Quick Article Before I go

I finished all my work for the day early, had a sneaky read of the Arsenal - Villa preview on Arsenal.com and noticed something quite interesting: from now until the AC Milan game first leg, all our games bar one are agaist teams in the bottom half of the table.

The one that isn't is United at home. Tough, but winnable at home - they've looked at a pretty similar level to us in recent weeks and will be without Vidic.

After then, it's a very tough run, (Milan [A], FA Cup round 5, Spurs [H], Pool away and Milan at home in the space of 19 days).

However, our run-in up until then is this:

December
21st -Villa (A) - Premiership
26th - Wolves (H) - Premiership
31st - QPR (H) - Premiership

January
2nd - Fulham (A) - Premiership
9th - Leeds (H) - F.A Cup
15th - Swansea (A) - Premiership
22nd - Manchester United (H) - Premiership
28th - F.A Cup Round 4 (TBC)
31st - Bolton (A) - Premiership

February
4th - Blackburn (H) - Premiership
11th - Sunderland (A) - Premiership


Breakdown - 9 Premiership games and 1 OR 2 F.A Cup games in the space of 52 days. All of these games are eminently winnable in their own right, but will be tough on the back of other games.

Obviously the United game will be a big test, but I also worry about the trips to Sunderland, Fulham and Swansea. Swansea play good football and aren't easy to beat, Fulham are always a dogged outfit (particularly at Craven Cottage) and Sunderland will be revamped by then, O'Neill will have made some signings and will have made them hard to beat.

I think it's a realistic target (but an ambitious one) for us to get around 23 points out of these games, and I think it's imperative that we do so because we have a very tough run coming up just after that. 23 points would leave us on 52 points from 25 games - meaning by the law of averages we would get 76/77 points at the end of the season - surely enough for a top 4 finish?

Thoughts?