’s season so far – have we closed the gap on City?

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The October international break is upon us so now is a good time to assess the season so far and look at look at how things stand at Arsenal following the first two months of the campaign.

After finishing second behind Manchester City in each of the last two seasons, the aim was clear heading into the 2024/25 campaign; finally get the better of Pep Guardiola’s men to clinch the Premier League title. In order to do so, it was imperative that we made a good start and didn’t lose any ground too early. Playing catch-up on a side like City is not the position Mikel Arteta wanted to find himself in.

When the fixtures were released, unfortunately, Arsenal were handed a nightmare opening few weeks. While home games against Wolves, Brighton and Leicester City offered good opportunities for three points at the Emirates Stadium, our first three away games were at Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester City. This was a nightmare run on paper, and some pundits were predicting that Arsenal could be out of the title race by the end of September.

However, Arsenal have once again shown we are a force to be reckoned with as we collected 7 points from those three away games. A deserved 2-0 win at Villa Park was followed by a hard fought 1-0 win over Spurs thanks to a Gabriel Magalhaes header. Then came the huge trip to the Etihad Stadium and after falling behind early on, Arsenal stormed back to lead 2-1 through goals from Riccardo Calafiori and Gabriel. We were going toe-to-toe with City and were the better team heading into the break. Unfortunately, Leandro Trossard was sent off for kicking the ball away – the second time this has happened to Arsenal this season – just seconds before half-time.

Arteta set his team up to defend their lead in the second period and we kept City at bay until the 98th minute when John Stones poked home to make it 2-2. City barely deserved their point, and Arsenal came painfully close to pulling off a stunning win with 10-men, but we had to settle for a point. Obviously getting a draw away to City wasn’t a disaster, but it was still disappointing to concede so late on. Fans who buy Manchester City tickets celebrated like they’d won the game, but it was Arsenal who came out with more credit from this result.

Home form a concern?

While we’ve been impressive on the road, there have been signs of trouble at home. Arsenal opened the season with a routine 2-0 win over Wolves but in our second home game, we dropped two valuable points at home to Brighton. We were totally dominant in the first half and held a deserved 1-0 lead from a Kai Havertz strike. However, the game turned on its head when Declan Rice was shown a ridiculous red card in the 49th minute. I won’t go over the incident again as it’s been well covered, but it’s safe to say Arsenal felt rightly aggrieved and the refs decision ultimately cost us two points.

Brighton equalised soon after Rice’s dismissal and it looked as though we’d go on to lose the game. Thankfully, Arsenal weathered the storm and had two great chances to win it late on but neither Havertz nor Bukayo Saka could convert. Under the circumstances, a draw was a decent result but it was still two points dropped as this is the type of game we need to win if we want to life the title.

Our next home league game at the Emirates was almost a month later and we were given another scare by newly-promoted Leicester. After racing into a 2-0 lead at half-time, the Foxes stunned the home crowd by clawing their way back to 2-2 in the 62nd minute through a James Justin double. It seemed like we were about to drop another two valuable points but Leandro Trossard forced an own goal in the 4th minute of stoppage time before Havertz sealed the win with a last gasp fourth. Three points in the bag but we were far from convincing, and needed injury time goals to beat a newly-promoted side isn’t ideal.

Next up at home in the league was Southampton at the weekend and once again we made hard work of what looked an ‘easy’ game on paper. Sitting bottom of the league without a win this season, this was a great opportunity for Arsenal to record a big win and improve the goal difference. However, we struggled to break them down and Southampton took a shock lead in the 54th minute. Thankfully, Havertz equalised soon after and Arsenal eased to a 3-1 win thanks to goals from Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka.

While we’ve taken 10 points out of 12 from our four home games so far, only the Wolves game could be considered a solid victory. We had to battle for the three points against Leicester and Southampton and these are games that we really should have won comfortably while also racking up some goals for the goal difference.

It’s a slight concern that we’ve not hit top gear yet in the home games, and even on the road many have claimed Arsenal are ‘battling’ for points by relying on our defence and set pieces rather than blowing teams away with fluid attacking football. It’s obvious we aren’t at our best going forward yet, and much of that can be down to the absence of Martin Odegaard, but I would still like to see us being more clinical and creating more chances in the final third.

Closed the gap?

As things stand, after seven games [4 home, 3 away], Arsenal sit level on points and goal difference [+9] with Man City in second place – one point behind leaders Liverpool. We’re unbeaten and if it wasn’t for two crazy red cards, we could easily have maximum points.

Given the difficulty of our away games so far, it’s been a terrific start overall to take 17 points from 7 games. We’ve shown a fighting spirit to beat Villa and Spurs on the road and were extremely unfortunate not to beat City.

I do think Arsenal have added another level of steel to the squad this year and we look determined to clinch the title after missing out the last two seasons. I honestly think we look like a match for Man City this year and there is still lots of room for improvement, especially in the attacking third.

With Odegaard due to return at the end of the month, things are looking promising as we head into another decisive period that will see us go up against Bournemouth, Liverpool, Newcastle and Chelsea over the coming weeks. Let’s hope Arsenal can build on their solid start and cement ourselves as favourites for the title.

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