The statistics do back up the theory that Arsenal tend to have a tough time of it in the month of November. During the 20 years that we have had Arsene Wenger as our manager the 11th month of the year is the one which has seen the Gunners take the fewest average points per game, 1.59 compared to the next worst August which is 1.89 and the best which is 2.18 in March.
The idea of it being a bad month for us is so well established that Wenger himself talked about it this week, but I really feel that we have no real need to worry about it. For one thing, statistics can often highlight funny things but they do not explain the possible reasons being them.
So it could be just a coincidence that November has been bad for Arsenal and it could be down to other reasons but ones that do not necessarily have to repeat themselves. I think that our injury problems have often played a part in November being nasty to us. Not only have we often missed key player around this time, but that forces the manager to overplay the ones that are fit and this leads to fatigue.
This season we do not have too many issues on that front and we are just getting players like Ramsey and Giroud back, so as long as we are not his with a run of bad luck injury-wise there is no reason for us to struggle. Just because November tends to be tough does not mean it is always so.
Three years ago when Ramsey was scoring goals for fun and Arsenal were looking like champions until the injury crisis hit us about halfway through, November was a happy month which saw us beat Liverpool, Dortmund, Southampton, Marseille and Cardiff and lose just once. We scored 10 goals and conceded just once.
This November does see us face some tricky fixtures, with Tottenham, Man United and PSG among them, but Arsenal are in good form. Will this be a nice November instead of a nasty one? We certainly started it well with an amazing comeback against Ludogrets!
Bob.