When permutations get complicated

You simply have to give it to the Arsenal. This is the period when their mettle was going to be tested and boy, have they acquitted themselves well! Yes, they lost their home games against Borussia Dortmund in the Uefa Champions League and Chelsea in the Capital One Cup, but they have shown admirable character in coming back from those setbacks to win two very crucial matches in as many competitions.

What makes this remarkable is the fact that the Arsenal we have known in recent years would have had their confidence knocked down with the previous home results, but the way they played against my Liverpool and ground out an important away victory over Dortmund showed signs of a team that is coming of age and perhaps this might just be the season for the long wait for silverware to end.

Arsene Wenger’s men now find themselves five points clear at the top of the Barclays Premier League table following losses to their closest pursuers. In a league that has been very tight, this is remarkable and all contenders for the title would be trying to ensure that the Gunners do not increase the gap further in the coming days and weeks so that they remain in the equation for as long as possible.

Talk of contenders, it is amazing that I have seen debates on whether defending champions Manchester United can still be considered to be in with a shout for the title this season given their early wobbles. The season is only past its quarter mark and David Moyes’s men are only eight points off the top. Just how can they fail to overturn that in the next 28 games? It does not make sense to me.

And they have the chance to close that gap this weekend when they host the league leaders at Old Trafford in tomorrow’s late kick-off. It is one of those rare times when the Red Devils may get support from unlikely quarters depending on how other results go this evening. The fact that position two and seven are separated by a single point has made permutations very complicated and ganyu is not as easy as it used to be.

Games between the two sides have been tasty affairs since Wenger took the reins at Highbury, the Arsenal’s former stomping ground where they won all their silverware todate, but the rivalry has somehow lost its lustre in recent years following the emergence of Chelsea and Manchester City as United’s major rivals in the fight for honours. Tomorrow’s fixture will give us an idea on whether the feisty encounters of old are back.

It must be said that tomorrow’s fixture is more important to United than it is to the Gunners who are assured of remaining at the top of the pile by the end of the weekend’s fixtures regardless of how they fare upnorth. A home loss will increase the gap with the pacesetters to 11 points which is hardly unassailable, but with seven teams already ahead of them, that will make the task of retaining the title all the harder.

Add to that the point I made last week that fixtures against the main contenders will become decisive in such a tightly contested race and then this becomes a must-win game as well. The Red Devils have not yet won against a side above them on the table—they have lost two and drawn a further two—this season and their title credentials can only be asserted by winning against a team with a real say in the title race.