Manchester City v Arsenal, 20:00 BST (26/04, BT Sport)

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Originally Posted by Letters

De Bruyne is surely the best player in the league right now and Haaland equalled Clive Allen's record last night with 7 league games left.
Last night they brought Mahrez off the bench, and then World Cup winner Alvarez came off the bench too :shrug:
Come on, dude, they have quality all over the pitch, they're better than us in every department, they have players on their bench who would walk into our team.

They've won 9 and drawn 1 of the last 10 league games while effortlessly progressing through the cup competitions.
Despite the recent wobble it's hardly been a collapse, City are just relentless and with our run in they were always likely to mow us down.
The Saliba injury has clearly has caused us a big problem. City can just call on another top class player to cover any position, we can't.

City's points average over the last 5 seasons is more than The Invincibles got. The only time anyone stopped them was when Liverpool basically won every game till February and only took their foot off the gas when they'd all but won the title. I just don't accept we didn't try last night, we were just overrun by a side who are at a different level from us and pretty much everyone else. And we all know how we got there. Fuck them.

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Again, I'm not saying they are not a great team with great players, but they are the same players who were not playing well and getting held or beaten by lesser teams than us this season.
They are beatable if you put a shift in and try to cause them problems.

We did not do that last night, not even close.

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Originally Posted by KSE Comedy Club

See this is the problem.

It's the perception that City are some unbeatable side with all the superhero players in the world.

You compete by actually turning up and putting some fight in, not standing like rabbits trapped in the headlights for the first 45 mins and not even trying to play the way we have been for the two thirds of the season.

A win was always an outside chance but to just rollover and not even try is unforgivable.

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If anything we should have at least tried a different approach last night. I felt like Arteta just sent them out there telling them to do their "thing" when in fact their "thing" has not been working for weeks, it was earlier on in the season but it isn't now.

Like MO said, the body language of the players and their lack of application told me that they did not believe they were capable of competing with City, the game was lost before we even kicked a ball.

City are on current form the best team in Europe by some distance, that is pretty much clear. But what that should have meant to Arteta is that we go there and make it difficult for them, shut up shop, amend our tactics and personnel to make it as difficult as possible for them. We made it very easy for them last night and have pretty much handed them the title over the past few weeks.

I think Arteta is doing a very good job now and has improved us more than I thought he ever could, but if we wish to maintain these standards and see ourselves as a Top 2 PL side and CL contender then we have a way to go yet. Arteta needs to improve, the squad needs to improve, the mentality within the squad needs to improve and we need to recruit well going forward.

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Originally Posted by KSE Comedy Club

Again, I'm not saying they are not a great team with great players, but they are the same players who were not playing well and getting held or beaten by lesser teams than us this season.
They are beatable if you put a shift in and try to cause them problems.

We did not do that last night, not even close.

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Earlier in the season they were dropping silly points, but they do have a habit of going on these long, relentless winning runs at the business end of the season and turning up in the big games. Last night we just couldn't settle on the ball or play our game. They were pressing us so high up the pitch. It was like peak Barcelona at times where it felt like they had 15 players on the pitch.
I dunno. There is clearly a mentality problem when we play them. Maybe our style plays in to their hands. But we're defeated before we play then. The fans knew we'd lose, it feels like the Arsenal players knew they'd lose and the City players knew they'd win. We lost before a ball was kicked. I don't know how we get out of that, we have to stand up in these games if we're going to compete.

Didn't watch this one because I knew the result in advance and knew how the game would play out. So not much point taking the time. Don't like repeats.

Might watch the season run-in though because I'm not certain the team will now pack it in and collapse down to 3rd or 4th spot. That's the most likely outcome, but this time, for the first time in an age, there's a chance they might dust themselves off and earn their pay. You would expect to see at least that much if the rest of the season is to be considered more than a fluke.