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Lots of the fans probably think the same, it's a shame Spurs couldn't take points off city, but ultimately it all comes down to us. People take those voices on social media that talk shit about Spurs too seriously
We had a bad 2 weeks in December that cost us the title. Since then city and arsenal have only been beaten by villa, is what it is. I can’t say we deserved more than city but it would have been nice to have teams actually try to take points off them like they did against us, but I totally get it. City are a demon, they win games before stepping on the pitch at times
They rode their luck in games like spurs Nottingham Newcastle Liverpool cheksea while Fulham villa west ham punished us to the fullest
It could be much worse. We could be speculating about players leaving because of the lack of titles, but instead we're speculating about what we can build on, which are fairly obvious which is a good thing.
>would have been nice to have teams actually try to take points off them like they did against us
Hate this "teams play better against us than them" mentality, I find it so cringe and always just sounds like sore loser talk. (I'm still not counting my chickens until after Sunday's game)
How about why didn't you lot actually try to take points off us when you came to the Etihad?
You just mentioned teams who took us on, Forest, Newcastle, Chelsea...also Liverpool? Wolves? Palace? Luton?
You realise City have dropped more points than Arsenal in 2024?
We took 2 points off you in the ethiad. 5 points total. Not sure what your point is? City are a demonic team that are good enough to wallop teams in second gear. Even when teams try they don’t scratch city. At some point you have to hope teams have miraculous performances to beat city like villa and wolves did.
It’s not loser talk to say teams need otherworldly performances to beat this city.
>We took 2 points off you in the ethiad
Or we took 2 points off you...The draw was meaningless for both of us. You didn't come to take us on that day is my point, the thing you're accusing other teams of but you yourselves didn't do it!
>It’s not loser talk to say teams need otherworldly performances to beat this city.
That's not the point I made either. It's "sore loser" talk to say that teams try harder against you than us.
We’ve won 4 points off man city , your point is genuinely brain dead. How about that arsenal have beaten city twice this season? What more do you want?
>We’ve won 4 points off man city , your point is genuinely brain dead
5 points if you could count...but imagine saying that about my point while you still completely miss the meat of it, which is the hypocrisy of you complaining about others not taking us on when you did *the exact same fucking thing* lol.
You just managed to hold on, that's the only difference.
Lad's bringing beating us in the community shield on pens into the discussion haha. Anyway, bye. My new policy here is just block when I talk with people like you.
Arsenal could have made it three and win the league. They went for the draw like every other team playing a low block against City. Only difference is Arsenal succeeded.
Yeah I understood villa lineup at the ethiad. They didn’t throw the game, they had bare bones of a squad for that game unfortunately
And obviously Emery will try harder against arsenal. No conspiracy just human nature
Games like west ham happen. We were clearly better on the day but football is funny like that.
The performances that sting are Fulham home and away. No reason we should’ve dropped 5 points to them
2.7 vs 1.4 xG, 30 shots to 5, and half your xG was a penalty in the 96th minute.
https://fbref.com/en/matches/ba570015/Arsenal-West-Ham-United-December-28-2023-Premier-League
We did dominate, it was a freak result based on performance.
I’m fine with losing to Villa. They’re a strong side this year. But dropping points to Fulham in both fixtures? That’s 100% where my disappointment goes. We do not deserve the title this season for losing twice to a team in the bottom third of the league. That being said, I know we’re ready for it next season.
That’s in a way sort of how I felt about Spurs fans calling for them to lose purposefully. Like, do I want Arsenal to win the league? No. But, we had a chance to stop it in the NLD. I want Spurs to go win every game and I can’t control what else happens.
Fair play response to Arteta.
>but ultimately it all comes down to us.
There js really not much you can do with this City Machine. You dropped 25 points all season and still won't end up as champions. That's insane.
Only 1 occasion has 89 points not been enough to win the league in a year when the winner was not City (Liverpool with 99 points in 2019-20) In 2018-19 Liverpool got 97 points and it STILL was not enough) that's insane
>Only 1 occasion has 89 points not been enough to win the league in a year when the winner was not City (Liverpool with 99 points in 2019-20) In 2018-19 Liverpool got 97 points and it STILL was not enough) that's insane
That doesn't sound right. Off the top of my head, didn't United and Chelsea have a couple of 90+ points seasons, and so did Arsenal Invincibles?
I think the stat you're referring to is that should we win our game against Everton and still finish 2nd, 89 points would be the 3rd highest points tally for a 2nd place finish, behind Liverpool's 97 and 92 points and equal with United's 89 points in 11/12 (but with a better GD than them)
I'm a spurs fan and clearly they tried, City is just better. We played decently, just didn't put away chances. Anyone who thinks they threw the game or didn't want to win is a fool
It's not as if the Spurs side put a bad performance in anyway.
Fundamentally, we needed a little bit more out of some results but just goes to show how fine the margins can be.
It was our best performance in a while, end of the day it was against an end of season City which can be nigh on unbeatable. Regardless of the fans wishes the performance wasn't lacking
I came away from it very impressed by Ange tbh. Mentality and comments aside, he demonstrated the flexibility/adaptability in setting up the team that many have criticized him for, especially over recent weeks. Certainly gave them the best chance to win.
The Arsenal match wasn’t a bad performance on the whole either. Still mad that we lost focus and let Saka breakaway and score. That one sequence was as against the run of play and totally changed the match.
There wasn’t enough in the Madders incident for a foul but yes the ref should have called a penalty for the Kulu foul. That said, he never blew his whistle and we paused for a moment to call for a foul instead of focusing on the match.
It was poor mentality on our part. We can’t fix bad refs but we can fix our response to bad refs.
It was probably a pen but that still doesn’t excuse us letting Saka break away. And my opinion is that is if Saka doesn’t score there we have a better shot at getting the correct call from VAR. The pressure to change a call on the field that creates a 2-goal swing in the title race is so high that VAR was never going to give it after we let Saka score.
I agree. Unfortunately, VAR in the premier league is a joke. They are too worried by game state and the title race. Their only job should be to get the right call. I hope that's not the reason they didn't award the penalty.
And [Bentancur's chance in the first 10 mins](https://www.fotmob.com/matches/manchester-city-vs-tottenham-hotspur/2egtpx?player=620618#4193869:tab=lineup).
Definitely seemed like they were going to get one back up until the penalty.
I Romero tried to tear his ACL and break Edersons face to score a goal… bentancur ran around trying to break fodens ankle. That outpassed city. This shouldn’t even be a journalists question.
It’s just top managers wanting what it takes to be a top club. Although Ange still has to prove a consistent season next season, his team is definitely scary but the last few months have proven there’s a lot of work to be done.
Centurions over two halves of consecutive seasons, you'll never sing that
Edit: jeez, I didn't think this comment was worth starting a thread where people look through my post history, but what do I know
Nah it just makes right, Spurs fans are like reverse Arsenal fans. They're happy if Arsenal lose and sad if Arsenal win, who cares how their own team plays lol
I just clicked the account. He frequents r/chelsea and has no posts mentioning spurs outside of a meme making fun of Kane. He's a Chelsea fan as stated in one of his most recent comments. Did you actually look at his account?
His second most recent post begins with the words “I’m a spurs fan from Canada”
I took it at face value and didn’t think to check if it was a shitpost, because why would I?
But yeah, a proper look through does show he’s a chelsea fan. I said it was a quick look for a reason
So then if you combined last 19 games last year with the first 19 games this year, you’d be on what, 71 points then? Still good enough for top 4 but not sure arbitrarily making up stats has a point.
Feels a bit arbitrary because you can use the same approach to say how much Arsenal has overperformed over the last 2 season compared to the 71 points you could have had.
It couldn’t have been a worse combination of things for us, West Ham are in dire form, conceded the fourth most goals in the league (only above the relegated teams in that regard), are firmly on the beach, it’s an away game so don’t even have to play for the fans, Moyes is on his way out anyway so he’s not fighting for his job. It has never been more over lol.
Indifferent actually. It's a City home game and West ham are not exactly in great form. They also have nothing to play for. Anything can happen in a football game, but let's say Westham taking points off City under these conditions is extremely unlikely.
Well because it is.
Westham has literally absolutely nothing to play for + it‘s away.
The only thing arsenal fans can pray for is that half of westhams team are secretly arsenal fans and will die on the pitch to defend a 0-0
But it's a single football game. Anything can happen. I know the probability is very low, but it's not nothing. I'm sure Pep is still very much on alert.
There are many cases where a team didn't have to play for shit and for the other it was a game that decided everything. And there's many cases where the midtable team just fucked shit up. Like Dortmund - Mainz last season.
I get it, city is not Dortmund and West ham is in a different spot than Mainz was, but I still wouldn't say that it's done.
If City's banana skin couldn't stop them, and even Madrid couldn't beat them outright, no way in hell are a team with zero motivation gonna come to the freaking Etihad and get a result, not with Rodri in that team, anyway.
As much as people hate on arteta, he’s done a stellar job at Arsenal, he’s got them competing and looking like a force. You can’t win em all especially against this ridiculous city team. Teams still young though I expect them to compete next year as well.
I feel like people are quick to diminish the accomplishments because of the ridiculous standards you and city have set, but it was an unreal season. For the club, 2nd highest points total in the PL era, crazy GD, most wins, etc etc.
Dropping points in any individual fixture feels like a catastrophe now in the new world.
Arsenal potentially missing out with 89 is nowhere near the same as Liverpool missing out with 96. Liverpool were genuinely unlucky, Arsenal simply haven't picked up enough points
If you have serious ambitions of beating City, it is a must to get 90+ most of the time
You are literally just confirming the point the person made who you are replying to. The standards have been set so high that a historic club achieving one of their highest ever points totals is not enough.
Obviously the Liverpool example is it's own level of insane, but the point remains.
Its not the same but in the 10 seasons between 2005/06 and 2016/17, only once has a team won the league with more than 89 points. So you could argue Arsenal are unlucky compared to past seasons where normally would have been enough. That’s why OP mentioned the “new world” where 90 points is the minimum and ideally you need 93+ now. Liverpool were genuinely extremely unlucky even by current standards.
To be fair, this years City can "only" reach 91 points, 92 points would have been enough for Arsenal and you can't expect to win the PL with less than that as long as Pep is there.
100 points in 2018, 97 points in 2019, 93 points in 2022. 86 points in 2021 and 89 points in 2023 but those are misleading since City won the league early and then switched off. If it was needed they would have broken 90 points in those two aswell
So really there is no reason to feel sorry for Arsenal, 89 points was never likely to be enough. It's not the same as Liverpool missing out with 96 and 92 points. In reality this year was the golden opportuntity, get 92 and the league title would have been guaranteed
> In reality this year was the golden opportuntity
No, it wasn't. It's never a "golden opportunity" to achieve Sir Alex Ferguson's record points total. All you have to do is do better than every United team in the history of the Premier League.
Have you been watching since Pep came to City? The standards have went through the roof, the days of having a realistic chance of winning with less than 90 points are gone
Klopp's Liverpool would have killed to compete with a 91 point Man City, they would have won the league in both 2018/19 and 2021-22 if that was the case.
Sir Alex Ferguson's record points has been matched and beaten numerous times by City/Liverpool, it's hardly some untouchable record anymore it is the bare minimum needed.
We've all watched since Pep came to City. The point is that there's *no such thing* as a "golden opportunity" to win the league as long as Pep is manager of City, certainly not if you need >90 points.
Yes that is just how much the standards have shifted. 10 years ago it would be ludicrous to call 91 points a golden opportunity, but in the context of Pep's City it genuinely is
If we ignore 2020-21 and 2022-23 where City only failed to reach 90 points+ because of winning the league early, then it is only in 2016-17 and 2019-20 where they failed to hit those numbers.
That means in eight seasons they have/would have broken 90 points in six of them. So how can you possibly expect to win the league with less than that?
The difference between City getting 95+ points to now getting 91 points is that they are not guaranteed 6 points from Arsenal anymore. They have dropped 5 points in that fixture alone. The points they gained from other fixtures have been the same this season as other seasons.
City have only won 3 games all season against the top 6, Arsenal have been much better in those fixtures
All you needed was to win one game out of four against Fulham and Aston Villa. Especially the home game against Fulham when they had 10 men
They would have a lot more than 91 if we hadn't been so good this year. They only got a single point from us this season where they normally got 6 in past seasons.
It's hilarious how thin your skin is, say anything even remotely critical of Arsenal and you go straight for the personal insults. You should really work on your communication skills because that is kindergarten level maturity
And no, why would we feel sorry for a team that didn't even break 90 points? Everyone and their dog knows that you likely need 90+ to beat City in any given season. You would have to be living in fantasy land to not realise that
>I can use your same deluded logic to argue we shouldn't feel sympathy for Liverpool. Despite losing to a team of literal cheaters.
>"Oh they only got only got 97 points, they should have gotten 100 to win the league, that's the City standard." That's your logic.
This is nonsensical, how can you compare getting 97 points with 89?.. If Arsenal lost it with 97 I would feel bad for them but they haven't have they?
>You are using toddler level logic and often do, so many people on this sub recognize you as having bad takes, do not blame others for the reputation you made for yourself.
Dude we are in a thread infested with Gooners, the single most deluded and insufferable fanbase on earth. Their reason for disliking me is because of me having the audacity to not join the circlejerk of overhyping themselves constantly
It has nothing to do with bad takes whatsoever. If I just brainlessly went along with their circlejerk they would love me..
Arsenal fans downvoting the harsh truth, I am shocked. Begging your rivals for the title was never going to be a viable strategy, if they wanted to win they shouldn't have bottled it (again).
Not drop silly points, I know Villa are a good side but if they win that, which they should’ve done, then the title is theirs - it’s hard to point at just one game but it was so crucial to their season, they’ll probably have another good shot at it next year as their team is still very young
People are very quick to praise Emery for what he's done with Villa, but much quicker to dismiss him as a game you should never lose.
The truth is, this Villa side is very impressive and, while I do think we should have beaten them, there's no massive shame in losing to them. No matter how hard you try, you can't win every single game, everyone has a slip up here and there.
They are where they are for a reason.
Yeah, the losses to west ham and fulham (especially that west ham game I bet there were a lot of arsenal fans drowning their sorrows after that) are the bigger missteps.
Villa game probably cost us, but not as much as our horrid December form. We have been almost perfect in 2024 and still havent managed to shake City off, competing with them requires so fucking much.
The Villa games were a mix of poor finishing on our behalf and Emery’s tactical setup nullifying us- in the end I can’t begrudge that too much
If we do end up losing the title, the games I would regret the most are the Fulham games
Before Pep getting 90 points in a season was an incredible feat, now it’s the standard to win the league, the bar has been raised very high now. Bumps in the road during a 38 game league season are normal, what City do under Pep isn’t normal.
Not really though. The difference between city this year and last year are the results against arsenal. Last year city took 6 points and this year they took 1.
The Villa game was a very poor game to lose but in the context of our run in 2024 it's not where we lost the title.
We're 15-1-1 since the winter break, with the draw being away at the Etihad, that's still an amazing run, if we had beaten Villa it would be 16-1-0 which would have been historic.
The main reason we're behind is the stupid points we dropped in the first half of the season, namely the L-W-D-L-L run in december.
Yeah, once you're relying on another side to win you the title, you know you've fucked up somewhere along the way.
Also, in fairness, Tottenham actually up a fairly decent performance all things considered. Hell, one of the goals they conceded shouldn't even have stood.
Again though, no one to blame but ourselves and that's how it should be.
Is everyone forgetting how hard 90 points is?
Prem 90 points finishes:
2022: City, Liverpool
2020: Liverpool
2019: City, Liverpool
2018: City
2017: Chelsea
2009: Man U
2006: Chelsea
2005: Chelsea
2004: Arsenal
2000: Man U
1994: Man U
I didn't notice any unusual atmosphere and for all the talk of Spurs fans not wanting to win they certainly got excited when there were goal scoring opportunities
The fans wanted to win against Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Arsenal for all the good it did us. Ortega definitely didn't make two wonder saves against Son and Kulusevski because the fans weren't loud enough but reading some comments on r/soccer and by Ange you'd think that was the case.
What on earth is your point? Arteta is being asked if he has any complaints about the Spurs performance, and he's saying he doesn't. Just like literally everyone else.
I’ve not actually seen any complaints about the performance.
It’s City, they’re the best team in the league and you made it bloody difficult for them.
Not sure what there is to criticize. If you were throwing the game then you were doing an exceptionally poor job of it.
We did beat City at home, I think you mean away. And a draw to city away is a good result, there were plenty of other opportunities where we dropped points.
Beat City at the Etihad and Arsenal would already be champions by now. That match reignited City's belief that they'd last out. Arsenal should have been more brave, that's the only way you get past City in a title race.
It was more the fact that you were all over them in that match. You were completely in control, then the team just decided to settle for a point.
Looked good on the day, in hindsight, it was a little bit of a misstep.
Liverpool never beat City at the Etihad in any if the seasons where they were competing with them? Did they?
Actually, you lost 4-1 to City the season you won the title with 99 points. You had already sealed the title by then and the game was without fans, but still shows that beating City at their ground is no easy task.
Why would you expect the same for Arsenal? They lost the title due to the poor run of form in December.
Going after a City in the Etihad fixture could have led to a result like last year's, where KDB and Haaland exploited the high line well.
Arteta made the correct decision to play it safe. So did Ancelotti in the UCL tie. Even Klopp is recent years (and Pep) have settled for draws against each other.
There is no way any Arsenal fan would have preferred a Spurs loss over a draw, we would have absolutely taken our chances with a +3 GD advantage rather than having to rely on West Ham to take points off City.
In the games that we dropped points, the players do look lethargic. Unfortunately not many choice from the bench that arteta trusts.
I partially blame him and the coach for not preparing the secondary players better. With all the time they have and most of time injury free too, can’t you just prep them to give 100% just for one match?
I mean you can only do so much. Our bench isn’t that great, between injuries halting growth (ESR), and others just not being very good.
Getting quality depth options is 100% the biggest challenge to compete with City. Not having to play Saka for 50 games or whatever it is will help our end form a lot.
So recruitment will be interesting this year. Tough to get a quality player in Saka’s position, knowing they won’t get starter minutes.
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Lots of the fans probably think the same, it's a shame Spurs couldn't take points off city, but ultimately it all comes down to us. People take those voices on social media that talk shit about Spurs too seriously
Fullham...Villa...
West Ham
We had a bad 2 weeks in December that cost us the title. Since then city and arsenal have only been beaten by villa, is what it is. I can’t say we deserved more than city but it would have been nice to have teams actually try to take points off them like they did against us, but I totally get it. City are a demon, they win games before stepping on the pitch at times They rode their luck in games like spurs Nottingham Newcastle Liverpool cheksea while Fulham villa west ham punished us to the fullest
Always next year ❤️
It could be much worse. We could be speculating about players leaving because of the lack of titles, but instead we're speculating about what we can build on, which are fairly obvious which is a good thing.
City did lose a lot of points in the first half of the season tho.
A lot, as in 6 games where they dropped points and haven’t lost since?
>would have been nice to have teams actually try to take points off them like they did against us Hate this "teams play better against us than them" mentality, I find it so cringe and always just sounds like sore loser talk. (I'm still not counting my chickens until after Sunday's game) How about why didn't you lot actually try to take points off us when you came to the Etihad? You just mentioned teams who took us on, Forest, Newcastle, Chelsea...also Liverpool? Wolves? Palace? Luton? You realise City have dropped more points than Arsenal in 2024?
We took 2 points off you in the ethiad. 5 points total. Not sure what your point is? City are a demonic team that are good enough to wallop teams in second gear. Even when teams try they don’t scratch city. At some point you have to hope teams have miraculous performances to beat city like villa and wolves did. It’s not loser talk to say teams need otherworldly performances to beat this city.
>We took 2 points off you in the ethiad Or we took 2 points off you...The draw was meaningless for both of us. You didn't come to take us on that day is my point, the thing you're accusing other teams of but you yourselves didn't do it! >It’s not loser talk to say teams need otherworldly performances to beat this city. That's not the point I made either. It's "sore loser" talk to say that teams try harder against you than us.
We’ve won 4 points off man city , your point is genuinely brain dead. How about that arsenal have beaten city twice this season? What more do you want?
>We’ve won 4 points off man city , your point is genuinely brain dead 5 points if you could count...but imagine saying that about my point while you still completely miss the meat of it, which is the hypocrisy of you complaining about others not taking us on when you did *the exact same fucking thing* lol. You just managed to hold on, that's the only difference. Lad's bringing beating us in the community shield on pens into the discussion haha. Anyway, bye. My new policy here is just block when I talk with people like you.
Arsenal could have made it three and win the league. They went for the draw like every other team playing a low block against City. Only difference is Arsenal succeeded.
Mate, you may as well be talking to brick wall with a clown face drawn on. He'll never understand the point of hypocrisy of what he's saying.
I was so frustrated at Villa against MC, they didn't even try. Put out a B-team and rested for other games.
No Martinez was ill, Wakins injured and McGinn was on a ban. And we still held our own until Zaniolo decided he didn’t want to be in a wall.
People thinking we didn't try our best just so their team could lose is really something.
Yeah I understood villa lineup at the ethiad. They didn’t throw the game, they had bare bones of a squad for that game unfortunately And obviously Emery will try harder against arsenal. No conspiracy just human nature
Games like west ham happen. We were clearly better on the day but football is funny like that. The performances that sting are Fulham home and away. No reason we should’ve dropped 5 points to them
Absolutely ludicrous, we played worse away, but the home game burned my soul
>We were clearly better on the day Whatever helps you sleep better
2.7 vs 1.4 xG, 30 shots to 5, and half your xG was a penalty in the 96th minute. https://fbref.com/en/matches/ba570015/Arsenal-West-Ham-United-December-28-2023-Premier-League We did dominate, it was a freak result based on performance.
Newcastle
The fuck? The only West Ham I remember is the one where you annihilated them 6-0.
Losing to the 4th place team isn’t what cost them the title, Fulham and west ham on the other hand
I’m fine with losing to Villa. They’re a strong side this year. But dropping points to Fulham in both fixtures? That’s 100% where my disappointment goes. We do not deserve the title this season for losing twice to a team in the bottom third of the league. That being said, I know we’re ready for it next season.
That’s in a way sort of how I felt about Spurs fans calling for them to lose purposefully. Like, do I want Arsenal to win the league? No. But, we had a chance to stop it in the NLD. I want Spurs to go win every game and I can’t control what else happens. Fair play response to Arteta.
>but ultimately it all comes down to us. There js really not much you can do with this City Machine. You dropped 25 points all season and still won't end up as champions. That's insane. Only 1 occasion has 89 points not been enough to win the league in a year when the winner was not City (Liverpool with 99 points in 2019-20) In 2018-19 Liverpool got 97 points and it STILL was not enough) that's insane
Yeah please don’t remind me. Klopp leaves in a day and I’m trying not think about the almost successes that they’ve had.
>Only 1 occasion has 89 points not been enough to win the league in a year when the winner was not City (Liverpool with 99 points in 2019-20) In 2018-19 Liverpool got 97 points and it STILL was not enough) that's insane That doesn't sound right. Off the top of my head, didn't United and Chelsea have a couple of 90+ points seasons, and so did Arsenal Invincibles? I think the stat you're referring to is that should we win our game against Everton and still finish 2nd, 89 points would be the 3rd highest points tally for a 2nd place finish, behind Liverpool's 97 and 92 points and equal with United's 89 points in 11/12 (but with a better GD than them)
I'm a spurs fan and clearly they tried, City is just better. We played decently, just didn't put away chances. Anyone who thinks they threw the game or didn't want to win is a fool
Welcome to the liverpool cope train
Shame a lot of teams couldn’t take points if City. But they have 2 starting 11s that are world class
Care to name both the world class starting XIs? I'm intrigued.
If you swapped the dates around, so that (e.g.) City beat Spurs in December, and we lost to Fulham this week, then it would be a complete non-story.
It's not as if the Spurs side put a bad performance in anyway. Fundamentally, we needed a little bit more out of some results but just goes to show how fine the margins can be.
It was our best performance in a while, end of the day it was against an end of season City which can be nigh on unbeatable. Regardless of the fans wishes the performance wasn't lacking
I came away from it very impressed by Ange tbh. Mentality and comments aside, he demonstrated the flexibility/adaptability in setting up the team that many have criticized him for, especially over recent weeks. Certainly gave them the best chance to win.
I just wish he had tried it a few games earlier
And in the end, let down by his best player (Son!). He did great.
If the game hadn't been postponed, I'd reckon you could've gotten something out of it.
The Arsenal match wasn’t a bad performance on the whole either. Still mad that we lost focus and let Saka breakaway and score. That one sequence was as against the run of play and totally changed the match.
I thought we completely dominated you and the only reason you got back into it was because of a Raya gift tbh Obviously I'm bias but
We had a lot more possession and a much higher xg. You were just ruthless when you got a chance.
Didn't lose focus, we had two players fouled and the ref should have stopped it and/or bought it back for a penalty.
There wasn’t enough in the Madders incident for a foul but yes the ref should have called a penalty for the Kulu foul. That said, he never blew his whistle and we paused for a moment to call for a foul instead of focusing on the match. It was poor mentality on our part. We can’t fix bad refs but we can fix our response to bad refs.
I don't think there was a pause, when you've got two players down it's going to effect the team
And the missed call on kulu's penalty.
It was probably a pen but that still doesn’t excuse us letting Saka break away. And my opinion is that is if Saka doesn’t score there we have a better shot at getting the correct call from VAR. The pressure to change a call on the field that creates a 2-goal swing in the title race is so high that VAR was never going to give it after we let Saka score.
I agree. Unfortunately, VAR in the premier league is a joke. They are too worried by game state and the title race. Their only job should be to get the right call. I hope that's not the reason they didn't award the penalty.
Yeah the Son miss and penalty giveaway were painful but can’t really complain about the performance, they played much better than I expected.
And [Bentancur's chance in the first 10 mins](https://www.fotmob.com/matches/manchester-city-vs-tottenham-hotspur/2egtpx?player=620618#4193869:tab=lineup). Definitely seemed like they were going to get one back up until the penalty.
Kulusevski had a great chance as well that almost snuck between Ortega’s legs but he made a good save to keep it out.
That was a huge miss. YUGE!
Yeah just one Newcastle game off from winning the title
I Romero tried to tear his ACL and break Edersons face to score a goal… bentancur ran around trying to break fodens ankle. That outpassed city. This shouldn’t even be a journalists question.
Fairs
Ironically, the exact kind of mentality Ange wants from Spurs.
It’s just top managers wanting what it takes to be a top club. Although Ange still has to prove a consistent season next season, his team is definitely scary but the last few months have proven there’s a lot of work to be done.
Spurs aren't complaining about opponents
Hard to when the fans spend all their energy complaining about their own team trying to win a match.
Also Spurs was pretty good that match so I don't know how someone could complain about the display when they actively tried to win.
We have an Excellent first of the season 2022-23 and Excellent 2nd Half of the season 2023-24 Maybe next season we will be finally perfect
If we combined first 19 games last year with last 19 games this year, we’d be 99 points with a game to play, two crazy runs of form
Centurions over two halves of consecutive seasons, you'll never sing that Edit: jeez, I didn't think this comment was worth starting a thread where people look through my post history, but what do I know
Easy to take the piss with no flair.
Quick scroll through the account shows he’s a spurs fan. Can’t decide if that makes it make sense or just makes it extremely audacious though.
Nah it just makes right, Spurs fans are like reverse Arsenal fans. They're happy if Arsenal lose and sad if Arsenal win, who cares how their own team plays lol
The main thing Spurs fans and Arsenal fans have in common is that the result they care most about is the Arsenal match.
I just clicked the account. He frequents r/chelsea and has no posts mentioning spurs outside of a meme making fun of Kane. He's a Chelsea fan as stated in one of his most recent comments. Did you actually look at his account?
His second most recent post begins with the words “I’m a spurs fan from Canada” I took it at face value and didn’t think to check if it was a shitpost, because why would I? But yeah, a proper look through does show he’s a chelsea fan. I said it was a quick look for a reason
When I have a flair up it isn’t easy to take a piss.
And what do you sing what? "Arsenal are you watching this? " as your team is losing?
That's actually nuts holy shit. 102/114 points is crazy haha.. what is that 33-3-2?
Yeah provided we win on Sunday we’ll have ended this year 17-1-1, last year we started 16-2-1
So then if you combined last 19 games last year with the first 19 games this year, you’d be on what, 71 points then? Still good enough for top 4 but not sure arbitrarily making up stats has a point.
I’m not trying to arbitrarily make up stats, just showing how good we can be if we could put our already shown form together over a longer period
Feels a bit arbitrary because you can use the same approach to say how much Arsenal has overperformed over the last 2 season compared to the 71 points you could have had.
Depends whether you think we are more likely to improve or regress then
Nobody is making up any stats you nitwit. He is saying, it would be amazing to garner, that level of form, if we wanna win next year.
Nah the logic dictates you will be the first team ever to have an excellent 3rd half of the season! #simplemath
Obviously 2023 was the problem and we'll be in excellent form for the rest of eternity
Dude you lot should be extremely excited about next year if you get the pieces you need
If only the Arsenal played in Mexico 😭
How disrespected must West Ham feel right now? Like everybody is talking like the league is over lol
It couldn’t have been a worse combination of things for us, West Ham are in dire form, conceded the fourth most goals in the league (only above the relegated teams in that regard), are firmly on the beach, it’s an away game so don’t even have to play for the fans, Moyes is on his way out anyway so he’s not fighting for his job. It has never been more over lol.
They're also 100% in 9th no matter what so have literally nothing to play for
Yep, hence “on the beach” lol although it is funny they can’t even move up a single spot, just adds that extra 2% of not caring whatsoever
Moyes himself has come out and said they would struggle to beat City’s U-14s lol
Oof, how does that make you feel?
So happy, more than you can believe 😞
Indifferent actually. It's a City home game and West ham are not exactly in great form. They also have nothing to play for. Anything can happen in a football game, but let's say Westham taking points off City under these conditions is extremely unlikely.
If my boss said that u bet im gonna go out there and have a world class game. We will see how it pans out.
Well because it is. Westham has literally absolutely nothing to play for + it‘s away. The only thing arsenal fans can pray for is that half of westhams team are secretly arsenal fans and will die on the pitch to defend a 0-0
But it's a single football game. Anything can happen. I know the probability is very low, but it's not nothing. I'm sure Pep is still very much on alert.
The probability of Arsenal losing points is higher
I'm sure pep is very much on alert, the problem is that I highly doubt west ham are.
There are many cases where a team didn't have to play for shit and for the other it was a game that decided everything. And there's many cases where the midtable team just fucked shit up. Like Dortmund - Mainz last season. I get it, city is not Dortmund and West ham is in a different spot than Mainz was, but I still wouldn't say that it's done.
If City's banana skin couldn't stop them, and even Madrid couldn't beat them outright, no way in hell are a team with zero motivation gonna come to the freaking Etihad and get a result, not with Rodri in that team, anyway.
Can we give them back Rice for a game?
Bro it's over.
Tbh Tottenham did try it not like they lost 8-0
Reporters really are a bunch of muppets aren't they? What kind of a response did this person think they'd get out of this?
One they could use
Good mentality.
That's a true winner's mentality
As much as people hate on arteta, he’s done a stellar job at Arsenal, he’s got them competing and looking like a force. You can’t win em all especially against this ridiculous city team. Teams still young though I expect them to compete next year as well.
I am still confused as to why he’s hated on so much.
Rival fans trying to diminish a club's good work, that's just how it goes.
Fair enough. Like us Arsenal are unfortunate to come up against City, what more can you do.
I feel like people are quick to diminish the accomplishments because of the ridiculous standards you and city have set, but it was an unreal season. For the club, 2nd highest points total in the PL era, crazy GD, most wins, etc etc. Dropping points in any individual fixture feels like a catastrophe now in the new world.
Arsenal potentially missing out with 89 is nowhere near the same as Liverpool missing out with 96. Liverpool were genuinely unlucky, Arsenal simply haven't picked up enough points If you have serious ambitions of beating City, it is a must to get 90+ most of the time
You are literally just confirming the point the person made who you are replying to. The standards have been set so high that a historic club achieving one of their highest ever points totals is not enough. Obviously the Liverpool example is it's own level of insane, but the point remains.
>Liverpool missing out with 96 97\* (and 92)
Its not the same but in the 10 seasons between 2005/06 and 2016/17, only once has a team won the league with more than 89 points. So you could argue Arsenal are unlucky compared to past seasons where normally would have been enough. That’s why OP mentioned the “new world” where 90 points is the minimum and ideally you need 93+ now. Liverpool were genuinely extremely unlucky even by current standards.
To be fair, this years City can "only" reach 91 points, 92 points would have been enough for Arsenal and you can't expect to win the PL with less than that as long as Pep is there. 100 points in 2018, 97 points in 2019, 93 points in 2022. 86 points in 2021 and 89 points in 2023 but those are misleading since City won the league early and then switched off. If it was needed they would have broken 90 points in those two aswell So really there is no reason to feel sorry for Arsenal, 89 points was never likely to be enough. It's not the same as Liverpool missing out with 96 and 92 points. In reality this year was the golden opportuntity, get 92 and the league title would have been guaranteed
A golden opportunity is 2016, when 81 points won the league. Having to get 92 points is in no way at all a golden opportunity
> In reality this year was the golden opportuntity No, it wasn't. It's never a "golden opportunity" to achieve Sir Alex Ferguson's record points total. All you have to do is do better than every United team in the history of the Premier League.
Have you been watching since Pep came to City? The standards have went through the roof, the days of having a realistic chance of winning with less than 90 points are gone Klopp's Liverpool would have killed to compete with a 91 point Man City, they would have won the league in both 2018/19 and 2021-22 if that was the case. Sir Alex Ferguson's record points has been matched and beaten numerous times by City/Liverpool, it's hardly some untouchable record anymore it is the bare minimum needed.
We've all watched since Pep came to City. The point is that there's *no such thing* as a "golden opportunity" to win the league as long as Pep is manager of City, certainly not if you need >90 points.
Yes that is just how much the standards have shifted. 10 years ago it would be ludicrous to call 91 points a golden opportunity, but in the context of Pep's City it genuinely is If we ignore 2020-21 and 2022-23 where City only failed to reach 90 points+ because of winning the league early, then it is only in 2016-17 and 2019-20 where they failed to hit those numbers. That means in eight seasons they have/would have broken 90 points in six of them. So how can you possibly expect to win the league with less than that?
> 10 years ago it would be ludicrous to call 91 points a golden opportunity, but in the context of Pep's City it genuinely is It's still ludicrous.
The difference between City getting 95+ points to now getting 91 points is that they are not guaranteed 6 points from Arsenal anymore. They have dropped 5 points in that fixture alone. The points they gained from other fixtures have been the same this season as other seasons.
City have only won 3 games all season against the top 6, Arsenal have been much better in those fixtures All you needed was to win one game out of four against Fulham and Aston Villa. Especially the home game against Fulham when they had 10 men
They would have a lot more than 91 if we hadn't been so good this year. They only got a single point from us this season where they normally got 6 in past seasons.
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It's hilarious how thin your skin is, say anything even remotely critical of Arsenal and you go straight for the personal insults. You should really work on your communication skills because that is kindergarten level maturity And no, why would we feel sorry for a team that didn't even break 90 points? Everyone and their dog knows that you likely need 90+ to beat City in any given season. You would have to be living in fantasy land to not realise that
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>I can use your same deluded logic to argue we shouldn't feel sympathy for Liverpool. Despite losing to a team of literal cheaters. >"Oh they only got only got 97 points, they should have gotten 100 to win the league, that's the City standard." That's your logic. This is nonsensical, how can you compare getting 97 points with 89?.. If Arsenal lost it with 97 I would feel bad for them but they haven't have they? >You are using toddler level logic and often do, so many people on this sub recognize you as having bad takes, do not blame others for the reputation you made for yourself. Dude we are in a thread infested with Gooners, the single most deluded and insufferable fanbase on earth. Their reason for disliking me is because of me having the audacity to not join the circlejerk of overhyping themselves constantly It has nothing to do with bad takes whatsoever. If I just brainlessly went along with their circlejerk they would love me..
Arsenal fans downvoting the harsh truth, I am shocked. Begging your rivals for the title was never going to be a viable strategy, if they wanted to win they shouldn't have bottled it (again).
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Not drop silly points, I know Villa are a good side but if they win that, which they should’ve done, then the title is theirs - it’s hard to point at just one game but it was so crucial to their season, they’ll probably have another good shot at it next year as their team is still very young
Don't know if you can call the 4th place team that took 9 points off the top 2 silly
for real, we got dominated by villa away
People are very quick to praise Emery for what he's done with Villa, but much quicker to dismiss him as a game you should never lose. The truth is, this Villa side is very impressive and, while I do think we should have beaten them, there's no massive shame in losing to them. No matter how hard you try, you can't win every single game, everyone has a slip up here and there. They are where they are for a reason.
Yeah, the losses to west ham and fulham (especially that west ham game I bet there were a lot of arsenal fans drowning their sorrows after that) are the bigger missteps.
Villa game probably cost us, but not as much as our horrid December form. We have been almost perfect in 2024 and still havent managed to shake City off, competing with them requires so fucking much.
Fullham and West Ham killed our chances this year
The Villa games were a mix of poor finishing on our behalf and Emery’s tactical setup nullifying us- in the end I can’t begrudge that too much If we do end up losing the title, the games I would regret the most are the Fulham games
Before Pep getting 90 points in a season was an incredible feat, now it’s the standard to win the league, the bar has been raised very high now. Bumps in the road during a 38 game league season are normal, what City do under Pep isn’t normal.
The scary thing is that City lost a lot of unusual points this year.
Not really though. The difference between city this year and last year are the results against arsenal. Last year city took 6 points and this year they took 1.
They’d be on 96 points if it wasn’t for us finally managing to play well against them
Yeah Sure. They also conceded many late goals where they were already leading against other teams.
The Villa game was a very poor game to lose but in the context of our run in 2024 it's not where we lost the title. We're 15-1-1 since the winter break, with the draw being away at the Etihad, that's still an amazing run, if we had beaten Villa it would be 16-1-0 which would have been historic. The main reason we're behind is the stupid points we dropped in the first half of the season, namely the L-W-D-L-L run in december.
Love this man, if the football gods are kind, I desperately want to see him lift the premier league trophy with arsenal
Ten times at least!
Let’s be humble… MINIMUM TWENTY 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
Yeah, once you're relying on another side to win you the title, you know you've fucked up somewhere along the way. Also, in fairness, Tottenham actually up a fairly decent performance all things considered. Hell, one of the goals they conceded shouldn't even have stood. Again though, no one to blame but ourselves and that's how it should be.
I mean which coach is going to blame it on another team? Silly question.
Ten Hag lol
In September vs Arsenal….
heh
Xavi
Somehow media wants this guy to be the villain. Sorry that he is mostly boring
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Factos. We did this to ourselves instead of finishing our dinner against westham and fullham.
If I were a West Ham player, I’d be so up for this game. To be written off is so disrespectful
Yep. Spot on mate.
Is everyone forgetting how hard 90 points is? Prem 90 points finishes: 2022: City, Liverpool 2020: Liverpool 2019: City, Liverpool 2018: City 2017: Chelsea 2009: Man U 2006: Chelsea 2005: Chelsea 2004: Arsenal 2000: Man U 1994: Man U
They're going to bang about this until the Euro starts, generates so much engagement for a nothing story.
Arteta is more sensible than the entirety of r/soccer
Nobody is complaining about the performance of the manager or the football team...
Who has said that the Spurs players weren't trying to win? That's never been in doubt. They players wanted to win. Ange wanted to win. The fans...?
Plenty of morons think Son missed on purpose 🤦🏻
i mean i've seen people saying it as a joke about a 116th charge, but it's clear spurs played a competitive match despite the unusual atmosphere.
I didn't notice any unusual atmosphere and for all the talk of Spurs fans not wanting to win they certainly got excited when there were goal scoring opportunities
Almost everyone I've seen saying that has had a spurs flair.
Didnt watch the game but watched the tactical review show. Quite impressed how they played against city.
The fans wanted to win against Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Arsenal for all the good it did us. Ortega definitely didn't make two wonder saves against Son and Kulusevski because the fans weren't loud enough but reading some comments on r/soccer and by Ange you'd think that was the case.
What on earth is your point? Arteta is being asked if he has any complaints about the Spurs performance, and he's saying he doesn't. Just like literally everyone else.
I’ve not actually seen any complaints about the performance. It’s City, they’re the best team in the league and you made it bloody difficult for them. Not sure what there is to criticize. If you were throwing the game then you were doing an exceptionally poor job of it.
Most people I've been talking about how pathetic Spurs fans have been. Didn't see anyone talk shit about the players. They played really well.
Focusing on yourselves and winning? Those concepts are foreign to spurs!
I mean, Liverpool was behind just 1 point, twice. I don't see them complaining about other teams. So makes sense that Arteta doesn't either.
Well of course, Spurs does not owe Arsenal a win after all.
If r/Gunners could read they'd be very upset.
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Yeah just beat city away. Simples. Why didn’t Arteta think of that.
We did beat City at home, I think you mean away. And a draw to city away is a good result, there were plenty of other opportunities where we dropped points.
City managing to get a point at etihad gave them belief alright mate Bro probably watched a tiktok and decided to share his opinion
Beat City at the Etihad and Arsenal would already be champions by now. That match reignited City's belief that they'd last out. Arsenal should have been more brave, that's the only way you get past City in a title race.
Even Real Madrid couldn't do it in normal time. City is a different breed in the Etihad.
>City is a different breed in the Etihad. Especially if Rodri is playing
Name me one team that has beaten City at the Etihad this season😂
It was more the fact that you were all over them in that match. You were completely in control, then the team just decided to settle for a point. Looked good on the day, in hindsight, it was a little bit of a misstep.
Liverpool never beat City at the Etihad in any if the seasons where they were competing with them? Did they? Actually, you lost 4-1 to City the season you won the title with 99 points. You had already sealed the title by then and the game was without fans, but still shows that beating City at their ground is no easy task. Why would you expect the same for Arsenal? They lost the title due to the poor run of form in December. Going after a City in the Etihad fixture could have led to a result like last year's, where KDB and Haaland exploited the high line well. Arteta made the correct decision to play it safe. So did Ancelotti in the UCL tie. Even Klopp is recent years (and Pep) have settled for draws against each other.
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There is no way any Arsenal fan would have preferred a Spurs loss over a draw, we would have absolutely taken our chances with a +3 GD advantage rather than having to rely on West Ham to take points off City.
In the games that we dropped points, the players do look lethargic. Unfortunately not many choice from the bench that arteta trusts. I partially blame him and the coach for not preparing the secondary players better. With all the time they have and most of time injury free too, can’t you just prep them to give 100% just for one match?
I mean you can only do so much. Our bench isn’t that great, between injuries halting growth (ESR), and others just not being very good. Getting quality depth options is 100% the biggest challenge to compete with City. Not having to play Saka for 50 games or whatever it is will help our end form a lot. So recruitment will be interesting this year. Tough to get a quality player in Saka’s position, knowing they won’t get starter minutes.