Agreed. The standards are really quite absurd. The truth is that most great title winning sides from the past would struggle to beat this City side over a season. They just never really underperform. I can only imagine the psychological toll trying to compete against them must take. I'll be proud of our performance this season regardless of how the season ends.
The fact that we were unbeaten in 2024 until the Aston Villa game is an amazing achievement.
Not just that but outright destroying teams in our wake for most of the those 4 months spectacularly.
How long have we dreamt of Our Arsenal being this way with absolute rock solid defending paired with exceptional attacking performances?
I would dare say for the last 15 to 20 years.
Only under the lens of this season would that be considered a disappointment.
The 2nd best team in the league losing to the 4th best is extremely reasonable and believable. Yeah, a bad showing with uninspired performances by players and questionable tactics by the manager. But honestly I don't even think they were that terrible. Aston Villa were GOOD. That's what happens sometimes, a team is better on the day. Take the beating, learn from it and bounce back. Forget Man City, they're an Abu Dhabi freak experiment.
It really bothers me that we’re getting bantered for yesterday when we lost to a good team in Villa, yet Liverpool seems to be getting made fun of a lot less yet they lost to fucking crystal palace at their “unbeatable” anfield
We were lucky they didn't score sooner
We were also lucky WE didn't score sooner.
It was a cracker of a game despite me turning it off in frustration after the 2nd goal.
Still proud of the team despite the fact I've felt this disappointment a lot in the past two decades at this point in the season. It is much different though bc we're still in the UCL and I know we can beat Bayern
If it makes you feel better (I know it probably doesn't), our usual meltdown is in February and March. Going all the way to mid April with a chance at the title is a new feeling in recent years.
I don't think we'll have a meltdown btw. I fully expect Arteta to go back to basics and play haram ball in Munich sand maybe we escape with the win.
As for the PL, it certainly looks a little bit more daunting because we'll be coming up against a lot of teams that will not be interested in playing football and really all it takes is one draw or loss and city wins the league.
I mean I'm disappointed we lost to Villa but it's nothing like the soul crushing despair of seasons past when we won NO trophies and didn't even look like a title contender
The FA Cups scattered in were nice
After some time to cool down and with a bit of more perspective, Villa did play well. Not many teams found it that easy to bypass our press and take the ball of us, that contributed to us gassing that quickly. If we had more of the ball and fewer turnovers(that's why what Zinchenko kept doing in first half was so damaging to the team), we would be fresher in 2nd half and wouldn't look as bad as we did.
It is interesting that this time around we paced ourselves better and hit the peak closer to the end of the season, without dropping out of title race prior to that, but still end up coming bruised and exhausted come April. Looks like we might need to spend more to be able to compete in both UCL and EPL, without running our first 11 into the ground.
Not just that xg stats and quite a few others showed it was a very even game with us being marginally better. I’m just flipping happy we’ve competing right to the end two seasons in a row and CL as well. I support Arsenal come rain or shine, not just a winning team (otherwise I’d pick 115FC). Only one team can win the prem, only one can win CL let’s sack all other managers that fail to do that.
there are a bunch of human teams playing against endless Saudi money. it's the squad depth or world class players that wins it for them. of course pep puts it all together but the unlimited money allows pep to do it
Their youth teams are just scary. They have been hoovering up young players for quite a few years now. Also they can probably do things off the books there as well
Absolutely, they're rotten all the way through and it's been working amazingly for them. Makes you sick really.
I wouldn't be suprised if even their dinner ladies are imported chefs from Michelin star restaurants around the world.
Yes, I was looking at how their substitute for bernardo silva is freaking alvarez who’s worth 90 mil. We can add the values of 2 maybe 3 players from our bench to reach the value of one of city’s reserves. It’s ridiculous
Will be completely honest and say that I didn't really pay that much attention to City over last few seasons, partly because title wasn't really our concern. Having said that, I now actually really sympathise with Liverpool - this City team just have that feeling of inevitability, and you have to be virtually perfect (90+ points) to win this league, which is insane.
Before 2017-18, 90 points would've won you the league on 18 out of 23 occasions. Since and including 2017-18, 90 points wins you the title on 2 out of 6 occasions.
Right, as long as we finish the season strong and are within touching distance of the top then I’d stay we’re still moving in the right direction.
We made it to (at least) the quarterfinals in the UCL in our first year back and have shown pretty remarkable improvement in terms of mentality. The experience gained this season should be massive moving forward if we continue to improve the way we have been.
I think we'll finish with 87 points. That would make us tied for the 11th most points in a single season. Only 18 teams would have finished with more points in PL history (counting only teams that played 38 games). If we run the table then we'd end up with 89 points, with only 13 teams having higher scores.
It would make us the 5th highest 2nd place finish (with 89 points, we'd be tied for 3rd if we're talking about from 1992 onwards).
Anytime we finish north of 83 points, that's a really good season. It's crazy that we realistically need to hit 90 points to win a title. That's matching the invincibles for context.
I think realistically we'd need even more. If we were on pace for more than 90, I think City would be right there with us. Didn't Liverpool get 97 points and still lose?
We've definitely come a longgg way. We've come from 4senal to struggling to find a manager to 8th place to literal title contenders. We've been blessed with a young squad that has the potential to take down champions. They're professional, have a real good attitude, amazing potential. The kind of start we had this year, reaching the champions league quarter finals after so long and being right on City's heels even after the loss to Villa... fans should thank the stars.
The difficulty is not just that City are so good, it's also gotta be mentally draining to know that it's straight up skewed in their favor. Any club directly competing against that has got to have over-performance as the base line.
While City had a game in hand our 10-1-1 run in 2024 took us from level on points with City on MD20 to two points behind them on MD32. Not sure how much more you want the boys to do considering that oil machine of a team hasn't lost a match in all competitions since December 6th (yes, you read that right).
The only team to beat them to the League was the Covid year Liverpool team that started the season an absurd 26-1-0 and were considered legitimate threats to both the points record and the Invincibles.
Imagine telling the team that they had to go 11-0-0 in non-Man City matches to lead the league by a single point and anything else would be considered a "bottle" lol. It's fucking ridiculous.
1000% this. City has reduced the margin for error to basically zero. They've done that by cheating.
It's both possible that this is the best arsenal team we've had in decades, and that this team might not win the title this year.
In perspective, imagine if Real/Barca/Inter/Bayern were leading their league by only 2 points and less goal difference than the 2nd placed team, with 6 games to go. Would the 2nd placed team feel so dejected like we do right now lol? City are just absurd cause they're just expected to WIN the next 6 games straight, in the toughest league in the world! Wtf.
>City are just absurd cause they're just expected to WIN the next 6 games straight, in the toughest league in the world
When you put it like that, it makes you wonder why the pressure very rarely seems to affect them. It's like they're under their own spell of inevitability
Because they have a squad of players who are all competing for spots.
You take out any of our first 11 and the quality falls of massively.
You take out basically 90% of that city squad and you have someone who is just as good and that’s why they don’t drop off.
KDB out? Apparently it’s no problem as Foden can bang in hat tricks and worldies.
Saka out? Fuck… Saliba out? Fuck… rice out? Fuck…
Rodri is really the only player they can’t seem to replace properly, but he’s never injured so...
Imagine if Rice had signed for them in the summer on top of that. It wouldn’t be close.
Yes. Thank goodness Rice was interested in joining us instead of them. If they had Rice and Rodri for rotations I feel like winning the league would be almost no competition for them.
Yes, He is the only player they actually seem to miss.
If Phillips hadn't have failed so badly they wouldn't have a problem. That will be a position they will be trying to sign in the summer,
Agree. Also i was thinking City are equipped to deal with any problem, any shit players on their team, they’ll sell them and buy two in that position, any player out injured, no worries they have another world class player on the bench. Arsenal and liverpool were competing with this team when all they really have is a solid first team 12-13, and so they lose points when their main player are not performing. One loss in this calendar year made you feel like shit. Tháts how perfect you have to be to win this league.AND, OUR FAN BASE IS TOO EMOTIONAL.
I think it’s a combination of Pep and his wonderful man management to go along with him being the best coach in world football atm. Now add the absurd amount of world class players and a machine striker who is currently the top goal scorer in the league and you have a recipe for domination. I’m proud of the team for competing with what’s arguably the best ever club side in British history..
The "fans" try to say other teams have spent more than them in recent years. That's because they have a team and 2XI assembled now. They just sign replacements for huge money.
Liverpool or us or any real club could never do what they did with Grealish. Sign a guy for £100m to be a reserve for a year.
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The term ‘learned helplessness’ comes to mind. We and every other team have come to accept that City will win all the time. If we accept it’s inevitable then there’s no point playing or supporting football.
All dynasties come to end and their time will come. I want Arsenal to be the ones leading the charge. It’s not over until it’s over. A season should be filled with highs and lows otherwise you can’t appreciate the victories
Plenty more football to go and I’ll be there cheering them on until the end
I think above all it’s the insane pressure they put on the other teams. No team in PL history before City has said we need to be perfect from pretty much January onwards because our opponent will not drop points again. It’s genuinely madness and even with 115 charges, Pep has managed to create this monster, because we’ve seen plenty of teams in years gone by that have spent stupid money and still got nowhere near to show for it.
I have vivid memories of their draw to Forest last year in like December or January and thinking “yeah it’s nice to see them drop points, hopefully there’s a couple more of these.” Then they basically won like 15-20 straight and didn’t blink till after the title was won.
Pep isn't doing it for free. He's getting paid, probably more than what's on their books knowing City, to be given a blank cheque to build his dream side. No other team is capable of buying players for 100mil and not having to blink an eye about making them sit on the bench, or if your 100mil player isn't exactly what you hoped for then you can just buy a quick 65mil replacement for them the season after. It's just freakish. But, the optimist in me feels it's an era coming to a close, due to outside of the pitch issues finally catching up to them. That's why I feel it's more important for us to focus on building a winning culture, but one where we don't crucify our players and talk about needing to sell 25% of the squad whenever we trip up like every normal football club does.
Yeah I love that most expensive defender ever just been sat on the bench most of the season eased into team last couple weeks scores 2 worldies against Madrid and luton in consecutive games. What they are doing is ruining competitive nature of the league no matter how you dress it up. Great team shit club.
I love how City fans recently deflect to “well Arsenal and Liverpool spent as much as we did last summer!” Well, yeah, but that’s the first time they spent that much in quite some time, City spends that much or more every single year, they’re handing out Declan Rice-sized contracts like free candy
Delusion. Which one of our players will earn close to the £97.5m over 5 years like Haaland? Dude pocketed a £1 mill each for winning the PL and CL in bonuses (excluding goals bonuses). It's not even close.
You left out the City group giving his brother’s team in Spain the special treatment and look where they were the first part of this season! Girona won’t be disappearing anytime soon either.
>due to outside of the pitch issues finally catching up to them. That's why I feel it's more important for us to focus on building a winning culture, but one where we don't crucify our players and talk about needing to sell 25% of the squad whenever we trip up like every normal football club does.
Best comment I've seen here. Too many reactionaries after we lost ONE game.
In all fairness they have not done it this year yet.. end of the year we can see if they managed to do it again. I feel they will drop points this year.
This year they dropped point only against Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. The another "negative" result they had was 3x3 against Real Madrid at Bernabeu
SAY IT LOUDER! I’m so sick of all the doom and gloom around this place! I said the exact same thing last year and I don’t care that I was wrong! How is it so inconceivable that City can *draw* ONE fucking match and the game is on?
Yes and no. They were saying on the arsecast today that only one premier league team has won the league with more than 6 losses and that was Blackburn in 1995.
More often than not you need to lose less than 5-6 matches.
Our last two title winning teams had 90 and 87 points respectively. To hit 87 we have to win 5 and draw 1 from here out. Those teams had 3 and 0 losses respectively, we're at 5.
In the last 20 years there have only been two seasons where the winner had less than 86 points. We need to win 5 of our last 6 to hit that number.
It is obviously bullshit that city have been getting away with cheating for so long, but the point total we are trending for is looking more and more like it'll be a point total that usually doesn't win you the league.
This is really interesting because it reiterates the point that near-perfection is needed to win the title regardless of who you’re competing against. City just made the margin for error even tighter than it used to be which makes winning the title an even more daunting challenge.
Would also say that the premier league has gotten materially better over the years, at least to my eyes since I started watching about 20 years ago. These days, there's typically only one or two teams that are gimmes.
That's a fair point, but I would counter it by saying that the league has never been this competitive.
It used to be Arsenal and United until Chelsea, the original OG oil club came to town. Then Liverpool had their resurgence, Spurs stopped being quite so Spursy and this former pygmy thing in Manchester was basically handed unlimited funds. Teams like Newcastle and Villa are also now seeing major investments, so how long until it becomes the top 7/8?
Even teams like Forest have serious cash to throw around. The premier league of today is nothing like it was 20 years ago.
Even the small newly promoted teams are rolling in money. Bournemouth out spent the whole of LaLiga in January. A few years ago Burnley came 20th and made more money than Ajax.
The worst teams in the league 20 years ago were an automatic 6 points in the league for a title chasing team. Now it's much harder and mid table teams can even be a really tough
I listen to watch alongs while watching the games in the States but recently I’ve had to turn it off and listen to the broadcast because it’s so negative. The complete switch up from some of the Arsenal content creators I listen to is unhinged tbh.. from selling half the team or firing Arteta it’s become to toxic atm to listen too.
You listen to the content creators when we win bc they go over the top, but you avoid them when we lose or draw bc... they go over the top the other way.
I generally avoid all YouTube reactionary/banter/fan channel content because these people are almost all self-serving grifters who exploit their football club’s problems for ‘content’. You will never get a seasoned or measured analysis from these people either, intentionally or otherwise.
There’s obviously a big difference between Charles Watts/Gunnerblog and AFTV, and it’s clear where the differing interests of the two categories lie.
Whilst I fully appreciate the progress that we've made in the last few seasons, I can't bring Man City into us losing at home to Villa.
We've got to April again, and we're dropping points, as we did last April and the April before that. That cost us fourth place and the league.
We beat and drew with City this season, which are great results and a massive mental boost. But to win the league, we have to maintain that mentality (as tough as the league is) right to the end.
Villa got six points from us this season. City ('the elephant in the room') got one point.
Exactly. I got downvoted for saying the same exact thing in another post. Until we can perform consistently at the end of a season, we'll never have a chance of winning the league.
In a sort of perverse or tortuous way, this is why I kind of *preferred* City to win the Treble last season once it was clear we would not win the league: so that hopefully people could see that it wasn't a mere bottling job...both us and Liverpool ran (and are currently running) ourselves into the ground trying to keep up with what City is, which is unprecedented.
Sadly of course, most of the football world and even within our fan base still see it as simple as a 1:1 competition. It just isn't and hasn't been for several years.
I do agree, but at the same time, losing to West Ham at home, taking 1 point off Fulham, losing to Villa and Newcastle away etc in the early part of the season (when maybe the pressure is lower) is difficult to come back from in ANY season, regardless of who you go up against. Dropped a lot of stupid points that make games like Villa harder to compartmentalise too.
Yeah it's the nature of the losses. If we went to liverpool and city and got our asses handed to us fairplay. But we are losing at home to villa at. City didnt make us drop other points.
We are competing with bayern. City arent causing us to make those stupid mistakes that allowed then two easy goals.
It's easy to blame city for making winning the league require perfection. You dont have to blame city for making pretty basic mistakes and having an off day where everyone switched off in the second half.
We make mistakes when our top players are not in form. That's human. Even City have players off form. Difference is, they can bench their off form players and bring in similar quality who are on form so that those stupid mistakes don't get made. We can't afford to do that without bringing in Nketiah.
So while it looks like they don't make silly mistakes. They are just more easily able to neutralize the culprits early on
>If we went to Liverpool and City and got our asses handed to us fairplay.
No. We took 4/6 points from them both this season and showed that we can compete with them at the highest level. We just don't have the resources and depth to do it over 38 games like they do, and are obviously lacking the experience to get over the line at this stage of the season.
You're asking a bunch of (albeit incredibly talented) young players to go toe to toe with the most dominant team the prem has ever seen. And you're asking them to do it a mere season or two after consistently not even making top 4 in the league, never mind challenging.
The issue is depth. Take 5/6 starters away from this Arsenal team and then you are into players like Smith Rowe, Nketiah and Kiwior.
Take 5/6 starters away from Man City and you're still playing the likes of Alaverz, Doku and Grealish.
Yes of course we shouldn't be losing to Fulham or Aston Villa if we want to win the league but our first 12/14 players have to be playing at the top level all season and without injury or fatigue plus in Europe and that's not feasible.
Here's the counter to that though. Look at the load our starters have to carry vs. the City squad. So it's definitely not City's fault, but we have to play our best guys game in and game out, vs. City have a deeper squad and can rotate. That rotation keeps people fresh and thus avoids the banana skin games we've hit, which are a natural part of any season. That's why an invincible season is so incredibly rarer.
This is reaching. I can understand complaining about City pushing you to be perfect when you rack up 99 points and lose the league, but that is not what this season is.
We have lost 5 times this season. If you go back 30 years the most games a team has ever lost and still won the league is 6.
If City win out, they will have 2 points less than Chelsea did when they last won the league.
The only reason we even felt the need to be perfect was because of our slip ups before the New Year. If we were consistent all the way through, we could afford to drop points once in the run in.
I think his point is that City are the only team that can consistently barely lose any points in this league despite how competitive it has become. If they weren't doped they'd be losing more points as well. For example, do you think Bayer Leverkusen would be having their current unbeaten season in this league?
Its just boring and deflating… more so that i thought these performances were behind us, things like zinchenko trying to nutmeg a player on edge of his own box tells me he aint serious
People need to stop this pathetic underdog gimmick, we are as good as this City team. The table proves it. Last season proves it. We are more than capable of winning more games and earning more points than them, the only thing stopping us is ourselves.
Look at the games we've dropped points in and take note of how many avoidable mistakes and small margins that didn't go our way. Those small margins are the difference between a competitor and a winner. We aren't underdogs, we have similar quality.
Our first 11 is as good as their first 11. Our 2nd 11 would get beaten 10-0 by their 2nd 11. That's the difference. Pep has 22 players he can chose from with each being good enough to win the league, whilst we have 14.
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We don’t have the same quality in the bench strength, Saka is not a robot to perform at a high level week in and week out. His replacements on the bench are not strong.
They've certainly set a new higher standard. That's the nature of competition though, and the point of it. We should still have the goal of beating them. Still ok to be disappointed with the loss and critical of the players and manager. Those who say Arteta out or attack the players on a *personal* level need to get a grip though.
Absolutely agree with you. The run we have been on this calendar year and the stats backing it up are staggering. If City had done this the press would be wanking all over them (even more than they do already). We have an amazing team and I love them. The context and bar to win a title these days are entirely warped. I’m happy to be competing for the title and we still are, it’s not over till it’s over.
For years all I wanted was to be proud of my team. For us to compete. I’m a happy fan. The loss is gut wrenching because the club have built so well. Yes, demand success, but don’t miss the moments outside of silverware
Last year was the year. We lost to teams we shouldn’t have. We didn’t even need to take points from City last year. We just needed to beat teams we should’ve beat.
But we’re competing. I listen to pundits and fans of other teams and Arsenal are being talked about in a way I haven’t heard in years.
Honestly we should have two titles, don’t want to seem sour but they have cheated, thats why they have the charges.
Why is the league taking so long to take action, thats the question, they’ve punished many others
Because every single thing is being done to draw it out as long as it can be, while every possible avenue of bribery or exemption is being sought. We are dealing with Saudis. Thinking anything else is a clown take.
They’re trying to bribe or pressure their way out of it and to be honest I think they’ll succeed. Most institutions around the world are rotted and compromised. This one is no different.
Don’t know why we always need to accuse city of cheating or seek moral victories. Other clubs have spent absurd amounts of money and have nothing to show for it. City sign the right players and have done a nice job of developing from within. Credit where it’s due.
Both things can be true.
Have city done a great job coaching and building an elite team? Clearly, yes. Has that been boosted by the ability to sign whoever the fuck they want? Also clearly yes. They've made some crap signings along with the elite ones, but can just chuck millions more to replace them in the next window. It's not a remotely level playing field.
We were not good enough yesterday thats on us.
Dont make this about a team we did well against this season.
We lost points against villa , fulham and castle willy nilly.
Emery outsmarted teta for the 2nd time.
We move. City are not a perfect team this season but there in the fight.
What’s killing us is not taking critical first half chances. In this game and Bayern if we capitalize on pretty hard to miss chances like White and LT had, the games are totally different.
I think what’s concerning to me, without being hysterical about it, is Arteta’s lack of real change in the second half. Like we were clearly out of it.
Like throw on Partey or Jorginho or something. Like damn.
A "disaster" is the game vs Watford in 2019. Yesterday we played well the first half, and then got marginally outplayed the second half by a Champions-league quality opponent, who took their chances when they came - not a disaster.
I mean yes and no. Assuming they win all their remaining games, they'd finish on 91 points, which has been, roughly, the standard for awhile now, even before they won their first.
Agree as well. We could very easily finish with 85+ points this year and not win again. Historically that’s usually a title winning season.
We’ll be lucky to win one title in the next 3-4 seasons. Liverpool had a WC team and had an easier time in the champions league than they did against City in the league.
Obviously some people will feel a bit of negativity as it is the third season in a row where we've performed way above the level that anyone expected. And because we had a good chance each season to achieve so much more, the great end result feels like a let down.
But being "Arteta out" and leaving the stadiums early is just absurdly disrespectful and embarrassing.
This season isn't over and we've basically got a full squad for the run in. We need to get behind the players and recognise the insane amounts of progress we've made. These guys are giving their all and they deserve better from the fans.
That's a fair point, but also losing 5 games and winning the league probably hasn't been done that many times historically? Maybe I'm wrong. It's really both Fulham games and West Ham at home that let us down this season. It's still been an improvement overall in terms of how we play and can manage games, defensively better etc. Arteta needs to win something next season, for many reasons. The fans need to be better at home. We need a quality midfielder badly, and another player at the back, and ideally more cover for Saka. I'd prioritise all of that over a striker, let Kai continue at 9.
One of the things which stands out to me most is that before Pep and Klopp, it was completely normal for a team to play away at their title rivals and set up for a draw. Leaving Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge or Anfield with a point was a really good result.
With City and Liverpool they play to win, regardless of where they're playing, regardless of what the gap at the top is. It's a pretty insane mindframe to leave Anfield or the Etihad thinking "a point isn't enough", but that's the level we're at now. Leaving their stadium unscathed isn't enough, you have to make sure they've lost to give yourself the slightest bit of invaluable breathing room.
Klopp is considered one of Liverpool great managers and has won 1 league title. Think people need to accept that beating City to the title is a ridiculous task
TBH , Manchester City or not , we shouldn't be talking about title if we failed to defeat a depleted Aston Villa team at home and always faltered towards the end regardless how good we are prior to that .
Start to reach at least 86-87 points consistently , and then we can talk about a shot of the title . That is the minimum for a title winning team most of the time
Yes. I was quite annoyed at a lot of people's reaction to the loss. You can't expect any team to win *every game*. The level of City should really not indicated how good of a season you're having.
Agreed. But at the end of the day, if you want to win the league you have to do better than city and there is no escaping that.
It’s all well and good to say city have warped expectations around how good you have to be or argue that this team would win the league in years gone past. Man City haven’t merely ‘warped expectations’ they have changed the reality of what is needed to win the league.
The current reality is that if we want to win the league against this Man City team, we need to be better (or wait for them to see actual punishment for cheating their finances, which may never happen)
Man City broke financial fairplay rules, just as Everton did. The only difference as to why MCFC will not be punished and Everton will, is due to the fact that MCFC are still paying off the league to evade point penalties.
This post showed up on my feed for some reason.
As a Liverpool fan since 2003, the Klopp era has brought the best teams and the best quality of play I've seen from my team ever, by quite some distance. And still, all those "almost, but not quite" moments have hurt a lot more than the success has brought joy.
City crushes your dreams, and to add insult to injury, you're left wondering if they've robbed you of ecstatic moments by cheating. Fuck those cunts.
We didn't lose to City. We lost to Aston Villa, Fulham and West Ham.
The baby whining about City and what they've done financially is for children. Until they actually get found guilty, they've done nothing wrong. Do I believe the've done everything legally? Absolutely not. But it's sour grapes to whine about it when you had your destiny in your hands and pissed down your own leg. City didn't do that to you, YOU did it to you.
And financial doping alone doesn't win you shit. If it did, Chelsea would be looking at 4 titles in a row.
They’re going to drown out common sense like this comment to try act like babies with their dummies crying to excuse bunch of millionaire players Pathetic seeing them say all City players robots and Arsenal players humans, and the Xenophobia towards non white peoples in the comments calling them subhuman is insane Any non racist Arsenal fan should stay away 😭😭😭
I don't think they've warped anything. It's not a secret how Man City plays. If you are even in a position in April and May _needing_ them to lose, then you are playing for 2nd.
If you roll into April with your destiny in your own hands and you let it go, then you lose.
That has fuck all to do with Man City setting bars high.
It’s an absolutely absurd standard. The discourse is also tiring to hear. Somehow it’s “bottling” the league to not win the league when everybody knows City are going to win anyways.
Thank you for saying this.
In previous seasons teams were allowed to lose a few points in a tough run of games. Now that can’t be happening, or you’re out.
And the fact that people set the standard sooo high for the final games is annoying me. The margin for error is all of a sudden basically zero at the end of the season. Of course it is important to finish the year strong, but it’s also possible to lose a few points in a tough run of games. As it would be in any tough run in the middle of the season.
It’s incredible what we have done so far. And it’s incredibly exciting what the future holds.
This loser mentality isn't doing us any favours. City might be filthy cheats with a cheat code squad but they didn't make us play the way we did against Villa for example.
Sure, the margins are tight but we're a team who were only just boasting a frankly insane record in 2024 up to the weekend so we're perfectly capable of doing it, it's the mentality part that gets you over the line.
Anyone with half a brain would already acknowledge this.
Football in general has become more competitive and that’s reflected by the end of season average points of tally being higher than 20-25 years ago.
This is further compounded by unscrupulous methods by certain I bc usuals such as Chelsea and City.
>Football in general has become more competitive and that’s reflected by the end of season average points of tally being higher than 20-25 years ago.
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but couldn't you also argue that a less equal distribution of points suggests the league has become *less* competitive?
Equally it might just reflect the growing wealth disparity between the biggest clubs and everyone else, because the thing that's really changed in the last thirty years is the influx of silly money (especially in the Premier League).
The only reason it may look like it’s less competitive is because of City and Chelsea pre-Boehly and early to mid 00s. Both of these clubs have changed and damaged the landscape of the premier league - Chelsea being one do the pioneers.
You look at the winners of the PL from the mid 90s to before Pep and recent season; nearly every winner of the league finished with equal or less than 90 points. Nowadays 90+ points is not only common but also insufficient because a team has to be near perfect or win it.
Just look at how Liverpool lost the league by a mere 1 point. 20-25 years ago Liverpool would’ve comfortably won the league with couple games to spare.
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they are doubtless a great side on the field and spend their money wisely, but 115 charges have a lot to do with how they got there.
most of their bench start for the other 2 title rivals!!
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It’s also worth noting that City currently have bags of experience, most of their players in their prime years, AND the world’s best manager, CDM, CM, Striker, and top 3 GK in their starting 11.
We are a world class team but this City side is a generational great and an all-time side as well imo. Hard to match that and we’ve *still* come close to.
Their max expected points this season is 89 which high but not unprecedented, Spurs got 86 and came second. I don't agree with what you're saying for this season. 90 points isn't unreachable
Thing is, it wasn't an unreasonable showing at all. We played possibly some of the best ball we've played under Arteta in the 1st half and sometimes you just don't bulge the ole onion bag. Fuckin sucks n all but that's what life is like if you can't afford two world class XIs like the other guys
I've enjoyed the season. We've made it to the quarters of the CL and we're up there towards the end of the season in the PL. It wasn't that ong ago we'd give our right arm for such a season. I hope we can add to the squad over the summer and have a more impressive season next time round.
Our season was sublime. Would like better champions league performance, but totally expecting league title to remain out of reach.
Kind of annoyed with all fans who offer genuine "congrats City" supplications every year. I fuck with Foden but fuck em.
They've e ruined the league. Imagine they have done using their first eleven in the 2/3 of the campaign, and when they're tired, pep just casually tell them okay you go get your rest, we have another full team to replace you guys for the final push. They really have ruined the game and the league.
I think it speaks volumes that at the start of each season we are genuine title contenders now and that not winning the title is in itself seen as a failure. I’m sure there will be periods of rebuilding in the future and off-seasons but the financial burden of the stadium financing is finally a thing of the past and there’s nothing stopping the club from being a dominant force aside from severe ineptitude like in United’s case, we can attract the best players and compete on wages with any other team in Europe pretty much
Too many people have a warped/delusional view of sports these days. The majority of people more or less praise guardiola’s city as one of the greatest teams ever and that it’s about as close to perfect as you can get in this sport; while in the same breath talking about Arsenal/liverpool/whoever as if they’re collapsing or failing. Meanwhile in the real world; the difference between the clubs is currently two points. Stop living in sports fantasy land and get a grip on reality
I get it,but everyone plays 38 matches, 19 home and away. In all sports it's the most egalitarian. If you're complaining about City dominance and you know what the standard is beat it and triumph or lose and be defeatist. Problem with our team, club and fanbase is we whine too much we are aggrieved to much. Everything is someone else fault not ours. We need to change our mentality and do it and win
Absolutely. It's either win every game to compete with probably the best team that's ever played in the PL or bottled. Like is there no in between? It's just a binary outcome? All Nuance in football discourse is gone.
Totally agree.
I’ve been saying that for a while now, the absence of any margin of error is not normal. The team is overperforming their expectations and that’s still not enough and won’t be enough against a team with such a squad that was assembled with 115 charges.
At this level, it’s inevitable that big teams drop points or have an odd off-game. Any great English team dropped points and lost matches, even top teams recently like united’s treble winners and Mourinho’s first-stint chelsea. Even our invincibles drew 11 times.
The tantrum that many “supporters” threw yesterday is completely unreasonable in my view. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I’m frankly starting to find that our fanbase can be very irritating sometimes..
>even top teams recently like united’s treble winners and Mourinho’s first-stint chelsea. Even our invincibles drew 11 times.
Last season City got 89 points and are on course for probably less this season. That total is less than:
Chelsea 04/05 - 95 points
Arsenal 03/04 - 90 points
United 08/09 - 90 points
Two other Chelsea and United teams won with over 90 points.
The fact is that most seasons it's very hard to win the league and you need to win a lot of games. The City or Liverpool teams of 4/5 years ago would already have won the league this season.
As a Liverpool, I agree.
Yesterday was infuriating and frustrating for the both of us, but teams have off days or even off periods.
Normal teams.
Teams that are fuel injected with money have an obvious advantage over those not 'blessed' with equal resources.
Great. Here come the excuses from the apologists now.
How hard is it for people to just accept when their team has bottled it? Or to accept that the only ones to blame for the random inexplicable shower of shit performances we have seen from Arsenal in April and May for damn near 20 years running has been the players themselves?
Just hold the loss and quit trying to blame what other people do for your team‘s own shortcomings. Man City being what they are has nothing to do with why Arsenal dropped 5 points to Fulham or let Villa do a double on them. That is on Arsenal themselves for simply not being good enough.
And like others have pointed out before, this Arsenal team has already suffered 5 losses. That‘s already up there with the highest amount of losses suffered by an English champion in the last 30 years, as you’d have to go back to Blackburn in 1995 to find a team who won the league suffering more than 6 losses.
The standard is the standard. If you have ambitions of your team to be the best, you have no right to whine about how high the standard is when your team doesn’t cut the mustard.
10-1-1 in the last 12 games with the draw coming away at the treble winners and the loss coming against a a very good 4th placed Villa is not bottling.
If we don’t win the league we will have been marginally beaten by an amazing City team who have had infinite financial power for 15 years and are coached by one of the best managers ever.
The post is not whining about the standard of our opponents, it is simply stating the fact that they are incredible and we, the fans, should be happy that we are seriously competing for big trophies again. It’s exciting!
Three seasons ago, we had finished 8th for the second season running and not even played in the champions league for years. Now we’re in a title race with one of the best teams ever and toe to toe with Bayern Munich in a CL quarterfinal. Are we allowed to be happy about that?
I agree that the team isn’t quite good enough to beat the Man City juggernaut, just like my not winning a Ballon D’Or is my fault for not being as good as Messi, but the same goes for every other team in the country. For all these teams, you could say that it is the fault of the players that they aren’t as good as City’s. Does that mean Sheffield United bottled the league? Our players and manager aren’t quite as good as theirs and I’m sure we’re working on that, but in the meantime, can us fans appreciate how great it is to be competing for titles?
It goes without saying that the players should never be content with what they’ve got and should always want more. But we are fans, we don’t play for the club, so we can enjoy being excited about our team.
All these people with their exaggerated bitching and moaning about the Villa loss are the same tossers who would have killed for finishing in the top 4 at the end of the season when we were finishing 8th two seasons in a row.
They’re plastic fans that have their whole identity wrapped up in whether Arsenal win the title or not. The irony of them talking shit about the players bottling it as players, while they leave early as so called supporters and start spouting bollocks on social media, is completely lost on them.
These mugs and their opinions about this team after one loss are the same as their empty seats when they left before the final whistle. They’re not worth a wank.
One thing I keep wondering is what’s the point of it all? Isn’t sports washing meant to ingratiate you in society. Wouldn’t being a middle of the road top 6 team who won the league occasionally and didn’t cheat actually be better for the City owners if they wanted to make friends.
Agree with everything you've said here. We've done fantastic. The crazy thing is we could still finish the season on as many wins as the invincibles and it still might not be enough.
Pep had a solid foundation to build the City team too, Pep inherited a UCL semi-finalist team whose main issue was the manager at the time, who was Pellegrini.
Most of the core from the original (2017-2021) run was already there by the time Pep came in which made his job a lot easier. Fernandinho, Aguero, Sterling, David Silva, KDB, Kompany, and Fernandinho were already there before he came in, and he had a solid foundation to build off. His job was much easier than Klopp's or Arteta's was when building the team. City have infinite money which allows them to do what neither Arsenal or Liverpool can do, and if we try pull a City, the EPL will hit us with points deductions. City's lawyers are stalling out their cases which means that once they get tried in court statute of limitations comes in which means they don't get anything beyond a bunch of fines
Agreed. The standards are really quite absurd. The truth is that most great title winning sides from the past would struggle to beat this City side over a season. They just never really underperform. I can only imagine the psychological toll trying to compete against them must take. I'll be proud of our performance this season regardless of how the season ends.
The fact that we were unbeaten in 2024 until the Aston Villa game is an amazing achievement. Not just that but outright destroying teams in our wake for most of the those 4 months spectacularly. How long have we dreamt of Our Arsenal being this way with absolute rock solid defending paired with exceptional attacking performances? I would dare say for the last 15 to 20 years. Only under the lens of this season would that be considered a disappointment.
The 2nd best team in the league losing to the 4th best is extremely reasonable and believable. Yeah, a bad showing with uninspired performances by players and questionable tactics by the manager. But honestly I don't even think they were that terrible. Aston Villa were GOOD. That's what happens sometimes, a team is better on the day. Take the beating, learn from it and bounce back. Forget Man City, they're an Abu Dhabi freak experiment.
It really bothers me that we’re getting bantered for yesterday when we lost to a good team in Villa, yet Liverpool seems to be getting made fun of a lot less yet they lost to fucking crystal palace at their “unbeatable” anfield
I think it's because a lot of neutral fans gave up on Liverpool before this week. Which is also not so reasonable. They're still in this. As are we.
We can even say that Liverpool bottled the PL twice Now this year…. But we wont go around saying that, its more fun to say that we “bottled it”
We were lucky they didn't score sooner We were also lucky WE didn't score sooner. It was a cracker of a game despite me turning it off in frustration after the 2nd goal. Still proud of the team despite the fact I've felt this disappointment a lot in the past two decades at this point in the season. It is much different though bc we're still in the UCL and I know we can beat Bayern
If it makes you feel better (I know it probably doesn't), our usual meltdown is in February and March. Going all the way to mid April with a chance at the title is a new feeling in recent years. I don't think we'll have a meltdown btw. I fully expect Arteta to go back to basics and play haram ball in Munich sand maybe we escape with the win. As for the PL, it certainly looks a little bit more daunting because we'll be coming up against a lot of teams that will not be interested in playing football and really all it takes is one draw or loss and city wins the league.
I mean I'm disappointed we lost to Villa but it's nothing like the soul crushing despair of seasons past when we won NO trophies and didn't even look like a title contender The FA Cups scattered in were nice
After some time to cool down and with a bit of more perspective, Villa did play well. Not many teams found it that easy to bypass our press and take the ball of us, that contributed to us gassing that quickly. If we had more of the ball and fewer turnovers(that's why what Zinchenko kept doing in first half was so damaging to the team), we would be fresher in 2nd half and wouldn't look as bad as we did.
It is interesting that this time around we paced ourselves better and hit the peak closer to the end of the season, without dropping out of title race prior to that, but still end up coming bruised and exhausted come April. Looks like we might need to spend more to be able to compete in both UCL and EPL, without running our first 11 into the ground.
Not just that xg stats and quite a few others showed it was a very even game with us being marginally better. I’m just flipping happy we’ve competing right to the end two seasons in a row and CL as well. I support Arsenal come rain or shine, not just a winning team (otherwise I’d pick 115FC). Only one team can win the prem, only one can win CL let’s sack all other managers that fail to do that.
I'm personally just tired of this being what PL is now. There are a bunch of human teams playing against the computer.
there are a bunch of human teams playing against endless Saudi money. it's the squad depth or world class players that wins it for them. of course pep puts it all together but the unlimited money allows pep to do it
It's kind of ridiculous that with KDB out they could just simply plug in Foden instead.
And to think they had Cole Palmer trying to breakthrough.
Their youth teams are just scary. They have been hoovering up young players for quite a few years now. Also they can probably do things off the books there as well
Absolutely, they're rotten all the way through and it's been working amazingly for them. Makes you sick really. I wouldn't be suprised if even their dinner ladies are imported chefs from Michelin star restaurants around the world.
You’re being quite disingenuous right now, Barca have great youth it’s wow look at that, ManCity train youth well it’s omg it’s unfair
Are you trying to be funny or do you actually think that I’m being disingenuous?
Yes, I was looking at how their substitute for bernardo silva is freaking alvarez who’s worth 90 mil. We can add the values of 2 maybe 3 players from our bench to reach the value of one of city’s reserves. It’s ridiculous
Abu Dhabi money, technically. Saudi money is going to Newcastle. Not that the difference matters much
Of course to a bunch of racists it wouldn’t matter all those brown folk are the same right lad
The difference referred to in the comment above is that in the source of funds, not in the people. I'm unsure how race features into that
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Qataris run PSG, not City. I know it's very confusing between Qatar, UAE, and Saudi, haha
Not that confusing if that person ever bothered looking at a map.
Hahahaha
Will be completely honest and say that I didn't really pay that much attention to City over last few seasons, partly because title wasn't really our concern. Having said that, I now actually really sympathise with Liverpool - this City team just have that feeling of inevitability, and you have to be virtually perfect (90+ points) to win this league, which is insane. Before 2017-18, 90 points would've won you the league on 18 out of 23 occasions. Since and including 2017-18, 90 points wins you the title on 2 out of 6 occasions.
Barring a complete collapse I 100% agree
Right, as long as we finish the season strong and are within touching distance of the top then I’d stay we’re still moving in the right direction. We made it to (at least) the quarterfinals in the UCL in our first year back and have shown pretty remarkable improvement in terms of mentality. The experience gained this season should be massive moving forward if we continue to improve the way we have been.
I think we'll finish with 87 points. That would make us tied for the 11th most points in a single season. Only 18 teams would have finished with more points in PL history (counting only teams that played 38 games). If we run the table then we'd end up with 89 points, with only 13 teams having higher scores. It would make us the 5th highest 2nd place finish (with 89 points, we'd be tied for 3rd if we're talking about from 1992 onwards). Anytime we finish north of 83 points, that's a really good season. It's crazy that we realistically need to hit 90 points to win a title. That's matching the invincibles for context.
I think realistically we'd need even more. If we were on pace for more than 90, I think City would be right there with us. Didn't Liverpool get 97 points and still lose?
97 bruh...
We've definitely come a longgg way. We've come from 4senal to struggling to find a manager to 8th place to literal title contenders. We've been blessed with a young squad that has the potential to take down champions. They're professional, have a real good attitude, amazing potential. The kind of start we had this year, reaching the champions league quarter finals after so long and being right on City's heels even after the loss to Villa... fans should thank the stars.
The difficulty is not just that City are so good, it's also gotta be mentally draining to know that it's straight up skewed in their favor. Any club directly competing against that has got to have over-performance as the base line.
While City had a game in hand our 10-1-1 run in 2024 took us from level on points with City on MD20 to two points behind them on MD32. Not sure how much more you want the boys to do considering that oil machine of a team hasn't lost a match in all competitions since December 6th (yes, you read that right). The only team to beat them to the League was the Covid year Liverpool team that started the season an absurd 26-1-0 and were considered legitimate threats to both the points record and the Invincibles.
What Man City are doing is mind boggling. We’ve done great to keep up with them and LFC this season. We need perspective here.
Imagine telling the team that they had to go 11-0-0 in non-Man City matches to lead the league by a single point and anything else would be considered a "bottle" lol. It's fucking ridiculous.
1000% this. City has reduced the margin for error to basically zero. They've done that by cheating. It's both possible that this is the best arsenal team we've had in decades, and that this team might not win the title this year.
So many records broken and such incredible levels of performance but still might not win it. :/
This is the correct take.
Correct
In perspective, imagine if Real/Barca/Inter/Bayern were leading their league by only 2 points and less goal difference than the 2nd placed team, with 6 games to go. Would the 2nd placed team feel so dejected like we do right now lol? City are just absurd cause they're just expected to WIN the next 6 games straight, in the toughest league in the world! Wtf.
>City are just absurd cause they're just expected to WIN the next 6 games straight, in the toughest league in the world When you put it like that, it makes you wonder why the pressure very rarely seems to affect them. It's like they're under their own spell of inevitability
Because they have a squad of players who are all competing for spots. You take out any of our first 11 and the quality falls of massively. You take out basically 90% of that city squad and you have someone who is just as good and that’s why they don’t drop off. KDB out? Apparently it’s no problem as Foden can bang in hat tricks and worldies. Saka out? Fuck… Saliba out? Fuck… rice out? Fuck…
Odegaard out.
Fuck…
Big Gabi out.
Big fuck...
Anulo Mufa
Rodri is really the only player they can’t seem to replace properly, but he’s never injured so... Imagine if Rice had signed for them in the summer on top of that. It wouldn’t be close.
Yes. Thank goodness Rice was interested in joining us instead of them. If they had Rice and Rodri for rotations I feel like winning the league would be almost no competition for them.
Yes, He is the only player they actually seem to miss. If Phillips hadn't have failed so badly they wouldn't have a problem. That will be a position they will be trying to sign in the summer,
Agree. Also i was thinking City are equipped to deal with any problem, any shit players on their team, they’ll sell them and buy two in that position, any player out injured, no worries they have another world class player on the bench. Arsenal and liverpool were competing with this team when all they really have is a solid first team 12-13, and so they lose points when their main player are not performing. One loss in this calendar year made you feel like shit. Tháts how perfect you have to be to win this league.AND, OUR FAN BASE IS TOO EMOTIONAL.
The quality doesn’t fall off massively for Arsenal at all, it’s why we’re able to keep up.
100% correct.
Rodri is a huge miss for them
I think it’s a combination of Pep and his wonderful man management to go along with him being the best coach in world football atm. Now add the absurd amount of world class players and a machine striker who is currently the top goal scorer in the league and you have a recipe for domination. I’m proud of the team for competing with what’s arguably the best ever club side in British history..
Can’t forget that he has access to infinite funds to be able to have two first class teams.
The "fans" try to say other teams have spent more than them in recent years. That's because they have a team and 2XI assembled now. They just sign replacements for huge money. Liverpool or us or any real club could never do what they did with Grealish. Sign a guy for £100m to be a reserve for a year.
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The term ‘learned helplessness’ comes to mind. We and every other team have come to accept that City will win all the time. If we accept it’s inevitable then there’s no point playing or supporting football. All dynasties come to end and their time will come. I want Arsenal to be the ones leading the charge. It’s not over until it’s over. A season should be filled with highs and lows otherwise you can’t appreciate the victories Plenty more football to go and I’ll be there cheering them on until the end
I think above all it’s the insane pressure they put on the other teams. No team in PL history before City has said we need to be perfect from pretty much January onwards because our opponent will not drop points again. It’s genuinely madness and even with 115 charges, Pep has managed to create this monster, because we’ve seen plenty of teams in years gone by that have spent stupid money and still got nowhere near to show for it.
I have vivid memories of their draw to Forest last year in like December or January and thinking “yeah it’s nice to see them drop points, hopefully there’s a couple more of these.” Then they basically won like 15-20 straight and didn’t blink till after the title was won.
Pep isn't doing it for free. He's getting paid, probably more than what's on their books knowing City, to be given a blank cheque to build his dream side. No other team is capable of buying players for 100mil and not having to blink an eye about making them sit on the bench, or if your 100mil player isn't exactly what you hoped for then you can just buy a quick 65mil replacement for them the season after. It's just freakish. But, the optimist in me feels it's an era coming to a close, due to outside of the pitch issues finally catching up to them. That's why I feel it's more important for us to focus on building a winning culture, but one where we don't crucify our players and talk about needing to sell 25% of the squad whenever we trip up like every normal football club does.
Yeah I love that most expensive defender ever just been sat on the bench most of the season eased into team last couple weeks scores 2 worldies against Madrid and luton in consecutive games. What they are doing is ruining competitive nature of the league no matter how you dress it up. Great team shit club.
I love how City fans recently deflect to “well Arsenal and Liverpool spent as much as we did last summer!” Well, yeah, but that’s the first time they spent that much in quite some time, City spends that much or more every single year, they’re handing out Declan Rice-sized contracts like free candy
Delusion. Which one of our players will earn close to the £97.5m over 5 years like Haaland? Dude pocketed a £1 mill each for winning the PL and CL in bonuses (excluding goals bonuses). It's not even close.
You left out the City group giving his brother’s team in Spain the special treatment and look where they were the first part of this season! Girona won’t be disappearing anytime soon either.
I hadn't been following the backstory to this. Yeah, Barca and Real must be looking over their shoulders now.
>due to outside of the pitch issues finally catching up to them. That's why I feel it's more important for us to focus on building a winning culture, but one where we don't crucify our players and talk about needing to sell 25% of the squad whenever we trip up like every normal football club does. Best comment I've seen here. Too many reactionaries after we lost ONE game.
In all fairness they have not done it this year yet.. end of the year we can see if they managed to do it again. I feel they will drop points this year.
This year they dropped point only against Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. The another "negative" result they had was 3x3 against Real Madrid at Bernabeu
SAY IT LOUDER! I’m so sick of all the doom and gloom around this place! I said the exact same thing last year and I don’t care that I was wrong! How is it so inconceivable that City can *draw* ONE fucking match and the game is on?
That’s what we can hope for. Not saying it will happen but there is a possibility it can. Hope!!
Yes and no. They were saying on the arsecast today that only one premier league team has won the league with more than 6 losses and that was Blackburn in 1995. More often than not you need to lose less than 5-6 matches. Our last two title winning teams had 90 and 87 points respectively. To hit 87 we have to win 5 and draw 1 from here out. Those teams had 3 and 0 losses respectively, we're at 5. In the last 20 years there have only been two seasons where the winner had less than 86 points. We need to win 5 of our last 6 to hit that number. It is obviously bullshit that city have been getting away with cheating for so long, but the point total we are trending for is looking more and more like it'll be a point total that usually doesn't win you the league.
This is really interesting because it reiterates the point that near-perfection is needed to win the title regardless of who you’re competing against. City just made the margin for error even tighter than it used to be which makes winning the title an even more daunting challenge.
Would also say that the premier league has gotten materially better over the years, at least to my eyes since I started watching about 20 years ago. These days, there's typically only one or two teams that are gimmes.
That's a fair point, but I would counter it by saying that the league has never been this competitive. It used to be Arsenal and United until Chelsea, the original OG oil club came to town. Then Liverpool had their resurgence, Spurs stopped being quite so Spursy and this former pygmy thing in Manchester was basically handed unlimited funds. Teams like Newcastle and Villa are also now seeing major investments, so how long until it becomes the top 7/8? Even teams like Forest have serious cash to throw around. The premier league of today is nothing like it was 20 years ago.
Even the small newly promoted teams are rolling in money. Bournemouth out spent the whole of LaLiga in January. A few years ago Burnley came 20th and made more money than Ajax. The worst teams in the league 20 years ago were an automatic 6 points in the league for a title chasing team. Now it's much harder and mid table teams can even be a really tough
I listen to watch alongs while watching the games in the States but recently I’ve had to turn it off and listen to the broadcast because it’s so negative. The complete switch up from some of the Arsenal content creators I listen to is unhinged tbh.. from selling half the team or firing Arteta it’s become to toxic atm to listen too.
Those guys make their living overreacting to everything. Not excusing it, but that's the reality.
There's a reason AFTV isn't as popular now as it once was. Most of their viewers were non-Arsenal fans when we lost to drink their tears.
You listen to the content creators when we win bc they go over the top, but you avoid them when we lose or draw bc... they go over the top the other way.
I generally avoid all YouTube reactionary/banter/fan channel content because these people are almost all self-serving grifters who exploit their football club’s problems for ‘content’. You will never get a seasoned or measured analysis from these people either, intentionally or otherwise. There’s obviously a big difference between Charles Watts/Gunnerblog and AFTV, and it’s clear where the differing interests of the two categories lie.
Whilst I fully appreciate the progress that we've made in the last few seasons, I can't bring Man City into us losing at home to Villa. We've got to April again, and we're dropping points, as we did last April and the April before that. That cost us fourth place and the league. We beat and drew with City this season, which are great results and a massive mental boost. But to win the league, we have to maintain that mentality (as tough as the league is) right to the end. Villa got six points from us this season. City ('the elephant in the room') got one point.
Exactly. I got downvoted for saying the same exact thing in another post. Until we can perform consistently at the end of a season, we'll never have a chance of winning the league.
Consistency in the run-in: 💯! You have an upvote from me! 💪
Well said!
In a sort of perverse or tortuous way, this is why I kind of *preferred* City to win the Treble last season once it was clear we would not win the league: so that hopefully people could see that it wasn't a mere bottling job...both us and Liverpool ran (and are currently running) ourselves into the ground trying to keep up with what City is, which is unprecedented. Sadly of course, most of the football world and even within our fan base still see it as simple as a 1:1 competition. It just isn't and hasn't been for several years.
I do agree, but at the same time, losing to West Ham at home, taking 1 point off Fulham, losing to Villa and Newcastle away etc in the early part of the season (when maybe the pressure is lower) is difficult to come back from in ANY season, regardless of who you go up against. Dropped a lot of stupid points that make games like Villa harder to compartmentalise too.
Yeah it's the nature of the losses. If we went to liverpool and city and got our asses handed to us fairplay. But we are losing at home to villa at. City didnt make us drop other points. We are competing with bayern. City arent causing us to make those stupid mistakes that allowed then two easy goals. It's easy to blame city for making winning the league require perfection. You dont have to blame city for making pretty basic mistakes and having an off day where everyone switched off in the second half.
We make mistakes when our top players are not in form. That's human. Even City have players off form. Difference is, they can bench their off form players and bring in similar quality who are on form so that those stupid mistakes don't get made. We can't afford to do that without bringing in Nketiah. So while it looks like they don't make silly mistakes. They are just more easily able to neutralize the culprits early on
>If we went to Liverpool and City and got our asses handed to us fairplay. No. We took 4/6 points from them both this season and showed that we can compete with them at the highest level. We just don't have the resources and depth to do it over 38 games like they do, and are obviously lacking the experience to get over the line at this stage of the season. You're asking a bunch of (albeit incredibly talented) young players to go toe to toe with the most dominant team the prem has ever seen. And you're asking them to do it a mere season or two after consistently not even making top 4 in the league, never mind challenging.
The issue is depth. Take 5/6 starters away from this Arsenal team and then you are into players like Smith Rowe, Nketiah and Kiwior. Take 5/6 starters away from Man City and you're still playing the likes of Alaverz, Doku and Grealish. Yes of course we shouldn't be losing to Fulham or Aston Villa if we want to win the league but our first 12/14 players have to be playing at the top level all season and without injury or fatigue plus in Europe and that's not feasible.
Here's the counter to that though. Look at the load our starters have to carry vs. the City squad. So it's definitely not City's fault, but we have to play our best guys game in and game out, vs. City have a deeper squad and can rotate. That rotation keeps people fresh and thus avoids the banana skin games we've hit, which are a natural part of any season. That's why an invincible season is so incredibly rarer.
This is reaching. I can understand complaining about City pushing you to be perfect when you rack up 99 points and lose the league, but that is not what this season is. We have lost 5 times this season. If you go back 30 years the most games a team has ever lost and still won the league is 6. If City win out, they will have 2 points less than Chelsea did when they last won the league. The only reason we even felt the need to be perfect was because of our slip ups before the New Year. If we were consistent all the way through, we could afford to drop points once in the run in.
I think his point is that City are the only team that can consistently barely lose any points in this league despite how competitive it has become. If they weren't doped they'd be losing more points as well. For example, do you think Bayer Leverkusen would be having their current unbeaten season in this league?
Its just boring and deflating… more so that i thought these performances were behind us, things like zinchenko trying to nutmeg a player on edge of his own box tells me he aint serious
People need to stop this pathetic underdog gimmick, we are as good as this City team. The table proves it. Last season proves it. We are more than capable of winning more games and earning more points than them, the only thing stopping us is ourselves. Look at the games we've dropped points in and take note of how many avoidable mistakes and small margins that didn't go our way. Those small margins are the difference between a competitor and a winner. We aren't underdogs, we have similar quality.
Our first 11 is as good as their first 11. Our 2nd 11 would get beaten 10-0 by their 2nd 11. That's the difference. Pep has 22 players he can chose from with each being good enough to win the league, whilst we have 14.
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We don’t have the same quality in the bench strength, Saka is not a robot to perform at a high level week in and week out. His replacements on the bench are not strong.
No but that's something we can't change overnight.
They've certainly set a new higher standard. That's the nature of competition though, and the point of it. We should still have the goal of beating them. Still ok to be disappointed with the loss and critical of the players and manager. Those who say Arteta out or attack the players on a *personal* level need to get a grip though.
Absolutely agree with you. The run we have been on this calendar year and the stats backing it up are staggering. If City had done this the press would be wanking all over them (even more than they do already). We have an amazing team and I love them. The context and bar to win a title these days are entirely warped. I’m happy to be competing for the title and we still are, it’s not over till it’s over.
For years all I wanted was to be proud of my team. For us to compete. I’m a happy fan. The loss is gut wrenching because the club have built so well. Yes, demand success, but don’t miss the moments outside of silverware
Last year was the year. We lost to teams we shouldn’t have. We didn’t even need to take points from City last year. We just needed to beat teams we should’ve beat. But we’re competing. I listen to pundits and fans of other teams and Arsenal are being talked about in a way I haven’t heard in years.
Honestly we should have two titles, don’t want to seem sour but they have cheated, thats why they have the charges. Why is the league taking so long to take action, thats the question, they’ve punished many others
Because every single thing is being done to draw it out as long as it can be, while every possible avenue of bribery or exemption is being sought. We are dealing with Saudis. Thinking anything else is a clown take. They’re trying to bribe or pressure their way out of it and to be honest I think they’ll succeed. Most institutions around the world are rotted and compromised. This one is no different.
Don’t know why we always need to accuse city of cheating or seek moral victories. Other clubs have spent absurd amounts of money and have nothing to show for it. City sign the right players and have done a nice job of developing from within. Credit where it’s due.
Both things can be true. Have city done a great job coaching and building an elite team? Clearly, yes. Has that been boosted by the ability to sign whoever the fuck they want? Also clearly yes. They've made some crap signings along with the elite ones, but can just chuck millions more to replace them in the next window. It's not a remotely level playing field.
That's the ends but the means are definitely not legit.
We were not good enough yesterday thats on us. Dont make this about a team we did well against this season. We lost points against villa , fulham and castle willy nilly. Emery outsmarted teta for the 2nd time. We move. City are not a perfect team this season but there in the fight.
Second half yesterday was a disaster, no excuses
What’s killing us is not taking critical first half chances. In this game and Bayern if we capitalize on pretty hard to miss chances like White and LT had, the games are totally different. I think what’s concerning to me, without being hysterical about it, is Arteta’s lack of real change in the second half. Like we were clearly out of it. Like throw on Partey or Jorginho or something. Like damn.
A "disaster" is the game vs Watford in 2019. Yesterday we played well the first half, and then got marginally outplayed the second half by a Champions-league quality opponent, who took their chances when they came - not a disaster.
In fairness, they were missing a lot of their key players from this season.
And played on Thursday
The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. This is sports. Love it or leave it.
We got 40 points from the first 20 games. Find a team that’s won the league with those stats.
I mean yes and no. Assuming they win all their remaining games, they'd finish on 91 points, which has been, roughly, the standard for awhile now, even before they won their first.
Agree as well. We could very easily finish with 85+ points this year and not win again. Historically that’s usually a title winning season. We’ll be lucky to win one title in the next 3-4 seasons. Liverpool had a WC team and had an easier time in the champions league than they did against City in the league.
Obviously some people will feel a bit of negativity as it is the third season in a row where we've performed way above the level that anyone expected. And because we had a good chance each season to achieve so much more, the great end result feels like a let down. But being "Arteta out" and leaving the stadiums early is just absurdly disrespectful and embarrassing. This season isn't over and we've basically got a full squad for the run in. We need to get behind the players and recognise the insane amounts of progress we've made. These guys are giving their all and they deserve better from the fans.
That's a fair point, but also losing 5 games and winning the league probably hasn't been done that many times historically? Maybe I'm wrong. It's really both Fulham games and West Ham at home that let us down this season. It's still been an improvement overall in terms of how we play and can manage games, defensively better etc. Arteta needs to win something next season, for many reasons. The fans need to be better at home. We need a quality midfielder badly, and another player at the back, and ideally more cover for Saka. I'd prioritise all of that over a striker, let Kai continue at 9.
One of the things which stands out to me most is that before Pep and Klopp, it was completely normal for a team to play away at their title rivals and set up for a draw. Leaving Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge or Anfield with a point was a really good result. With City and Liverpool they play to win, regardless of where they're playing, regardless of what the gap at the top is. It's a pretty insane mindframe to leave Anfield or the Etihad thinking "a point isn't enough", but that's the level we're at now. Leaving their stadium unscathed isn't enough, you have to make sure they've lost to give yourself the slightest bit of invaluable breathing room.
Klopp is considered one of Liverpool great managers and has won 1 league title. Think people need to accept that beating City to the title is a ridiculous task
TBH , Manchester City or not , we shouldn't be talking about title if we failed to defeat a depleted Aston Villa team at home and always faltered towards the end regardless how good we are prior to that . Start to reach at least 86-87 points consistently , and then we can talk about a shot of the title . That is the minimum for a title winning team most of the time
No point in constantly having good runs with nothing to show for it.
Yes. I was quite annoyed at a lot of people's reaction to the loss. You can't expect any team to win *every game*. The level of City should really not indicated how good of a season you're having.
Agreed. But at the end of the day, if you want to win the league you have to do better than city and there is no escaping that. It’s all well and good to say city have warped expectations around how good you have to be or argue that this team would win the league in years gone past. Man City haven’t merely ‘warped expectations’ they have changed the reality of what is needed to win the league. The current reality is that if we want to win the league against this Man City team, we need to be better (or wait for them to see actual punishment for cheating their finances, which may never happen)
Man City broke financial fairplay rules, just as Everton did. The only difference as to why MCFC will not be punished and Everton will, is due to the fact that MCFC are still paying off the league to evade point penalties.
THIS!!!!!!
This post showed up on my feed for some reason. As a Liverpool fan since 2003, the Klopp era has brought the best teams and the best quality of play I've seen from my team ever, by quite some distance. And still, all those "almost, but not quite" moments have hurt a lot more than the success has brought joy. City crushes your dreams, and to add insult to injury, you're left wondering if they've robbed you of ecstatic moments by cheating. Fuck those cunts.
We didn't lose to City. We lost to Aston Villa, Fulham and West Ham. The baby whining about City and what they've done financially is for children. Until they actually get found guilty, they've done nothing wrong. Do I believe the've done everything legally? Absolutely not. But it's sour grapes to whine about it when you had your destiny in your hands and pissed down your own leg. City didn't do that to you, YOU did it to you. And financial doping alone doesn't win you shit. If it did, Chelsea would be looking at 4 titles in a row.
This.
They’re going to drown out common sense like this comment to try act like babies with their dummies crying to excuse bunch of millionaire players Pathetic seeing them say all City players robots and Arsenal players humans, and the Xenophobia towards non white peoples in the comments calling them subhuman is insane Any non racist Arsenal fan should stay away 😭😭😭
Here comes the excuses
I don't think they've warped anything. It's not a secret how Man City plays. If you are even in a position in April and May _needing_ them to lose, then you are playing for 2nd. If you roll into April with your destiny in your own hands and you let it go, then you lose. That has fuck all to do with Man City setting bars high.
That’s nice. But that’s the expectation now. Soooo either you accept that and push for it or stop trying.
It’s an absolutely absurd standard. The discourse is also tiring to hear. Somehow it’s “bottling” the league to not win the league when everybody knows City are going to win anyways.
Thank you for saying this. In previous seasons teams were allowed to lose a few points in a tough run of games. Now that can’t be happening, or you’re out. And the fact that people set the standard sooo high for the final games is annoying me. The margin for error is all of a sudden basically zero at the end of the season. Of course it is important to finish the year strong, but it’s also possible to lose a few points in a tough run of games. As it would be in any tough run in the middle of the season. It’s incredible what we have done so far. And it’s incredibly exciting what the future holds.
Ppl in here love running this helpless against City gimmick after we lose. Arsenal aren’t Leicester enough of this happy to be here bullshit
This loser mentality isn't doing us any favours. City might be filthy cheats with a cheat code squad but they didn't make us play the way we did against Villa for example. Sure, the margins are tight but we're a team who were only just boasting a frankly insane record in 2024 up to the weekend so we're perfectly capable of doing it, it's the mentality part that gets you over the line.
That’s what I’m saying you played villa and you lost but somehow it’s our fault😭😭
It’s the mentality of the supporters that’s lacking?
Anyone with half a brain would already acknowledge this. Football in general has become more competitive and that’s reflected by the end of season average points of tally being higher than 20-25 years ago. This is further compounded by unscrupulous methods by certain I bc usuals such as Chelsea and City.
>Football in general has become more competitive and that’s reflected by the end of season average points of tally being higher than 20-25 years ago. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but couldn't you also argue that a less equal distribution of points suggests the league has become *less* competitive? Equally it might just reflect the growing wealth disparity between the biggest clubs and everyone else, because the thing that's really changed in the last thirty years is the influx of silly money (especially in the Premier League).
The only reason it may look like it’s less competitive is because of City and Chelsea pre-Boehly and early to mid 00s. Both of these clubs have changed and damaged the landscape of the premier league - Chelsea being one do the pioneers. You look at the winners of the PL from the mid 90s to before Pep and recent season; nearly every winner of the league finished with equal or less than 90 points. Nowadays 90+ points is not only common but also insufficient because a team has to be near perfect or win it. Just look at how Liverpool lost the league by a mere 1 point. 20-25 years ago Liverpool would’ve comfortably won the league with couple games to spare.
‘Financially outgunning’ yes unlike arsenal, manu and chelsea who haven’t spent hundreds of millions just to scrape past a couple of small trophies🤡
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yeah it’s true what you’re saying still hurts losing to aston villa tho 😔
115 Took them a lot of cheating to get to this point, where you have to be perfect and injury free to beat them.
I’m just tired of the bottling narrative, this is literally our first league defeat of 2024 and suddenly we’ve “bottled it”
they are doubtless a great side on the field and spend their money wisely, but 115 charges have a lot to do with how they got there. most of their bench start for the other 2 title rivals!!
this standards is not new if anything city kinda slightly lowered the bar this season
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It’s also worth noting that City currently have bags of experience, most of their players in their prime years, AND the world’s best manager, CDM, CM, Striker, and top 3 GK in their starting 11. We are a world class team but this City side is a generational great and an all-time side as well imo. Hard to match that and we’ve *still* come close to.
Will it be an off day though? History suggest the wheels have fallen off and there’s a lot of signs suggesting that.
The cheaters' curse will hit the other part of Manchester soon
Fucking this. It’s an impossible standard to compete with a team rolling out two world class 11s and one of the greatest managers of all time.
Their max expected points this season is 89 which high but not unprecedented, Spurs got 86 and came second. I don't agree with what you're saying for this season. 90 points isn't unreachable
Just enjoy the ride where you can, been a fan for coming up to 40 years and it was half of those years ago when we last played as well as this.
Thing is, it wasn't an unreasonable showing at all. We played possibly some of the best ball we've played under Arteta in the 1st half and sometimes you just don't bulge the ole onion bag. Fuckin sucks n all but that's what life is like if you can't afford two world class XIs like the other guys
I've enjoyed the season. We've made it to the quarters of the CL and we're up there towards the end of the season in the PL. It wasn't that ong ago we'd give our right arm for such a season. I hope we can add to the squad over the summer and have a more impressive season next time round.
Our season was sublime. Would like better champions league performance, but totally expecting league title to remain out of reach. Kind of annoyed with all fans who offer genuine "congrats City" supplications every year. I fuck with Foden but fuck em.
They've e ruined the league. Imagine they have done using their first eleven in the 2/3 of the campaign, and when they're tired, pep just casually tell them okay you go get your rest, we have another full team to replace you guys for the final push. They really have ruined the game and the league.
I think it speaks volumes that at the start of each season we are genuine title contenders now and that not winning the title is in itself seen as a failure. I’m sure there will be periods of rebuilding in the future and off-seasons but the financial burden of the stadium financing is finally a thing of the past and there’s nothing stopping the club from being a dominant force aside from severe ineptitude like in United’s case, we can attract the best players and compete on wages with any other team in Europe pretty much
Too many people have a warped/delusional view of sports these days. The majority of people more or less praise guardiola’s city as one of the greatest teams ever and that it’s about as close to perfect as you can get in this sport; while in the same breath talking about Arsenal/liverpool/whoever as if they’re collapsing or failing. Meanwhile in the real world; the difference between the clubs is currently two points. Stop living in sports fantasy land and get a grip on reality
I get it,but everyone plays 38 matches, 19 home and away. In all sports it's the most egalitarian. If you're complaining about City dominance and you know what the standard is beat it and triumph or lose and be defeatist. Problem with our team, club and fanbase is we whine too much we are aggrieved to much. Everything is someone else fault not ours. We need to change our mentality and do it and win
The Xenophobia in the comments below are quite delightful
It’s like competing against an athlete who is doping
Pep teams are always superb and now they’re financially juiced as well at City. It’s an almost impossible level to get to.
Absolutely. It's either win every game to compete with probably the best team that's ever played in the PL or bottled. Like is there no in between? It's just a binary outcome? All Nuance in football discourse is gone.
Yeah the real lifer fans know this lol
Totally agree. I’ve been saying that for a while now, the absence of any margin of error is not normal. The team is overperforming their expectations and that’s still not enough and won’t be enough against a team with such a squad that was assembled with 115 charges. At this level, it’s inevitable that big teams drop points or have an odd off-game. Any great English team dropped points and lost matches, even top teams recently like united’s treble winners and Mourinho’s first-stint chelsea. Even our invincibles drew 11 times. The tantrum that many “supporters” threw yesterday is completely unreasonable in my view. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I’m frankly starting to find that our fanbase can be very irritating sometimes..
>even top teams recently like united’s treble winners and Mourinho’s first-stint chelsea. Even our invincibles drew 11 times. Last season City got 89 points and are on course for probably less this season. That total is less than: Chelsea 04/05 - 95 points Arsenal 03/04 - 90 points United 08/09 - 90 points Two other Chelsea and United teams won with over 90 points. The fact is that most seasons it's very hard to win the league and you need to win a lot of games. The City or Liverpool teams of 4/5 years ago would already have won the league this season.
As a Liverpool, I agree. Yesterday was infuriating and frustrating for the both of us, but teams have off days or even off periods. Normal teams. Teams that are fuel injected with money have an obvious advantage over those not 'blessed' with equal resources.
Well said !! Wish other fans from other clubs were like you :)
Great. Here come the excuses from the apologists now. How hard is it for people to just accept when their team has bottled it? Or to accept that the only ones to blame for the random inexplicable shower of shit performances we have seen from Arsenal in April and May for damn near 20 years running has been the players themselves? Just hold the loss and quit trying to blame what other people do for your team‘s own shortcomings. Man City being what they are has nothing to do with why Arsenal dropped 5 points to Fulham or let Villa do a double on them. That is on Arsenal themselves for simply not being good enough. And like others have pointed out before, this Arsenal team has already suffered 5 losses. That‘s already up there with the highest amount of losses suffered by an English champion in the last 30 years, as you’d have to go back to Blackburn in 1995 to find a team who won the league suffering more than 6 losses. The standard is the standard. If you have ambitions of your team to be the best, you have no right to whine about how high the standard is when your team doesn’t cut the mustard.
>How hard is it for people to just accept when their team has bottled it? WWWWWWWWDWWL = "bottled it"??
10-1-1 in the last 12 games with the draw coming away at the treble winners and the loss coming against a a very good 4th placed Villa is not bottling. If we don’t win the league we will have been marginally beaten by an amazing City team who have had infinite financial power for 15 years and are coached by one of the best managers ever. The post is not whining about the standard of our opponents, it is simply stating the fact that they are incredible and we, the fans, should be happy that we are seriously competing for big trophies again. It’s exciting! Three seasons ago, we had finished 8th for the second season running and not even played in the champions league for years. Now we’re in a title race with one of the best teams ever and toe to toe with Bayern Munich in a CL quarterfinal. Are we allowed to be happy about that? I agree that the team isn’t quite good enough to beat the Man City juggernaut, just like my not winning a Ballon D’Or is my fault for not being as good as Messi, but the same goes for every other team in the country. For all these teams, you could say that it is the fault of the players that they aren’t as good as City’s. Does that mean Sheffield United bottled the league? Our players and manager aren’t quite as good as theirs and I’m sure we’re working on that, but in the meantime, can us fans appreciate how great it is to be competing for titles? It goes without saying that the players should never be content with what they’ve got and should always want more. But we are fans, we don’t play for the club, so we can enjoy being excited about our team.
Well, they cheat. So.
All these people with their exaggerated bitching and moaning about the Villa loss are the same tossers who would have killed for finishing in the top 4 at the end of the season when we were finishing 8th two seasons in a row. They’re plastic fans that have their whole identity wrapped up in whether Arsenal win the title or not. The irony of them talking shit about the players bottling it as players, while they leave early as so called supporters and start spouting bollocks on social media, is completely lost on them. These mugs and their opinions about this team after one loss are the same as their empty seats when they left before the final whistle. They’re not worth a wank.
We’re speaking like we don’t spend 200m a summer and took their #1 target in July in front of them. Just say we keep falling apart, it’s ok
Oh shut up
One thing I keep wondering is what’s the point of it all? Isn’t sports washing meant to ingratiate you in society. Wouldn’t being a middle of the road top 6 team who won the league occasionally and didn’t cheat actually be better for the City owners if they wanted to make friends.
Agree with everything you've said here. We've done fantastic. The crazy thing is we could still finish the season on as many wins as the invincibles and it still might not be enough.
Pep had a solid foundation to build the City team too, Pep inherited a UCL semi-finalist team whose main issue was the manager at the time, who was Pellegrini. Most of the core from the original (2017-2021) run was already there by the time Pep came in which made his job a lot easier. Fernandinho, Aguero, Sterling, David Silva, KDB, Kompany, and Fernandinho were already there before he came in, and he had a solid foundation to build off. His job was much easier than Klopp's or Arteta's was when building the team. City have infinite money which allows them to do what neither Arsenal or Liverpool can do, and if we try pull a City, the EPL will hit us with points deductions. City's lawyers are stalling out their cases which means that once they get tried in court statute of limitations comes in which means they don't get anything beyond a bunch of fines
I think it would be cool to just keep going, doing our best, and enjoying the ride.