This Weekend's Fixtures & Midweek Fixtures (20/21/22/24/25 May).

[HCZ_Reborn]

I literally keep saying that.

But when you serve it with a big dollop of Fatalism (oh what do you expect with city etc) don’t be surprised that, that’s all anyone can taste

[Letters]

But when you serve it with a big dollop of Fatalism (oh what do you expect with city etc) don’t be surprised that, that’s all anyone can taste

The idea that City would have mown us down anyway is not contradictory to the idea that our capitulation made it far too easy for them in the end. Come on dude, this isn’t rocket salad. Surely people on here can cope with both those things being true.

[HCZ_Reborn]

The idea that City would have mown us down anyway is not contradictory to the idea that our capitulation made it far too easy for them in the end. Come on dude, this isn’t rocket salad. Surely people on here can cope with both those things being true.

One I don’t think it’s necessarily true. When you’re five points clear with nine games remaining. There’s no inevitability that City would win, just like it wasn’t inevitable and in fact didn’t happen that one of the bigger clubs would overtake Leicester in 2016. Winning the title was far from an impossibility

Two it’s irrelevant to the discussion. All that matters is what we do, I’ve pointed out till I’m blue in the face where we went wrong and it’s got little or nothing to do with City.

[Letters]

One I don’t think it’s necessarily true. When you’re five points clear with nine games remaining. There’s no inevitability that City would win, just like it wasn’t inevitable and in fact didn’t happen that one of the bigger clubs would overtake Leicester in 2016. Winning the title was far from an impossibility

Well of course. It wasn't a given City would win it. As you say, we were 5 points ahead with 9 games left. BUT those 9 games for us included Liverpool, Newcastle and City away. So the 5 points wasn't the commanding lead some in the "Arsenal bottled it" camp are trying to pretend. It was always likely we'd drop points. My hope was that City would get distracted by the CL and slip up here and there too but they just didn't. So it's with the hindsight that City just won every game including the head to head that I say that given our run in it was pretty likely that City were going to mow us down in the end.

Two it’s irrelevant to the discussion. All that matters is what we do, I’ve pointed out till I’m blue in the face where we went wrong and it’s got little or nothing to do with City.

You're not saying anything revolutionary or insightful here. It was in our hands so yes, of course that means it doesn't matter what City did. And yes, we slipped up in games we shouldn't have. That made City's task easier.
But even if we'd won the West Ham and Southampton games - which I agree we should have - we'd still have been below City on GD in the run in given that they just kept winning. Obviously you can look back to other games - we shouldn't be losing away at Everton, but City shouldn't be losing at Spurs. They shouldn't lose at home to Brentford. You can play that game in any season.

I'm disappointed we didn't win the league, of course I am. It's the first season for a long time where I really felt we could. I don't even remember thinking that in 2016 although looking back at the table at various points last season we were closer to Leicester than I remembered. Being ahead for so long and not winning it is disappointing and I can't see us getting a better chance any time soon. But City have developed the annoying ability to get their slips out of the way in the first half of the season and then just go on long winning runs when it matters. My real annoyance with Arsenal this year, as I also keep saying till I'm blew in the face, is that we just gave up and handed it to them. I'm annoyed at the slips too but to just give up after City beat Everton is unacceptable.