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

[Marc Overmars]

I think it’s more about the fact we have a finite amount of resources and needed to overhaul the squad in order of priority first. Holding is one of the lowest earners, happy to sit on the bench and ticks the homegrown quota box. It’s easy to see why he was kept.

It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to call on him at the most crucial stage of the season but shit happens. I can’t remember a time where we didn’t suffer key injuries during a run-in that would eventually cost us. Last year it was Tierney and Tomi that were out and we had to play Cedric and Tavares who were absolutely shit.

Where we dropped the ball was not having the foresight to buy a CB last summer when it was decided that White would be moved to RB.

I’m sure Arteta’s aim is to have a squad where the technical level doesn’t drop when a cog or two is missing. With the CL to offer I suspect that those gaps will be plugged this summer. This is the difference with City who seemingly can chop and change without needing to worry about a drop in quality because they all play the same way.

[Letters]

[IBK]

Had we got the extra four points we should have got against West Ham and Southampton I’d be extremely nervous about this game. I was shitting a brick before the Liverpool game. But not nervous at all now, the expectations are minimal…if we lose and I think we will then the title although not mathematically over will be over (we would require City to lose one and draw one of their remaining fixtures whilst we would not be able to drop any more points)

I am half expecting a similar calamity to last season. But that said if Brentford can win at the Etihad so can we. To my mind the greatest Arsenal win in our premier league history was winning the title at Old Trafford (although more because of the symbolism…the game itself was actually a reasonably easy win they never looked like coming back into it when we went 1-0 up)
We can’t compare it to 26th May 1989 either because that was the last game of the season. We have five more to play after this.
I don’t think we will get hammered because no matter how poor we’ve been the last fortnight we haven’t lost a game. We’ve lost six games in all competition all season (City have lost that many albeit having played more games overall).

I’m going for 3-1 City

I'd go with your score prediction.

Disagree that Saliba's absence was Arteta's fault for playing him in the EL game though. That's captain hindsight. Given the time he was out during and after the WC he was actually one of our 'fresher' players and throwing the EL is something that I think would have sent the wrong message out. It didn't work well in the end but the injuries that we sustained were pure bad luck.

I've thought for a couple of weeks that trying to rush Saliba back for the Etihad was a mistake - even if he had been in training a couple of weeks ago the player hasn't been great in his first couple of games after a period out and I never expected him to make it. Saiba is one player - and our problems in recent weeks have been as much a collective loss of team composure as much as anything else.

I'm with you that the league has gone. The priority on Wednesday is to avoid a morale-sapping drubbing. We need to avoid a hangover that lasts into what will be an even more challenging season next time in order to kick on from this one.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I think it’s more about the fact we have a finite amount of resources and needed to overhaul the squad in order of priority first. Holding is one of the lowest earners, happy to sit on the bench and ticks the homegrown quota box. It’s easy to see why he was kept.

It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to call on him at the most crucial stage of the season but shit happens. I can’t remember a time where we didn’t suffer key injuries during a run-in that would eventually cost us. Last year it was Tierney and Tomi that were out and we had to play Cedric and Tavares who were absolutely shit.

Where we dropped the ball was not having the foresight to buy a CB last summer when it was decided that White would be moved to RB.

I’m sure Arteta’s aim is to have a squad where the technical level doesn’t drop when a cog or two is missing. With the CL to offer I suspect that those gaps will be plugged this summer. This is the difference with City who seemingly can chop and change without needing to worry about a drop in quality because they all play the same way.

We signed a centre back in January and spent almost twenty million on doing so. This is a player who is 23 and has played top flight football and international football…we bought this player as a back up to Gabriel because they are left footed so either presumably they are lacking the requisite experience, is not rated by Arteta despite the money spent on him or is for some reason reticent on playing two players who are left footed.

We’ve spent near on 200 million on defenders since 2019, the lack of a better understudy than Holding is not due to limited resources

[HCZ_Reborn]

I'd go with your score prediction.

Disagree that Saliba's absence was Arteta's fault for playing him in the EL game though. That's captain hindsight. Given the time he was out during and after the WC he was actually one of our 'fresher' players and throwing the EL is something that I think would have sent the wrong message out. It didn't work well in the end but the injuries that we sustained were pure bad luck.

I've thought for a couple of weeks that trying to rush Saliba back for the Etihad was a mistake - even if he had been in training a couple of weeks ago the player hasn't been great in his first couple of games after a period out and I never expected him to make it. Saiba is one player - and our problems in recent weeks have been as much a collective loss of team composure as much as anything else.

I'm with you that the league has gone. The priority on Wednesday is to avoid a morale-sapping drubbing. We need to avoid a hangover that lasts into what will be an even more challenging season next time in order to kick on from this one.

Respectfully disagree, I think playing Saliba in the Europa league was an unnecessary risk and I said at the time that I was not happy with first team players featuring in the Europa league so I’m not just being wise with hindsight.

I also respectfully disagree that we should not have done everything possible to play Saliba even if it meant getting him through this period with painkilling injections. At 21, a back injury is unlikely to be career ending…and if he broke down we’d be no worse off than we are now.

[KSE Comedy Club]

I've decided to start thinking that we have no chance and will loose tomorrow.

That way if we get any other result I will be over the moon!

[Niall_Quinn]

Man Utd tactics should be used. Go for the draw and play a couple of hackjobs with the specific purpose of injuring Haaland and De Brownstuff. Worked very well for Utd over many seasons. As a bonus, bribe the ref, but that might be a hard get at the gypo camp.

[Mac76]

Respectfully disagree, I think playing Saliba in the Europa league was an unnecessary risk and I said at the time that I was not happy with first team players featuring in the Europa league so I’m not just being wise with hindsight.

I also respectfully disagree that we should not have done everything possible to play Saliba even if it meant getting him through this period with painkilling injections. At 21, a back injury is unlikely to be career ending…and if he broke down we’d be no worse off than we are now.

Agree 100% with the first para but not the second, any player needs to be given the time they need to recover, we rushed Partey back a season or two ago and ended up losing him for longer

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Yeah i was thinking of watching in the pub in case it turned out to be a legendary win, but will probably just watch at home as the irony is even if we did win, City would probably win the PL anyway

I feel like this too....lets see though.

[Marc Overmars]

The only chance we’ve got is if Jesus, Saka and Martinelli have the game of their lives. I think we all accept that we’re going to concede goals here so the only way to combat that is with some goals of our own. We’ve got to make it difficult for them, otherwise they will just suffocate us again like they did in the second half at the Emirates when we just froze and stopped playing.