Quote Originally Posted by Letters View Post
You really need to stop including Brighton and Forest. We'd stopped bothering by then. I'm not defending that, but I honestly think they gave up when it was clear City weren't going to slip up. The other 4 where we slipped, sure. We should have won those. But you're going to get slips here and there. And some of those are offset by some good wins, notably at St James' Park where I think most of us expected dropped points. And those slips only account for 9 points. I don't think that would have been enough. It would have given the final table, but City had the flip flops out in the last 2 games having wrapped up the title and with Cup Finals to consider.

The big issue for us, aside from City winning a billion games in a row, was the head to heads. But...well, City are just better than us. Overall it's the fact we didn't push them to the last day that rankles with me. There were brief moments where I thought we could do it, but those moments were predicated on us getting certain results or City slipping and it never quite happened.

No I especially include Brighton and Forest…for me they are almost more unacceptable than the other games. I can understand the fear involved with chasing a title and that accounts for games like West Ham and Southampton. Brighton despite your insistence to the contrary was about tactical ineptitude…we allowed Brighton to play their game at the Emirates (lack of plan B I alluded to in another thread) and Forest was just Arteta throwing out a tactical fuck you.

I don’t know how clearer I can make this, you push City every step of the way…make them have to focus on getting the wins against Brighton and Brentford the two games that were their hardest right at the end of the season. Might they have won them both had they not already been champions? Possibly but no guarantee…make them fucking sweat for it in two difficult away games.

We didn’t do that, I’m fucking furious…for all the back and forth it’s as simple as that