This Weekend's Fixtures & Midweek Fixtures (20/21/23/24/25 Apr)

[McNamara That Ghost...]

0-4 Alvarez.

[Letters]

In some ways it was a bad idea to lose to Villa. We had these skanky bitches in our pocket and we let them out to spread what they spread.

We’ve won every game apart from an away draw at City and then that Villa loss.
I mean, obviously the latter was disappointing but Villa are not some cloggers and you can’t win every game.
The fact we’ve lost one game and in doing so City basically became hot favourites tells you a lot more about City than us. You have to be perfect to get the better of them. I can’t really fault our efforts

[HCZ_Reborn]

We’ve won every game apart from an away draw at City and then that Villa loss.
I mean, obviously the latter was disappointing but Villa are not some cloggers and you can’t win every game.
The fact we’ve lost one game and in doing so City basically became hot favourites tells you a lot more about City than us. You have to be perfect to get the better of them. I can’t really fault our efforts

If that transpires as our last dropped points of the season you may have an argument, unless I just think it’s an excuse.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

And 0-4 FT. That was awful.

[Mac76]

If Spuds don't stop them no-one will

The good news is Spuds will really try to win that game to make the CL

[Letters]

If that transpires as our last dropped points of the season you may have an argument, unless I just think it’s an excuse.

So you think the only acceptable outcome is Arsenal win every single league game this calendar year but two - one slip and one pretty creditable away win against our title rivals. Anything else and you don't regard that as good enough?
Wow.
We were never favourites in this race. Never. We always knew we had the harder run in. My one hope is Spurs getting a result against them, they have previous. But in the context of a title run in I can see City mowing them down.

[HCZ_Reborn]

So you think the only acceptable outcome is Arsenal win every single league game this calendar year but two - one slip and one pretty creditable away win against our title rivals. Anything else and you don't regard that as good enough?
Wow.
We were never favourites in this race. Never. We always knew we had the harder run in. My one hope is Spurs getting a result against them, they have previous. But in the context of a title run in I can see City mowing them down.

I’ve been pretty consistent in saying my basis for whether Arsenal should continue under Arteta is whether we can challenge for things. If we win every game from now until the end of the season (and are you really saying that’s an unreasonable expectation) and still don’t win the league we have accrued 89 points and won 28 games in a season which is more than we’ve done in a single season so I can say we are at least doing our part to win the title (as I said to you the other week, a team winning the title with less than 85 points has happened twice in the last twenty years)

Plus why shouldn’t we expect to win games like away at Spurs and away at United?

No point bitching about City if we don’t do our part.

[Niall_Quinn]

So you think the only acceptable outcome is Arsenal win every single league game this calendar year but two - one slip and one pretty creditable away win against our title rivals. Anything else and you don't regard that as good enough?
Wow.
We were never favourites in this race. Never. We always knew we had the harder run in. My one hope is Spurs getting a result against them, they have previous. But in the context of a title run in I can see City mowing them down.

It was in our hands, so we were favourites at one point. And then we weren't. Some people claimed we weren't favourites even when it was in our hands. Why would that be? Given, as you point out, we've won so many games, and also scored the most goals and have an almost fully fit squad, why would a club that had to rely on us dropping points be the favourite? Couldn't they drop points too? And haven't they? To us, in fact.

Anyone saying we weren't favourites when we were in command is basically admitting to the mentality problem I have talked about many times. When you have a markedly superior record against your main two rivals, yet people still say your rivals will beat you in the end, what is really being said? You can boil it down to City knowing what it takes to win while we don't. Or you can go on about more difficult run-ins and all that stuff, but it's invalid because we already beat the closest two rivals so who does that leave in the run-in that's more difficult?

If anything, Liverpool's recent performances have shown it's not the opponent that matters most, it's your own effort, mentality and application. That's why people thought all along the gypos would win it, because they know they'll nail all of those required attributes. And they doubt we will, because we've provided plenty of evidence in the past to support that view.

We can fall back on saying, good season lads, almost won it but... add excuses accordingly. In the end though, not good enough. That's not even a criticism, it's just a statement of fact.

But I do think Arteta is making major gains in repairing the damage that was done over many years. For instance, anyone talking about a top four trophy today would be laughed out of the room. And righly so. The top four trophy was the epitome of a loser mentality, and I think it has almost been dispelled at this point. That's definitely progress. It has taken so long because it was so pernicious and such a destructive way of approaching competitive sport at the top level.

Next step will be learning how to disrespect the gypos and treat them like a bitch, which we used to do to Utd even before we got on the pitch. No more of this grovelling and blind acceptance, the gypos aren't all that. They couldn't even beat Madrid. So much for the best club in the best league in the world.

[Letters]

I’ve been pretty consistent in saying my basis for whether Arsenal should continue under Arteta is whether we can challenge for things.

You said you wanted us to be in with a chance by May. If we lose tomorrow then obviously it's pretty unlikely we'll win the title. Although City also have to go to Spurs who have a good record against City. But we are at worst very close to achieving your requirement,

If we win every game from now until the end of the season (and are you really saying that’s an unreasonable expectation)

It's a reasonable ambition but yes it's an unreasonable expectation.
The latter makes you sound like the irritated customer in a fancy restaurant again.

and still don’t win the league we have accrued 89 points and won 28 games in a season which is more than we’ve done in a single season so I can say we are at least doing our part to win the title (as I said to you the other week, a team winning the title with less than 85 points has happened twice in the last twenty years)

You did say that and I did look in to that a bit. In a fair number of seasons there's been one outstanding side who blew everyone away, a tight 3 horse title race hasn't happened for a while. A few years ago City won it with 86 points but the second team, Utd, only got 74. Point being you could argue you only really needed 75 to win it. 89 would be an outstanding outcome for us, but given the games we have left to play and our run this calendar year to get us in contention, I think over-criticism of a lower final points tally would be unwarranted.

Plus why shouldn’t we expect to win games like away at Spurs and away at United?
No point bitching about City if we don’t do our part.

We have done our part.

The reason it's an unreasonable expectation is we have 2 tough fixtures coming up. Utd have been pretty patchy this season but they'll raise it against us. Spurs is a local derby - even at our best under Wenger when Spurs were a very mid-table side we never lost there but draws were pretty common.
Liverpool lost away at Spurs (thanks in part to that VAR farce, but that was early enough they could still have won it), and they drew away at Man Utd
City beat Utd home and away, but they drew at home to Spurs.
Why would you expect us to win both of those games? They're certainly games we could win, but "expect"?

[Letters]

Damn and blast. I wrote most of a reply to this and then my browser restarted
Anyway...

It was in our hands, so we were favourites at one point. And then we weren't. Some people claimed we weren't favourites even when it was in our hands. Why would that be?

It being in your hands doesn't necessarily make you favourites. Anfield '89 was in our hands and of course we prevailed but we certainly weren't favourites.
Obviously a factor is your remaining fixtures and the gap you have over the rest. That's why at no point were we considered favourites because our run in was objectively more difficult than the other two and we've never had any significant gap over them.
I don't see how it's a mentality issue and the difficulty of the run in is not irrelevant. Two of your last 4 games being Spurs and Utd away is objectively more difficult than, say, those fixtures being Sheffield Utd and Luton at home. Obviously we are capable of winning all our remaining fixtures, but those two away games are not the nailed on certainties that the alternatives should be.

If anything, Liverpool's recent performances have shown it's not the opponent that matters most, it's your own effort, mentality and application. That's why people thought all along the gypos would win it, because they know they'll nail all of those required attributes. And they doubt we will, because we've provided plenty of evidence in the past to support that view.

There's something in that, but I can't really fault our efforts so far.

We can fall back on saying, good season lads, almost won it but... add excuses accordingly. In the end though, not good enough. That's not even a criticism, it's just a statement of fact.

Not good enough to win the league. It's an exercise for the reader to determine whether they think it's good enough overall.
For me there's been pretty clear progression this year. We've stood up in the big games this season. We've been near perfect in the the run in, just one slip and that wasn't to some cloggers who we should be sweeping aside.

But I do think Arteta is making major gains in repairing the damage that was done over many years. For instance, anyone talking about a top four trophy today would be laughed out of the room. And righly so. The top four trophy was the epitome of a loser mentality, and I think it has almost been dispelled at this point. That's definitely progress. It has taken so long because it was so pernicious and such a destructive way of approaching competitive sport at the top level.

Next step will be learning how to disrespect the gypos and treat them like a bitch, which we used to do to Utd even before we got on the pitch. No more of this grovelling and blind acceptance, the gypos aren't all that. They couldn't even beat Madrid. So much for the best club in the best league in the world.

Agree with most of this. I mean, City only lost to Real on pens, they weren't swept aside by them. But we've stood up to City this season. Maybe we showed them a bit too much respect at their place, but after previous experiences I can understand that. They haven't lost a league home game all season so a draw was a creditable result, and we stopped them scoring which is more than anyone else has done for about 3 years. Next step is to go there and beat them.

If we fall short again this year then so be it. We sign a proper striker in the summer and build on the progress we've made. At times HCZ seems to be saying we should sack Arteta, rip it all up and start again. I think that would be a step backwards.