One more league defeat could ruin Arsenal by DN
After the fall-out of Arsenal losing to the spuds on Saturday, I think we can all agree that our hopes of the Premier League are gone and that the remaining Premier League games are all about getting the Gunners into the top four and staying there.
But that is not looking like an easy task by any means and will probably require the sort of late run we had two seasons ago rather than a repeat of last season when Arsenal took a pathetic 22 points from the last 14 matches in the league. That would leave us on the same 64 points that United got last season. Worried yet?
That disaster can be avoided. In the 2012-13 season Arsenal took 35 points from our final 14 league games. They included just one defeat, coincidentally to the spuds at White Hart Lane.
But we may have to do the same or even better this time around, with strong competition from a number of clubs like Southampton, Man United and Liverpool. Those 35 points would give us a total of 77 points st the end of the campaign and that should be more than enough. But two years ago we had a good run of fixtures with only Tottenham away and Man United and Everton at home to really give us problems.
When you look at the remaining fixtures this time, we have Liverpool and Chelsea at home and Man United away and I think we may have to avoid defeat in all of them. We also have home games with Leicester, Everton, West Ham, Sunderland, Swansea and West Brom while facing trips to Crystal Palace, QPR, Newcastle, Burnley and Hull.
Although Arsenal have the power to win all those games, it is much more likely that we will be held to a draw in at least a couple of them, say Newcastle away and West Ham at home. That would give us 71 points not counting any from our three big games. Could we really afford to lose any of them? Will we be able to avoid it? I really do not know!