Quote Originally Posted by Letters View Post
All games are big games at the business end of the season all you've done is cherry pick some poor results. Two of those are against sides who are clearly better than us, the other two are sides who are much closer to us in ability. Spurs away was always going to be a defeat, we've not won away against a top side all season because we're not at that level any more. Everton at home was a disappointment but we played well enough and dominated most of the game, we lacked a cutting edge and a top class striker but we all knew that.

I'm fairly confident (if that's the right word) that we'll lose on Sunday vs Utd, that's not us bottling it, that's us losing to a far better side than us. In the run in we've been beating the sides we 'should' be beating, that's given us a chance.

Agree with a lot of the rest of your post but cherry picking some poor results against good sides doesn't really demonstrate your point.
I'm not cherry picking results. I'm picking the results against our closest rivals in the race for a top 4 spot. Any sort of success in any of these games would have made a big difference to the standings.

Looking at all the crunch matches.

Arsenal 0-0 Everton (1 pt)
Tottenham 2-1 Arsenal (0 pt)
Arsenal 1-3 Bayern Munich (CL)
Arsenal 0-1 Blackburn (FA CUP)
Chelsea 2-1 Arsenal (0 pt)
Arsenal 0-2 Man City (0 pt)
Bradford 1-1 Arsenal (Bradford win 3-2 on penalties) (LC)
Everton 1-1 Arsenal (1 pt)
Arsenal 5-2 Tottenham (3 pts) - Our only win against our rivals this season, vs 10 men
Man Utd 2-1 Arsenal (0 pt)
Arsenal 1-2 Chelsea (0 pt)
Man City 1-1 Arsenal (1 pt)

Trophies available: 4 / Trophies winnable: 0
Points available: 27 / Points won: 6 (it will be 30/6 after the Utd loss)

In contrast:

Robin van Persie - 22 points gained from his goals, Man Utd walk the PL

When people say, well Walcott has 88 goals and Giroud has 327 goals plus 900 assists so he must be good - where were their goals and assists when it really mattered? Nowhere. We're only in the race for 4th spot because the quality of the teams in this league has plunged dramatically. This has hidden a stunning lack of performance that wouldn't be acceptable at any other big club (and hasn't been as we have seen). The board and the manager can talk all the shit they want but the results speak louder. In this crappy league we MIGHT grab a CL place but it's only useful for the money it will pile into the club's bank account. We'll be easy meat for any decent continental outfit.

I still have a degree of sympathy for Wenger, having to build a team out of the shit we have. But that sympathy wanes when he then digs to the very bottom of the sewer and hauls up Giroud and Walcott and Gervinho. Our season was over the moment we let RvP go (and Utd won the league at the same moment). The results thereafter were a formality. That's why I highlight these games because these are the games where quality makes the difference, maybe not on a one-off but over a season.

We're just fortunate that the spuds and chavs are shite too.