Why a defeat of Watford might be considered to be a major event is something that needs explaining.  For in the context of what had happened before and what then happed after, it was monumental.

The point is that having lost two of their first three league games of the 1986/7 season, Arsenal went on a run of one defeat in the next 28 games while progressing in the League Cup to the final. 

Runs come in different shapes and sizes, but the notion, as propagated by the media in 2021/2 that losing the first three games of the season while several members of the squad were suffering from coronavirus meant that the manager and half the squad should be sacked, was certainly not something based on historical information.

In the 1986/7 run, Arsenal won just three of their first nine games.  They were then undefeated in their next 22.

So this season of 1986/7 contained a really poor opening run of nine games, but ended with Arsenal winning the league cup.

Now of course these days we consider the league cup to be very much a lesser trophy, but in 1986/7, any trophy was a major event because Arsenal had not won any of the first team trophies in seven years.

In those years Arsenal had come 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th (twice) and 10th.  It was not a happy time.

Better still the trophy turned out to be a turning point as two years later Arsenal won the league for the first time since 1971.

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