Do multiple London derbies make it harder for Arsenal in Premier League title race? – The Athletic

The magic number that could decide whether or not Arsenal win the Premier League title this season is 84. That’s nothing to do with points, though. It’s the total number of London derbies played in the top division in this and the previous three seasons.

There are seven London teams in the top flight, with three of them still standing between Arsenal and a first league title in 22 years. The first of those London derbies comes against Fulham at the Emirates today. Then there’s a trip to east London to take on West Ham a week tomorrow, before a brief derby reprieve with a home game against Burnley. Finally, on the last day of the season, Arsenal head south of the River Thames to face Crystal Palace.

Despite the prominence of London-based teams in the Premier League in this and the past three seasons, not one of them has won the title since Chelsea in 2017, marking the longest period the capital has gone without a league win since Arsenal’s drought between 1971 and 1989.

All of which brings to mind a point often made by former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger during his early days at the club: that the number of derbies Arsenal had to contend with put them at a distinct disadvantage compared to their north-west-based title rivals, Manchester United.

Wenger, who managed Arsenal from 1996 to 2018, believed that London teams were so fired up to play his team that it made it harder for them to win the title than Sir Alex Ferguson’s then-serial title winners. That opinion did not hold much sway with his managerial counterpart further north. Ferguson countered by saying that United were disadvantaged because everyone was desperate to beat them, especially all the teams in the north-west. He then started referring to games against Blackburn, Bolton, and other teams based in Lancashire, as “a huge derby game for us”.

Who was right, then? Is Arsenal’s run-in made any harder with three of their four remaining games being derbies?

Not if you look at their record.

Arsenal have finished top of the London “mini league,” comprising the Premier League’s London teams, 16 times in 33 seasons, including the last three. That dominance looks set to continue this season, with Arsenal unbeaten in nine so far, winning seven and drawing two (both away games at Chelsea and Brentford). By comparison, Chelsea have topped the London table 10 times, while Tottenham have done it on five occasions. West Ham and Queens Park Rangers have done it once each.

It’s an impressive record, especially given the accepted notion that derbies are usually considered incredibly physical, tougher occasions than most other games.

One thing these games could do, says performance psychologist Dr Tom Bates, who works with Premier League football, rugby union and British Olympic athletes, is give Arsenal a different focus from the one that has dominated so much of their season.

“It can create a disassociation from the league position,” Bates says of the heightened emotions and meaning around a derby. “In that moment, all that matters is you’re going head-to-head with a local rival, so the bigger picture almost dissolves. That can be a great thing, or it can be damaging depending on how you process what that means.”

The key for any team playing in a derby, says Bates, is to harness the emotions and energy around it, without allowing them to take over and detract from performance.

“The psychological challenge is that the players don’t become over-aroused,” he says. “If the arousal goes too high, it becomes anxiety — players, teams psychologically and emotionally hijack themselves in those situations.

“I think the competitive advantage of teams heading into a derby game is to know the importance, and be aware of the importance — use it as the spark for the flame, but not allow the flame to get so high that the pot boils over.”

In Arsenal’s case, maybe it would be a positive thing if they were able to somehow put down the heavy weight of the title challenge they’ve been carrying all season and simply focus on the challenge in front of them on Saturday afternoon. But in reality, this “bigger picture” is likely too big to be eclipsed by a game against a comfortably mid-table Fulham side, regardless of the fact that it’s a London derby.

More likely, says David Webb, who was assistant coach for the Georgia national team throughout their run to the knockout stages of Euro 2024, and has spent time working at London clubs Tottenham, Millwall and Crystal Palace, is the possibility that Arsenal’s position in the league will just compound the intensity around a derby game.

Leandro Trossard is challenged by Chelsea’s Moises Caicedo in March (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

“In derbies that I’ve been involved with, emotions are heightened; players do feel what it means to the fans, so there’s always added pressure in terms of performance,” says Webb. “Arsenal are definitely going to be feeling the effects of where they are in the league, and having three (games) on their own patch is going to add more pressure. You want to treat it like just another game, but psychologically it’s always in the back of your mind that it’s more impactful.”

Having said that, Webb acknowledges that not all London derbies are created equal.

“It’s very much team-dependent,” he says. Arsenal games against Brentford and Fulham, for example, don’t create the same kind of derby-day intensity as those against Tottenham or even Chelsea and West Ham. Webb puts that down to history: “It’s the teams that have played continuously against each other over many, many years.”

Webb experienced the build-up to derby games against Arsenal and Chelsea while at Tottenham, where he worked as head of elite potential identification and development between 2015 and 2017. While games against Arsenal were always considered the biggest, there was also an intensity of feeling around games against Chelsea: “When you go to Chelsea games, part of their pre-match singing is how much they hate Tottenham,” says Webb.

He says those types of games give players an extra incentive to “compete more, because they know, especially at home, the fans are going to be expecting not just the result but the players to give absolutely everything — leave everything on the pitch — because it means so much to them. So the players will give that little bit more during games and find that extra bit of motivation, that extra bit of energy, that extra bit of sacrifice”.

Of the three derbies Arsenal have left to play, it’s the game against West Ham that Webb pulls out as being potentially the most problematic. Partly because the two sides have more of a history than Arsenal versus Fulham or Crystal Palace, but also because of West Ham’s position in the league, just outside of the relegation places (at time of writing).

On the plus side, he points out that logistically, three London derbies means less travel for Arsenal’s players, and that means more time and opportunity for recovery.

“You can prepare in your own training ground without the travel, and you can have a good training week, so that will definitely be helpful to Arsenal, given they’ve also got the Champions League thrown in there as well. They probably welcome three London games with everything else they’ve got going on.”

There could be another London team thrown into the Premier League mix in 2026-7, should Millwall get promoted from the Championship — although it looks increasingly likely that the top flight will also lose one in either West Ham or Tottenham.

Given the prominence of London teams in the top flight looks fairly set to continue, it’s worth asking whether the frequency of London derbies takes anything away in terms of intensity or meaning?

“There is the potential for it to become diluted and lose significance,” says Bates, comparing the situation in London to Merseyside (Liverpool and Everton). Bates points to the scenes inside the Hill Dickinson last month, after Virgil van Dijk scored a 100th-minute winner to secure a Liverpool victory in the first Premier League Merseyside derby at Everton’s new stadium. “Look at the jubilation of the players, the fans, the manager — it means a lot.”

Van Dijk’s header gave Liverpool bragging rights over Everton (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

When Crystal Palace got promoted to the Premier League in 2013, lifelong Palace fan and host of fan podcast Five Year Plan, Rob Sutherland says the London derbies “felt like they had prominence. At the time, we thought we were unlikely to stay in the division, so it felt like this was a rare opportunity to go to Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham.”

Now he says the impact of those games has lessened. “As a Palace fan who, for much of his life, watched as Premier League sides had these kinds of derbies and rivalries, I feel I’m spoiled a little bit in terms of having had them so often.”

Sutherland says games against the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea now “just feel like another match,” but that if Millwall (a south-east London club, like Palace) do get promoted from the Championship this season, that will be a different prospect altogether.

“It’s a lot more local, so I think that matters more because it’s bragging rights with our local neighbours. There’s a historic element to it, too. We tend to have quite challenging matches against them. We’ve played them a couple of times in the past two seasons, once in the League Cup and in the FA Cup where we went on to win it. And both of those occasions were the kind of matches that I look forward to, but I don’t really enjoy.”

West London side Brentford were promoted to the Premier League in 2021, so have been in the top-flight London merry-go-round for five years. But only two of the all-London matchups they play each season are really meaningful in a derby sense, says chair of the Brentford FC Supporters Trust, Stuart Hatcher.

“It’s really only the local derbies that get passionate,” he says. From a Brentford perspective, that means west-London neighbours Fulham and Chelsea. “QPR thankfully are nowhere near the Premier League,” adds Hatcher, of the Championship side that’s another close neighbour.

The London mini league holds some interest for fans, says Hatcher, as a “bit of fun” and the opportunity for bragging rights. This year, he points out, Arsenal will finish ahead of Brentford, but there is a chance that Brentford will finish above Chelsea. “So we might have bragging rights — we’re the second-best team in London. That’s probably more fun than anything else, but it would be nice if we could prove it.”

Context is key. History plays a huge role in what each London derby means to players and fans, as does the timing of the fixture, what is at stake at that point, and perhaps even what happened on the last occasion they met.

“There are always so many variables at play for each game at each stage of the season,” says Hatcher. “So you can’t just say, ‘Oh, playing London clubs is harder.”

There is a word of warning for Arsenal, though, who face Crystal Palace in their last game of the season. Because while Palace fan Sutherland has said games against teams from north of the river are “just another match”, he makes an exception for those with “added context”.

“If there is added involvement in some form, such as Palace having a role to play in potentially making things difficult for a London rival, that tends to have a bit more of an impact,” he says, smiling.