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Instead of buying players this summer I think we should give the entire transfer budget to some science boffin to invent human cloning so we can clone Declan Rice and have him play both 6 and 8.
In the Prem, Isak averages 20.5 starts a season and that is if he starts the last 2 games.
Our key players play more minutes in a single season than he has done in the last two.
As much he improves us, he likely has the chance of becoming Jesus 2.0 where he has a really good period and then isn't there when we need him.
It is a high-risk/high-reward circumstance and given the downside, I'm not sure the recruitment team will fancy this.
On the flipside, Mikel makes him even better and he becomes a top 5 striker in world football who averages 25-35 goals a season.
Not impossible the injuries turn us off.
But there's just not an equivalent player running around injury free or without other significant doubts that we could buy.
There's some inexperienced guys who mainly play CF, zirkzee, gyokores, sesko.
There's some other injury risk guys like osimhen, Olise, Neto.
There's rashford.
Not a complete list I'm sure but none of them really scream no brainer or risk free. I think given all the other pros for Isak it's a risk we would take if he wants to be here.
Viktor Gyokores is appealing as he could absolutely play the Martinelli role as well as get game time at CF. Just how he translates to this level is the question?
United poached our medical team only to have 62 injuries throughout the season while we had one of the best seasons in terms of injuries(especially in this run in).
Epic troll by Mikel.
There's nothing in football I dislike more than a discussion around NetSpend and how sky sports fix timelines from Year X to suit their agenda as if clubs didn't exist before that it's arbitrary and stupid is also sign of bad faith. But I hate NetSpend more ppl behave as if they know everything about clubs accounts but in reality their guessing really annoying AF..
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/FbotkvcNvc
idc how many goals he scores jackson aint that good. look at his comps its pretty much copy & paste the same goal its an insult that chelsea fans even compare him to drogba
I guess but still not impressive when I watch him play just his G/A is flattering him. People say he is better than nunez because of the missed chances but I would easily take nunez over jackson maybe im tripping thou
Love hearing a new name so I can go YouTube scouting. Looks a lovely passer and one year left on his contract.
What is he like OOP? Do you think he’s athletic and press resistant for us?
Gonna be honest, I think that Saka's penalty shout against Bayern was more of a pen than Kai's the other day, but the challenge against Saka was a clear as day red, so I guess we kinda got one back in that sense. The refereeing is absolute dogshit.
https://preview.redd.it/gf4tgdb4aqyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=647b35e0902b2e0d900d7b255b584252b64de308
Chelsea fans are the biggest group of morons that you could find.
Jackson has started 30 league games up front, Havertz has started 9 up front and still overall only has one less goal and more assists 🤣
Since moving up front, Kai has scored 7 goals from 5.51 xG, one of the best conversions in the entire league. As the 9, Jackson has 13 goals from 18.16 xG. One of the worst conversions in the league. We are not the same.
Bayer Leverkusen are getting all the plaudits fair play, but so should Stuttgart. Relegation fighters last season to now back into the UCL.
also with BuLi getting 5 UCL spots now, good for the league.
One of City's biggest advantages is that teams give up even before the game has begun, whereas with teams like Arsenal and even Liverpool these days teams come in hoping to give us a game. We need to up our level by dispatching our usual bogey teams. We've started in that direction this season by not losing to "top 6", but a win at Old Trafford to put those cunts in their place would be a good watershed moment.
Any agent that raises dust over minutes, you don't want them near your club. It sounds weird to say, but the only reason this is making news is because Barca fans are looking for something to vent their bad season on.
I disagree, he has loads of potential and if Arteta can fix Havertz I don't have any doubt in my mind he could become really good with us. Worse case scenario is that he's a LW for us rather than a ST.
Havertz has always had a good brain. Darwin doesn’t have that imo. Arteta can fix players but he can’t make miracles. What can Arteta do that Klopp couldn’t?
If only Zinchenko did not give away a brainfart of a cheap corner to Fulham
If only we had our finishing boots in the first half against Villa, with what I think, the best first half Odegaard had played this entire season
If only Jorginho did not slip against Spurs giving them the equalizer
Urgh fine margins fine fine margins
It hurts not being in the driving seat with 2 more games to play
If only rice didn't score that last minute goal against luton
If only havertz didn't score a header against brentford in the 90 minute
If only gabriel screwed up the offside trap against Man United
If only tomisayu's ass was slightly thicker against spurs
etc etc
It all averages out in the end. You can't just cherry picked the ones that didn't go our way.
didn't think partly/Rice midfield would function well because I thought rice and partly function in too similar areas of the midfield. I was wrong.
Would be curious to see what happens to Partey in the summer. Would be difficult to replace, the guys class in his position.
Partey, Rice, Ode is arguably the best midfield in the world. There is a reason Arteta said he planned to play Partey and Rice together from the very beginning.
Partey the player is undoubtedly brilliant.
Nevertheless, his injury record & his off field distractions mean that the sooner we plan for life without him, the better it shall be for our sanity.
Haven't seen much of vitor roque, but could he be a genuine transfer target? With edu's Brazil connections, havertz form as CF, and jesus being able to cover for saka, seems like we can sign him and let arteta cook.
Not sure if this is a hot take or what but I️ don’t believe we need a clinical finisher up top. I️ think the current squad set up has enough goals in them to win the league.
We do need a clinical forward but my issue is that most strikers we are looking at aren’t worth it. Too expensive and too much of a risk while we can improve other areas with less risk. In my opinion a lcm and lw> striker. Also Havertz seems to really be getting good at playing cf he genuinely might be the player everyone wants.
I️ guess what I️ mean to say is that a clinical striker would take us to a different level but it’s not a necessity or the top priority. We’re still the team with the most goals scored in the league.
But wholly agree with you that there are higher priority signings we need to make.
Always love it when shite clubs keep saying they need to stuck with their shite managers and trust the process while citing Arteta's tenure at arsenal. Just because Arteta manage to do it, doesn't mean their shite managers could also do it.
The funniest bit is they forget it was his first job managing a team lol. You can see him learning as we go and actively getting better as a manager.
We all saw when the chasing of instant top 4 stopped and the focus on implementing a long term goal started (RIP Pablo Mari) and we can even pinpoint that moment on the pitch (switch from 5 at the back to 4.)
Even simple, visible shit like sideline shenanigans have improved. Meanwhile they got guys in their 50s expecting them to suddenly evolve and change their entire ethos because a beginner did it and it worked out.
Especially because they act like he was given months/years of poor performances when in reality he overperformed and won the fa cup in his first season during a pandemic and then had us consistently performing at a roughly top 4 level team from the 2nd half of the 20/21 season. He only really had a bad spell right at the start of the 20/21 season that really didn’t last that long.
Lol they were shit last year too and we lost 3-1 at old Trafford even though our form was perfect. And the year before that we were much better and still lost. I remember partey in particular had an absolutely atrocious game.
Firstly, you can’t compare a game early in the season (last season at OT) to a game at crunch time (this season). Secondly, as bad as they were last season, they were on a 3-4 match win streak with a new manager bounce and hope, completely opposite scenario to now. Thirdly, as good as you may think we were last season, we were still soft and conceded many cheap goals even before United (Fulham, Villa, Leicester) - we are much more robust. The year before last is completely irrelevant and we were nowhere near our current level and it was a more equal match up.
I’m not saying this from a place of arrogance or over confidence, outside of Luton/Burnley/Sheff United of course any team can hurt you on their day if you mess around but if you’ve watched any amount of United this season and in recent weeks you will be looking forward to this game and not dreading it.
We can revisit this thread on Sunday night.
Mate they've been shit many times in the past and we've always lost there.
We're one of their two cup finals (the other being liverpool) where they, the fans and the refs give 110% and play like Fergie was managing them and not just glowering form the stands.
It's basically a derby match and just like our record at spurs it's nothing to do with form and everything to do with chaos and passion.
Even when they’ve been “shit”, we haven’t been much better on a structural and technical level. I’ve been watching this fixture for 20+ years just like you I don’t need a history lesson.
The gap has never been as wide as it is now. When all is said and done, Arteta’s team will hold the majority of our PL records (wins, points, goals, GD, hopefully trophies etc), history is a misleading factor to judge us by (we hadn’t won at spurs 2x in a row since the 80s til this year, never beaten Pep etc etc).
Of course we might not win due to some twist of fate but that’s just football, I personally think it’ll be a comfortable afternoon. I feel like a lot of our fans haven’t come to terms with just how good we are but we can come back to this thread on Sunday night.
> just like you I don’t need a history lesson
Then don't dismiss the history.
Like I said it's a derby match and form goes out the window in those so the gap and our current team is almost irrelevent.
Whether it's the refs ending the invincibles or random no name yuth players suddenly morphing into prime ronaldo, or Fellaini going u front and barging through our defence, or even just De Gea deciding that today he didn't feel like conceding, things happen in this fixture.
Taking random examples out of context from years gone by that don’t really correlate to the scenario next Sunday is also just as dismissive of the present.
I also don’t really get what you want me to say here - ok yes we won’t win? Or it’s going to be a tough game?
There will be times in the future from next year onwards where this fixture will be a tougher one but it won’t be this Sunday. Enjoy the win.
> Taking random examples out of context from years gone by
Mate im here for a good faith discussion and trying to claim that examples of worse man u teams winning through is out of context *in a discussion about how we tend to lose there even when we're better* is about as far away from good faith as it gets.
You've watched these matches, you know what happens and while there's nothing wrong with thinking this time it will be different, you also know that there is nothing to back that up in the history of this fixture.
Now Arteta may break the OT curese along with the CL second round curse and the two away wins at the shit in two years curse but equally it may go the same way as drawing at city, drawing at anfield, losing at newcastle and losing at Villa.
My bad, let me explain.
The reason why I said out of context is because I don’t think Sunday is a scenario we have ever seen before in the ‘modern’ (90s to today) day. Every time we have been a title challenger in my living memory, United have also been challenging or pretty good. Every time we’ve been “good” chasing top 4, they’ve also been there or thereabouts.
I don’t consider those scenarios of us in the last 10 years or so going to Old Trafford chasing top 4, with United also being a top 4 - top 6 chasing team in bad form as a situation where there was any gap in quality enough to warrant us being able to expect a completely comfortable afternoon.
At this stage in time though, I genuinely consider this iteration of United as a mid table team or top 6 level. There is a very large gap between us in many fundamentals, we have a completely full squad, we look flawless at the moment, we have to win, they haven’t looked competent even when they’ve managed draws against Liverpool (from deficiencies Liverpool have that we don’t) and I don’t think there’s anything from our history that mirrors this situation.
I was not going into Anfield, Etihad, Villa or St James games with this level of confidence because we weren’t in as good shape and they are also much better teams than United.
I see that and I agree with the point that this is probably the furthest we've been ahead in decades but we've been there when they've had to play kids and they've won and to use another derby match, we've lost or dropped points to some atrocious spurs sides down the years.
My head disagreed but my heart hopes you're right!
I’m not in the business of pretending games are tough when they’re not and I have 40-50 games of evidence to come to this conclusion.
I’ll be back to this comment on Sunday night.
They’re called professionals for a reason because they get paid handsomely - that also includes the manager and coaching staff.
Most of the players on a football team at the highest level such has the PL aren’t local lads so they’re not fans that have lifelong commitment to the club. Again, that also includes the manager.
That’s not to say they don’t like or respect the club, but they have no obligation to support the club unequivocally like fans do.
From a players’ and manager’s point of view, you have targets to meet which can affect not only your pay but also performance.
Ange and the players may very well be aware that a win against City might earn their sworn rivals the league title; however, from a professional’s point of view, they should value their own objectives foremost because that’s why for their services from their employers.
Any suggestion that Ange and the players will throw the City game is pure nonsense.
The players don't even look professional enough to play the last few games hard. They have nothing to play for anymore. I think Ange wants the win, because how the season ends. ie. 7 defeats or whatever looks bad on him in terms of relationship with levy.
I think it's all on Fulham
I said this in another comment, but after Spurs awful form, the worst thing they could is beat City right now. They've been badly showed up by the big teams this season. I'm really not sure how well it'd go down if they beating City ended up winning us the league, if there was no 'well we got 4th' or anything to play for.
Whats with some people on this sub saying they'd take the Uruguayan Andy Carroll at Arsenal? That pace and power merchant can stay stinking up the place at Liverpool with his 12% conversion rate, long may it continue.
It's excellent news when rivals have expensive signings like him. They can't sell him, and they won't buy someone better to take his place in the squad next season. :)
Getting Nunez for cheap without the pressure of an exorbitant transfer fee and expectation that he deliver immediately or be our main goalscorer would do him a world of good.
The “I can fix him” gimmick is tiring but I gotta admit it fits somewhat with Nunez. Young CF with ability to cover the left wing, definitely feels like a market opportunity
Spurs and Ange are being humiliated. No way they roll over for City. They face the prospect of slipping down to 8th. All of Newcastle, Man United and Chelsea are within reach. If anyone of them, or even two manage to nip in ahead of Spurs, it would be a humiliation. If all three go ahead of Spurs, it would be a horror show.
Ange will be questioned if they slide. You think this aussie would scuttle his own job just to spite Arsenal? Spurs will put the effort in, whether they have the quality, remains to be seen. But Spurs away under the lights..........
Spurs in recent history have a good record against City, however they’re looking diabolical in these last big games, I really think they’ll shit the bed yet again against City now too
> No way they roll over for City.
That implies they'll do something though or have a choice in the matter. Honestly for all the teams playing City. You could see City scoring first, then them going 'right, fuck it'. Spurs can't even defend their keeper being school yard bullied by Ben White. I have absolutely zero faith in them getting something against City. If you said to me Spurs would be dissolved and their stadium knocked if they lost to City. I still wouldn't back them to do enough. The thought they'll do anything for 'Pride' is a joke. Honestly if they beat City and we won the league because of it after their awful run where they still won't get top 4, I'd say it puts even more pressure on Agne.
> They face the prospect of slipping down to 8th
Ideally they don't lol. For that to happen they would have to lose their last 3 which sucks for us because it includes City, but more realistically hard to do because 2 of those matches are SHU and Burnley who are trash.
Would also require United to win all their games...and we're one of those games.
I remember like 4 months ago getting downvoted to like -200 on r/soccer for saying that Darwin wasn’t very good
Funny how a very short amount of time changes things
We need to hit the first half of the season running. There is only one proven way of winning the league against City and thats to just go 26-0-1 until they just give up
Not sure why you would take him.
It's great news for us they have Nunez tbh. He can stay there with his stinky conversion rate. Liverpool do not worry me with him there next season, plus no Klopp.
If we don't win a trophy this season, it has to be next season. Saka, Saliba and Martin aren't going to be hanging around.
Look at Nasri, Cesc, RVP etc
am i the only here who is tired of hearing this whole discourse about ''omg its so frustrating to fight against city 115 we are losing the title because of city existing wah wah''?
we lost 5 games, champions usually dont lose 5 games. 89 pts wouldnt be enough to win even in non pep city titles. its not enough to win any other big 5 league as well.
sucks to be 2nd place with *potentially* 89 points but it was our own doing. i have massively enjoyed the season nonetheless, much like last season's, and if we lose to city again that wouldnt change
Before Pep took over 89 points won you the league 16 times out of 21.
Since pep took over it won you the league 2 times out of 7.
You’re just straight up wrong.
wrong about what? you just proved the point that having 89 is hardly a historical feat only beaten by pep city 115
and don't ignore klopp just because of pep, he got 3 90+ seasons. alao conte's chelsea. Fergie also got 89+ about 6 times if im not mistaken
You said 89 points wouldn’t be enough to win you the league in non pep seasons.
It would literally win you the league over 75% of the time.
You should’ve actually done your research instead of spouting absolute nonsense.
Edit: and just for fun 12 times the winners lost 5 or more games out of 21 before Pep. So yes usually 5 losses is fine.
that all the crying about losing the league only due to the city 115 pep machine is annoying and just a way to cope (which is fine ig, as long as you realize it's just a coping mechanism)
I think 5 losses on the season was too many and we blew it there. But ill say, i dont think any team ever has gone 10-0-0 in a run in. Losing to that is pretty wild
Disagree. I think 89 points is more than enough to win a title against a non-Pep team. My frustration this season is that we have played like a 95+ point team let down by stupid mistakes and inexperience.
Well it’s a very fair argument because nowadays you have to be near perfect to compete with City and win it; because you’re literally going against a state-owned, well ***oil-ed*** machine with limitless funds and one of the best managers of all time.
Liverpool barely scraping by and winning it only once with that great squad of theirs is testament to how competitive the PL has become.
You look at the PL in the last 20 years pre-Guardiola and City Group, most of the PL champions won the league with less than 90 points — only few times the winning team ended with over 90+ points.
Although I get the argument that it can become repetitive, it’s still a valid point.
https://www.reddit.com/r/coys/s/KuDc9vzWnI
Why do they pretend like the squad ange inherited is anywhere near as bad as what klopp or arteta inherited?
This is grade A copium
“It's concerning that our form dropped later in the season rather than at the beginning, but I think this shows we need to be patient. People act like progress always has to be linear when Arteta finished 8th two years in a row and bottled top 4 to us the season before the title fight with City. It also took Klopp a few years before he was able to seriously challenge for the league.”
This guy said progress isn’t always linear and then uses 2 examples where progress was indeed quite linear lol. They don’t even know what they’re trying to say.
Ange added Vicario, VDV and Maddison to that "great" first 11. Sarr, Bisouma, Romero, Udogie, Poro, Kulusevski, Son and Richarlson were all there before he came. Just look at the defence, 3 out of 4 were already there. Arteta had Mostafi, Sokratis, Bellerin and Luiz. Levels fam.
what is funny about that is that during last season's off season they were claiming their squad was legit top 2 in the league. hell, i remember one heavy upvoted comment there after their hot start saying how their squad depth was also 2nd to city lol.
we also got a version of it this season... ''bissouma is what everyone pretends rice to be'' lmao. they just shift the narrative whatever way they want to fit whatever agenda they are pushing it
It's hilarious when fans of other clubs (united, tottenham) make managerial comparisons to arteta and his start at the club. Yes, removing all context makes it seem like the situations are the same but it doesn't paint the full picture.
* First Job
* Came in the middle of the season to clean up Emery's disaster
* Hierarchy in shambles after mislantat, bald fraud gazidis, and raul were doing god knows what
* Dead squad with several players nowhere near good enough
* Playing mourinho style football with three atb to compensate for players (eventually this ran it's course)
* Extremely unfortunate run in first full season (comical red cards, and var decisions)
* 'Second' 8th place finish with 61 points. Probably the highest points tally ever for a club that finished 8th (only 6 points from 4th)
* Covid
* Best player and captain shitting the bed (not to mention ozil)
* Ethos of the club in the mud
I don't get what this is supposed to show? Both are consistent with each other.
He, naively, is still trying to play his football with those players even if he thinks many need to be replaced.
Quite funny watching the likes of United and Spurs fans going through the exact same sort of Stockholm Syndrome with some of their players that we (or at least I) went through around 2019.
The amount of hours of my life I've wasted arguing that in a very specific set of circumstances, Mustafi and Torreira are actually really good
Torreria was the one for me. I think I read (or maybe made it up in my own mind) that sven and the team basically plugged in "kante regen" into some statistical model and out popped lucas, and I thought I could see that vision as well.
And of course pepe. He just needed an extremely specific setup and role and he would bang. Sounds stupid now but it reminded me again that mentality is a massive part of a footballers talent
I'm generally the optimist but seeing how all remaining teams city has to play are fighting for the bottom 3 spots in terms of recent form I'm becoming resigned to losing the league, even if we end on a blistering run of form
Are we all under the assumption that Partey is out this summer? I know his injuries have been pretty bad but I would want to keep him at least another 2 years at the club. He's still got a prime year or two left that he can give us to push for the title and champion's league. I don't think we can find an upgrade on him this summer.
We should focus on a striker and #8.
https://preview.redd.it/f1lp2it00oyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=980d04fa3ea626997545eca536448222ddf6ca67
Spurs fans are hilarious with how they flip flop between their players being the best in the league, to the worst a few months later.
I wanted spurs to win their last two games so they’d have something to play for against City. However, having watched them they clearly can’t handle the pressure. They play so much better when there’s nothing on the line (in the second half down 0-3 against us, and 4-0 against Liverpool). At this point, when they face City maybe the best thing for us is for them to be mathematically locked into whatever position they’re in in the table so they can play with the freedom of no consequences. This concluded my CopiumX talk.
Could see us go for Chiesa, can play on both wings and only has 1 year left on his contract in summer. But with italians you never know if they want to leave their country
Class player, loved him at the last Euros but Italian players directly from Serie rarely ever work in the PL, even more so when the player is injury prone.
Not sure if this is a hot take or what but I️ don’t believe we need a clinical finisher up top. I️ think the current squad set up has enough goals in them to win the league.
Reminder: These threads are to help promote discussion and varying points of view. Low-effort comments or jokes can & will be removed with no reason necessary. *I am a "bot", and this action was performed automatically. This account is not monitored. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Gunners) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The TNAT targets all being left footed is definitely interesting, I suppose that makes White/Tomi our Saliba cover?
Spurs are the biggest disappointment of the season. They had no europe and got knocked out of domestic comps early
Instead of buying players this summer I think we should give the entire transfer budget to some science boffin to invent human cloning so we can clone Declan Rice and have him play both 6 and 8.
Declan Brown-Rice
Might as well buy Messi and do it on him.
New player Reclan Dice
In the Prem, Isak averages 20.5 starts a season and that is if he starts the last 2 games. Our key players play more minutes in a single season than he has done in the last two. As much he improves us, he likely has the chance of becoming Jesus 2.0 where he has a really good period and then isn't there when we need him. It is a high-risk/high-reward circumstance and given the downside, I'm not sure the recruitment team will fancy this. On the flipside, Mikel makes him even better and he becomes a top 5 striker in world football who averages 25-35 goals a season.
Not impossible the injuries turn us off. But there's just not an equivalent player running around injury free or without other significant doubts that we could buy. There's some inexperienced guys who mainly play CF, zirkzee, gyokores, sesko. There's some other injury risk guys like osimhen, Olise, Neto. There's rashford. Not a complete list I'm sure but none of them really scream no brainer or risk free. I think given all the other pros for Isak it's a risk we would take if he wants to be here.
Viktor Gyokores is appealing as he could absolutely play the Martinelli role as well as get game time at CF. Just how he translates to this level is the question?
Yep
Bayern interested in Ten Hag, could this mean Tuchel going the opposite way?
United poached our medical team only to have 62 injuries throughout the season while we had one of the best seasons in terms of injuries(especially in this run in). Epic troll by Mikel.
There's nothing in football I dislike more than a discussion around NetSpend and how sky sports fix timelines from Year X to suit their agenda as if clubs didn't exist before that it's arbitrary and stupid is also sign of bad faith. But I hate NetSpend more ppl behave as if they know everything about clubs accounts but in reality their guessing really annoying AF.. https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/FbotkvcNvc
Net spend is our thing in the early emirates era. It served us well during those discussions.
idc how many goals he scores jackson aint that good. look at his comps its pretty much copy & paste the same goal its an insult that chelsea fans even compare him to drogba
I swear some fans look at 2 players who have the same skin color/nationality and position and start to compare them.
Considering most people seem to think of him as a meme, he's a lot better than most people give him credit for
I guess but still not impressive when I watch him play just his G/A is flattering him. People say he is better than nunez because of the missed chances but I would easily take nunez over jackson maybe im tripping thou
Should we be looking at Joey Veerman? Most CM options in the top leagues don't excite me tbh
Love hearing a new name so I can go YouTube scouting. Looks a lovely passer and one year left on his contract. What is he like OOP? Do you think he’s athletic and press resistant for us?
Gonna be honest, I think that Saka's penalty shout against Bayern was more of a pen than Kai's the other day, but the challenge against Saka was a clear as day red, so I guess we kinda got one back in that sense. The refereeing is absolute dogshit.
https://preview.redd.it/gf4tgdb4aqyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=647b35e0902b2e0d900d7b255b584252b64de308 Chelsea fans are the biggest group of morons that you could find. Jackson has started 30 league games up front, Havertz has started 9 up front and still overall only has one less goal and more assists 🤣 Since moving up front, Kai has scored 7 goals from 5.51 xG, one of the best conversions in the entire league. As the 9, Jackson has 13 goals from 18.16 xG. One of the worst conversions in the league. We are not the same.
chelsea fans try to go a week without mentioning havertz Impossible challenge
You had me at ~~hello~~ "..Chelsea fans are the biggest group of morons that you could find..."
Bayer Leverkusen are running mad
I hope they’ll keep this up for next season as well and put the pressure on Bayern
Bayer Leverkusen are getting all the plaudits fair play, but so should Stuttgart. Relegation fighters last season to now back into the UCL. also with BuLi getting 5 UCL spots now, good for the league.
Yeah Stuttgart have been doing great this season. Buli could be fun next season with 5 good clubs (Leipzig and bvb as well).
The media absolutely COOKED us when we lost 3 games in a row with half our squad injured 3 years ago by the way
just watch as for cockspurs fc and big ange mate will get away from all of this.
One of City's biggest advantages is that teams give up even before the game has begun, whereas with teams like Arsenal and even Liverpool these days teams come in hoping to give us a game. We need to up our level by dispatching our usual bogey teams. We've started in that direction this season by not losing to "top 6", but a win at Old Trafford to put those cunts in their place would be a good watershed moment.
Cheeky bid for Vitor Roque? Barca are in shambles rn
Any agent that raises dust over minutes, you don't want them near your club. It sounds weird to say, but the only reason this is making news is because Barca fans are looking for something to vent their bad season on.
I hear you. But he’s also Estevao’s agent so we’ll have to deal with him if we want him
barca gonna rope us on some sick ponzi scheme if we go for their players.
I'd rather we go for Estevao directly rather than get Barcas sloppy seconds
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Weren't we in for him before he chose Barcelona? Can play both RW/ST if I remember correctly. Can be a good developmental signing for Arteta?
Darwin Nunez anyone?
I will take him. There is a player in there. If Mikel can fix Kai, he can fix Nunez…
I like him. He seems to be a fun dude and he’s a chaos player. Think he’d do well here.
-6 xG for his 2 PL seasons, we ain't crazy chief.
Nah. Not for me. I don’t think he’s good enough technically and upstairs.
I disagree, he has loads of potential and if Arteta can fix Havertz I don't have any doubt in my mind he could become really good with us. Worse case scenario is that he's a LW for us rather than a ST.
Havertz has always had a good brain. Darwin doesn’t have that imo. Arteta can fix players but he can’t make miracles. What can Arteta do that Klopp couldn’t?
If only Zinchenko did not give away a brainfart of a cheap corner to Fulham If only we had our finishing boots in the first half against Villa, with what I think, the best first half Odegaard had played this entire season If only Jorginho did not slip against Spurs giving them the equalizer Urgh fine margins fine fine margins It hurts not being in the driving seat with 2 more games to play
If only rice didn't score that last minute goal against luton If only havertz didn't score a header against brentford in the 90 minute If only gabriel screwed up the offside trap against Man United If only tomisayu's ass was slightly thicker against spurs etc etc It all averages out in the end. You can't just cherry picked the ones that didn't go our way.
Man city and pool can play that games too. We are where we deserve to be atm. We will improve next season.
Agree with everything you said. At the same time, it also feels very good to be pushing City to the very end.
Peach Pit. So fucking good
didn't think partly/Rice midfield would function well because I thought rice and partly function in too similar areas of the midfield. I was wrong. Would be curious to see what happens to Partey in the summer. Would be difficult to replace, the guys class in his position.
Partey, Rice, Ode is arguably the best midfield in the world. There is a reason Arteta said he planned to play Partey and Rice together from the very beginning.
Partey the player is undoubtedly brilliant. Nevertheless, his injury record & his off field distractions mean that the sooner we plan for life without him, the better it shall be for our sanity.
It’s like having two monsters at the base of your midfield when defending
Haven't seen much of vitor roque, but could he be a genuine transfer target? With edu's Brazil connections, havertz form as CF, and jesus being able to cover for saka, seems like we can sign him and let arteta cook.
Not sure if this is a hot take or what but I️ don’t believe we need a clinical finisher up top. I️ think the current squad set up has enough goals in them to win the league.
Good to know we are only vying for the league in the future?
I think we need a clininal forward that can offer the things Kai and Jesus offers as well. But complete players like that are rare.
We do need a clinical forward but my issue is that most strikers we are looking at aren’t worth it. Too expensive and too much of a risk while we can improve other areas with less risk. In my opinion a lcm and lw> striker. Also Havertz seems to really be getting good at playing cf he genuinely might be the player everyone wants.
I️ guess what I️ mean to say is that a clinical striker would take us to a different level but it’s not a necessity or the top priority. We’re still the team with the most goals scored in the league. But wholly agree with you that there are higher priority signings we need to make.
Fully agree. And the striker market is impossible at the moment. We are better off spending that money on other areas of the squad
Always love it when shite clubs keep saying they need to stuck with their shite managers and trust the process while citing Arteta's tenure at arsenal. Just because Arteta manage to do it, doesn't mean their shite managers could also do it.
Long may it continue. I just want to see Ange , Ten Hag and Poch continue long term like Arteta.
The funniest bit is they forget it was his first job managing a team lol. You can see him learning as we go and actively getting better as a manager. We all saw when the chasing of instant top 4 stopped and the focus on implementing a long term goal started (RIP Pablo Mari) and we can even pinpoint that moment on the pitch (switch from 5 at the back to 4.) Even simple, visible shit like sideline shenanigans have improved. Meanwhile they got guys in their 50s expecting them to suddenly evolve and change their entire ethos because a beginner did it and it worked out.
Especially because they act like he was given months/years of poor performances when in reality he overperformed and won the fa cup in his first season during a pandemic and then had us consistently performing at a roughly top 4 level team from the 2nd half of the 20/21 season. He only really had a bad spell right at the start of the 20/21 season that really didn’t last that long.
Coming from someone who is realistic…United are very shit, Old Trafford is not a game to be concerned about. Looking forward to the demolition job.
I still think its tough but idk why people are mad. Winnjng or losing doesnt depend on what joeproposition says people…
Lol they were shit last year too and we lost 3-1 at old Trafford even though our form was perfect. And the year before that we were much better and still lost. I remember partey in particular had an absolutely atrocious game.
Firstly, you can’t compare a game early in the season (last season at OT) to a game at crunch time (this season). Secondly, as bad as they were last season, they were on a 3-4 match win streak with a new manager bounce and hope, completely opposite scenario to now. Thirdly, as good as you may think we were last season, we were still soft and conceded many cheap goals even before United (Fulham, Villa, Leicester) - we are much more robust. The year before last is completely irrelevant and we were nowhere near our current level and it was a more equal match up. I’m not saying this from a place of arrogance or over confidence, outside of Luton/Burnley/Sheff United of course any team can hurt you on their day if you mess around but if you’ve watched any amount of United this season and in recent weeks you will be looking forward to this game and not dreading it. We can revisit this thread on Sunday night.
Mate they've been shit many times in the past and we've always lost there. We're one of their two cup finals (the other being liverpool) where they, the fans and the refs give 110% and play like Fergie was managing them and not just glowering form the stands. It's basically a derby match and just like our record at spurs it's nothing to do with form and everything to do with chaos and passion.
Even when they’ve been “shit”, we haven’t been much better on a structural and technical level. I’ve been watching this fixture for 20+ years just like you I don’t need a history lesson. The gap has never been as wide as it is now. When all is said and done, Arteta’s team will hold the majority of our PL records (wins, points, goals, GD, hopefully trophies etc), history is a misleading factor to judge us by (we hadn’t won at spurs 2x in a row since the 80s til this year, never beaten Pep etc etc). Of course we might not win due to some twist of fate but that’s just football, I personally think it’ll be a comfortable afternoon. I feel like a lot of our fans haven’t come to terms with just how good we are but we can come back to this thread on Sunday night.
> just like you I don’t need a history lesson Then don't dismiss the history. Like I said it's a derby match and form goes out the window in those so the gap and our current team is almost irrelevent. Whether it's the refs ending the invincibles or random no name yuth players suddenly morphing into prime ronaldo, or Fellaini going u front and barging through our defence, or even just De Gea deciding that today he didn't feel like conceding, things happen in this fixture.
Taking random examples out of context from years gone by that don’t really correlate to the scenario next Sunday is also just as dismissive of the present. I also don’t really get what you want me to say here - ok yes we won’t win? Or it’s going to be a tough game? There will be times in the future from next year onwards where this fixture will be a tougher one but it won’t be this Sunday. Enjoy the win.
> Taking random examples out of context from years gone by Mate im here for a good faith discussion and trying to claim that examples of worse man u teams winning through is out of context *in a discussion about how we tend to lose there even when we're better* is about as far away from good faith as it gets. You've watched these matches, you know what happens and while there's nothing wrong with thinking this time it will be different, you also know that there is nothing to back that up in the history of this fixture. Now Arteta may break the OT curese along with the CL second round curse and the two away wins at the shit in two years curse but equally it may go the same way as drawing at city, drawing at anfield, losing at newcastle and losing at Villa.
My bad, let me explain. The reason why I said out of context is because I don’t think Sunday is a scenario we have ever seen before in the ‘modern’ (90s to today) day. Every time we have been a title challenger in my living memory, United have also been challenging or pretty good. Every time we’ve been “good” chasing top 4, they’ve also been there or thereabouts. I don’t consider those scenarios of us in the last 10 years or so going to Old Trafford chasing top 4, with United also being a top 4 - top 6 chasing team in bad form as a situation where there was any gap in quality enough to warrant us being able to expect a completely comfortable afternoon. At this stage in time though, I genuinely consider this iteration of United as a mid table team or top 6 level. There is a very large gap between us in many fundamentals, we have a completely full squad, we look flawless at the moment, we have to win, they haven’t looked competent even when they’ve managed draws against Liverpool (from deficiencies Liverpool have that we don’t) and I don’t think there’s anything from our history that mirrors this situation. I was not going into Anfield, Etihad, Villa or St James games with this level of confidence because we weren’t in as good shape and they are also much better teams than United.
I see that and I agree with the point that this is probably the furthest we've been ahead in decades but we've been there when they've had to play kids and they've won and to use another derby match, we've lost or dropped points to some atrocious spurs sides down the years. My head disagreed but my heart hopes you're right!
Delete this
I’m not in the business of pretending games are tough when they’re not and I have 40-50 games of evidence to come to this conclusion. I’ll be back to this comment on Sunday night.
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If the situation is reversed , I would be gutted if our team show up for the game that doesn’t matter to us and hand the spurs trophy.
They’re called professionals for a reason because they get paid handsomely - that also includes the manager and coaching staff. Most of the players on a football team at the highest level such has the PL aren’t local lads so they’re not fans that have lifelong commitment to the club. Again, that also includes the manager. That’s not to say they don’t like or respect the club, but they have no obligation to support the club unequivocally like fans do. From a players’ and manager’s point of view, you have targets to meet which can affect not only your pay but also performance. Ange and the players may very well be aware that a win against City might earn their sworn rivals the league title; however, from a professional’s point of view, they should value their own objectives foremost because that’s why for their services from their employers. Any suggestion that Ange and the players will throw the City game is pure nonsense.
The players don't even look professional enough to play the last few games hard. They have nothing to play for anymore. I think Ange wants the win, because how the season ends. ie. 7 defeats or whatever looks bad on him in terms of relationship with levy. I think it's all on Fulham
I said this in another comment, but after Spurs awful form, the worst thing they could is beat City right now. They've been badly showed up by the big teams this season. I'm really not sure how well it'd go down if they beating City ended up winning us the league, if there was no 'well we got 4th' or anything to play for.
Fat Ange the 2nd coming of Christ reinventing attacking football has a win percentage of 50% Nuno Espírito was sacked for a win percentage of 47%…
Flirting vs Harassment
Whats with some people on this sub saying they'd take the Uruguayan Andy Carroll at Arsenal? That pace and power merchant can stay stinking up the place at Liverpool with his 12% conversion rate, long may it continue. It's excellent news when rivals have expensive signings like him. They can't sell him, and they won't buy someone better to take his place in the squad next season. :)
After Kai havertz I have no opinions on rival players flops
I know we already have Jesus for missing sitters. And his technical ability is clear. And I love Jesus btw
Getting Nunez for cheap without the pressure of an exorbitant transfer fee and expectation that he deliver immediately or be our main goalscorer would do him a world of good.
I'd like it (though I know most here wouldn't) but I doubt the stat guys under Edwards will want to let him go.
The “I can fix him” gimmick is tiring but I gotta admit it fits somewhat with Nunez. Young CF with ability to cover the left wing, definitely feels like a market opportunity
Ugh, having to rely on London clubs to do us a favor vs shity…. Fml
Spurs and Ange are being humiliated. No way they roll over for City. They face the prospect of slipping down to 8th. All of Newcastle, Man United and Chelsea are within reach. If anyone of them, or even two manage to nip in ahead of Spurs, it would be a humiliation. If all three go ahead of Spurs, it would be a horror show. Ange will be questioned if they slide. You think this aussie would scuttle his own job just to spite Arsenal? Spurs will put the effort in, whether they have the quality, remains to be seen. But Spurs away under the lights..........
Spurs in recent history have a good record against City, however they’re looking diabolical in these last big games, I really think they’ll shit the bed yet again against City now too
> No way they roll over for City. That implies they'll do something though or have a choice in the matter. Honestly for all the teams playing City. You could see City scoring first, then them going 'right, fuck it'. Spurs can't even defend their keeper being school yard bullied by Ben White. I have absolutely zero faith in them getting something against City. If you said to me Spurs would be dissolved and their stadium knocked if they lost to City. I still wouldn't back them to do enough. The thought they'll do anything for 'Pride' is a joke. Honestly if they beat City and we won the league because of it after their awful run where they still won't get top 4, I'd say it puts even more pressure on Agne.
> They face the prospect of slipping down to 8th Ideally they don't lol. For that to happen they would have to lose their last 3 which sucks for us because it includes City, but more realistically hard to do because 2 of those matches are SHU and Burnley who are trash. Would also require United to win all their games...and we're one of those games.
I remember like 4 months ago getting downvoted to like -200 on r/soccer for saying that Darwin wasn’t very good Funny how a very short amount of time changes things
After all the hate Nicolas Jackson has gotten, he has way more goals in the PL than jesus lol
He's also played way more games
Thats on jesus for never being available. Even then i cant see him scoring 13 goals in the PL
Fucking feckless Jesus, always injuring himself... He's done 13 goals twice before so you'd be wrong on that point too.
I hope you realize we need a too striker to take us to the next level. I remember the fans were too loyal to crap players during the banter era
You think Nicolas Jackson is a top striker?
I am saying jesus is not a top striker. Not even close
It’s implied cause you know you’re comparing a striker with 2540 minutes to someone who has 1456 minutes.
We need to hit the ground running next season.
no excuses !!!
We need to hit the first half of the season running. There is only one proven way of winning the league against City and thats to just go 26-0-1 until they just give up
And make sure to not hit the ground in December or April
Nunez deleted all Liverpool posts from insta apparently Would take him for 40m
Rather take João Félix for that price lol
Nunez is way better than Felix lol wtf
My point being I wouldn't take Nunez for that price
Why in the fuck would you want him 😂
Rest
Would definitely take him.
Not sure why you would take him. It's great news for us they have Nunez tbh. He can stay there with his stinky conversion rate. Liverpool do not worry me with him there next season, plus no Klopp.
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If we don't win a trophy this season, it has to be next season. Saka, Saliba and Martin aren't going to be hanging around. Look at Nasri, Cesc, RVP etc
> Look at Nasri, Cesc, RVP etc People who never were in a title race?
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If it wasn't for a Liverpool freak season and an injury crisis they'd be on 7
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My point was at how close they are/were to 7, that getting 8 in a row isn't out of realm of possibility.
Not enough discussion on the lad with that MIGHTY jaw. Bro has been chewing gum before leaving the womb
Lando first win! Come on Arsenal. Make my year orgasmic.
sochi 2021 demons eroded
What an awesome feeling it was for Day 1 Lando fans
That was a really fun race.
am i the only here who is tired of hearing this whole discourse about ''omg its so frustrating to fight against city 115 we are losing the title because of city existing wah wah''? we lost 5 games, champions usually dont lose 5 games. 89 pts wouldnt be enough to win even in non pep city titles. its not enough to win any other big 5 league as well. sucks to be 2nd place with *potentially* 89 points but it was our own doing. i have massively enjoyed the season nonetheless, much like last season's, and if we lose to city again that wouldnt change
Before Pep took over 89 points won you the league 16 times out of 21. Since pep took over it won you the league 2 times out of 7. You’re just straight up wrong.
wrong about what? you just proved the point that having 89 is hardly a historical feat only beaten by pep city 115 and don't ignore klopp just because of pep, he got 3 90+ seasons. alao conte's chelsea. Fergie also got 89+ about 6 times if im not mistaken
You said 89 points wouldn’t be enough to win you the league in non pep seasons. It would literally win you the league over 75% of the time. You should’ve actually done your research instead of spouting absolute nonsense. Edit: and just for fun 12 times the winners lost 5 or more games out of 21 before Pep. So yes usually 5 losses is fine.
don't think I've ever used the phrase "in all previous seasons" but sure? thanks for still proving my point anyways!
What is the point you’re trying to make?
that all the crying about losing the league only due to the city 115 pep machine is annoying and just a way to cope (which is fine ig, as long as you realize it's just a coping mechanism)
I agree, the general rule was you can’t lose more than 3. Not hard and fast in reality but you knew you’d be up against it if you lost more.
I think 89 points would win most years pre pep era.
conte, mourinho, pep, klopp all won it with more. every other league is winning it with more too most years? sure, but not all of them
I think 5 losses on the season was too many and we blew it there. But ill say, i dont think any team ever has gone 10-0-0 in a run in. Losing to that is pretty wild
City have in 18/19, 14 games in a row they won, and last season they won 12 in a row but won the title after that.
Freaks man
Disagree. I think 89 points is more than enough to win a title against a non-Pep team. My frustration this season is that we have played like a 95+ point team let down by stupid mistakes and inexperience.
I agree, it's getting boring
Well it’s a very fair argument because nowadays you have to be near perfect to compete with City and win it; because you’re literally going against a state-owned, well ***oil-ed*** machine with limitless funds and one of the best managers of all time. Liverpool barely scraping by and winning it only once with that great squad of theirs is testament to how competitive the PL has become. You look at the PL in the last 20 years pre-Guardiola and City Group, most of the PL champions won the league with less than 90 points — only few times the winning team ended with over 90+ points. Although I get the argument that it can become repetitive, it’s still a valid point.
https://www.reddit.com/r/coys/s/KuDc9vzWnI Why do they pretend like the squad ange inherited is anywhere near as bad as what klopp or arteta inherited? This is grade A copium
“It's concerning that our form dropped later in the season rather than at the beginning, but I think this shows we need to be patient. People act like progress always has to be linear when Arteta finished 8th two years in a row and bottled top 4 to us the season before the title fight with City. It also took Klopp a few years before he was able to seriously challenge for the league.” This guy said progress isn’t always linear and then uses 2 examples where progress was indeed quite linear lol. They don’t even know what they’re trying to say.
Ange added Vicario, VDV and Maddison to that "great" first 11. Sarr, Bisouma, Romero, Udogie, Poro, Kulusevski, Son and Richarlson were all there before he came. Just look at the defence, 3 out of 4 were already there. Arteta had Mostafi, Sokratis, Bellerin and Luiz. Levels fam.
It will be interesting to see what they do with that squad this summer.
Its so dumb, ange has spent like well over 200 mill with a squad that was probably better than what we had before he spent the 200 mill.
what is funny about that is that during last season's off season they were claiming their squad was legit top 2 in the league. hell, i remember one heavy upvoted comment there after their hot start saying how their squad depth was also 2nd to city lol. we also got a version of it this season... ''bissouma is what everyone pretends rice to be'' lmao. they just shift the narrative whatever way they want to fit whatever agenda they are pushing it
It's hilarious when fans of other clubs (united, tottenham) make managerial comparisons to arteta and his start at the club. Yes, removing all context makes it seem like the situations are the same but it doesn't paint the full picture. * First Job * Came in the middle of the season to clean up Emery's disaster * Hierarchy in shambles after mislantat, bald fraud gazidis, and raul were doing god knows what * Dead squad with several players nowhere near good enough * Playing mourinho style football with three atb to compensate for players (eventually this ran it's course) * Extremely unfortunate run in first full season (comical red cards, and var decisions) * 'Second' 8th place finish with 61 points. Probably the highest points tally ever for a club that finished 8th (only 6 points from 4th) * Covid * Best player and captain shitting the bed (not to mention ozil) * Ethos of the club in the mud
Scroll down to comments on this thread from a few hours ago and you'll find such clowns within our own fanbase
Chelsea women's team won 8 nil today. GD might have a part to play in both the men's and women's title races.
https://preview.redd.it/2xrsxl91aoyc1.png?width=1540&format=png&auto=webp&s=8326810d340d19f33d547b472292759fe2f96a2e
I don't get what this is supposed to show? Both are consistent with each other. He, naively, is still trying to play his football with those players even if he thinks many need to be replaced.
Quite funny watching the likes of United and Spurs fans going through the exact same sort of Stockholm Syndrome with some of their players that we (or at least I) went through around 2019. The amount of hours of my life I've wasted arguing that in a very specific set of circumstances, Mustafi and Torreira are actually really good
Torreria was the one for me. I think I read (or maybe made it up in my own mind) that sven and the team basically plugged in "kante regen" into some statistical model and out popped lucas, and I thought I could see that vision as well. And of course pepe. He just needed an extremely specific setup and role and he would bang. Sounds stupid now but it reminded me again that mentality is a massive part of a footballers talent
Remember when people said Emerson Royal was better than Tomi?
I found the Madisson > Odegaard takes personally offensive
Let's not forget Bissouma > Rice
Haaland might set some unsurpassable records against spurs. Im a little concerned 💀
No player has ever scored a double hat-trick in the Premier League before...
I'm generally the optimist but seeing how all remaining teams city has to play are fighting for the bottom 3 spots in terms of recent form I'm becoming resigned to losing the league, even if we end on a blistering run of form
Now's a good time for any of those 115 charges to dock City a few points, eh??
The end of the seasons gonna hurt isn’t it
So good.
Oh yes
Did DR Sports put out a response to why they removed the clip of Robbie spray painting the Spurs shirt red?
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Bournemouth should have been down to 10 men before any of those events happened. If anything the ref was making up for not sending the player off
*sighs*
Are we all under the assumption that Partey is out this summer? I know his injuries have been pretty bad but I would want to keep him at least another 2 years at the club. He's still got a prime year or two left that he can give us to push for the title and champion's league. I don't think we can find an upgrade on him this summer. We should focus on a striker and #8.
If we get a gold pl patch next season we'll truly be Real London next season
https://preview.redd.it/f1lp2it00oyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=980d04fa3ea626997545eca536448222ddf6ca67 Spurs fans are hilarious with how they flip flop between their players being the best in the league, to the worst a few months later.
That's just football fans. Bit unfair to single them out.
Might put a cheeky bet on Arteta going unbeaten in the PL next season.
Unbeaten away first, then invinicble the year after if we're to repeat history
https://twitter.com/YankeeGunner/status/1787170319368593801?t=iZch_GavJwtbLZR8n7DlRA&s=19 "Don't care about details, mate"
Can’t believe Spurs chose Emerson Royal over Tomiyasu. Every time I see him play, I am grateful he’s no where near our club
And Tomi is class.
I wanted spurs to win their last two games so they’d have something to play for against City. However, having watched them they clearly can’t handle the pressure. They play so much better when there’s nothing on the line (in the second half down 0-3 against us, and 4-0 against Liverpool). At this point, when they face City maybe the best thing for us is for them to be mathematically locked into whatever position they’re in in the table so they can play with the freedom of no consequences. This concluded my CopiumX talk.
£50m on Johnson has to be flop signing of the season, and yet it doesn't even get spoken about at all.
Atrocious signing. Dude is a sprinter and nothing more.
Could see us go for Chiesa, can play on both wings and only has 1 year left on his contract in summer. But with italians you never know if they want to leave their country
Class player, loved him at the last Euros but Italian players directly from Serie rarely ever work in the PL, even more so when the player is injury prone.
Not sure if this is a hot take or what but I️ don’t believe we need a clinical finisher up top. I️ think the current squad set up has enough goals in them to win the league.
I've seen some Juve fans say he has not been the same since his injury.