Bayern Munich v Arsenal. 17th April. 20:00. CL 1/4 Final 2nd Leg.

[HCZ_Reborn]

The point is as I’m said repeatedly is that if you want to win things these results are unacceptable. That’s not the team failing in its service levels to me, that’s the club failing to meet its stated objectives

A draw on Sunday would have been a collapse because it was a must win game. There are no excuses when you’re challenging for the big prizes. It’s a result you can afford in October, it’s not one you can afford in April. That’s how this works…and it’s how it’s always worked.

This isn’t 1989 where the 2-1 loss at home to Derby can be remedied by winning at Anfield

[Letters]

It’s a result you can afford in October, it’s not one you can afford in April. That’s how this works…and it’s how it’s always worked

How funny to say that and then immediately follow it with

This isn’t 1989 where the 2-1 loss at home to Derby can be remedied by winning at Anfield

You immediately follow the claim that we can't afford to slip up at this stage of the season and have never been able to with an example where we did slip up and then won the title. And that 2-1 defeat was followed by a disappointing 2-2 against Wimbledon. 1 point out of 6 in two of our last 3 games. Now that, my good man, I can agree is a collapse.

I do agree we won't win the title now, City won't slip up and even if they do our harder fixtures make it unlikely we will capitalise. But I'd say the main reason we can't afford to slip up now is because we are up against a machine. There's never been a side like City before, maybe for one off seasons there has but over a prolonged period 10 wins out of 11 - and the 11th being a draw at their place, so not a game where they made up any ground on us - and that run didn't give us enough of a gap that we could allow ourselves a single slip. City are relentless as Liverpool have found multiple times - getting 97 points and not winning the title, it's insane.

As I said, my main interest now is we beat Wolves. City have the semi-final so that would put us top. I don't expect City to buckle, they've been there and done it too many times. But let's do our bit and put what pressure we can on. If we fail to do that then I'll agree that's unacceptable.

[IBK]

I'm agreeing with you here, Letters.

We are all disappointed with Sunday's result, and I suspect that even Arsenal optimists fear another collapse - and accept that we won't win the league from here. I would agree that if we do collapse, and don't show some fight to run Citeh closer, then this could be deemed 'unacceptable' and evidence of a lack of progress from last season.

Where I disagree is the characterisation of the Villa and Bayern results to date 'unacceptable'. It's not 'unacceptable' fight back to a draw against Bayern full stop. As for Villa - we lost a football match. It happens to everyone. Even Citeh. That's the nature of football. I agree that very poor performances can be unacceptable, but taking the Villa game as a whole, this was not the case on Sunday. The result was not good enough to make a title likely, but the fact is that given Citeh's relentlessness anything less than absolute perfection would likely not have won the title.

And this is my issue with labeling a poor result 'unacceptable'. It's measuring our team by a standard of absolute perfection, when the reality is that this is essentially a unicorn standard. We all know that our team is not perfect, so while we can be disappointed at a poor result, IMO we do need to see things in their proper context. We neither have the strength in depth; nor the experience, nor the resources of a generational team in Citeh - the best team in the world and going for a historic second consecutive treble to become arguably the greatest club team of all time, so why is it fair to measure Arsenal by this standard?

This is not being defeatist - of course I want to see my team aspiring to be 'perfect' - but this is an aspiration, not a measure of acceptability.

[HCZ_Reborn]

The point is title challenges don’t allow for weakness or slip ups. The first half of the season is largely about putting yourself in a position where you can go on a run in the second half

Historically this is how we’ve won most title races in the modern era


The 97/98 season required us to win eight games in a row. The 01/02 season required 12 wins in a row


Yes defeats happen, but that’s an excuse for losers. The fact is when it comes to the crunch, you find a way to win. Like we had to on Good Friday 2004 when we went twice behind to Liverpool. Defeat is what happens to the other teams. Whilst I don’t know if the club has a losers mentality, I think too many of the fans do.

We recovered a draw against Bayern Munich? So what? We should never have been behind to them to begin with. Come back to me and tell me it’s not a collapse if we achieve what Dortmund did last night with a 4-2 win.


Wenger discovered whilst in Japan he had a problem with his players at Grampus Eight, what that problem was that although the players were hardworking, did everything he expected of them and more. They were losing games because they didn’t hate defeat…they saw it as an occupational hazard.


No you have to hate defeat, make it make you physically ill to lose like it did Wenger when he had the passion. Not meekly surrender to it and say “don’t worry we will do better next time”. No you can’t change what was, but you make sure it never happens again.
What we do here is we make excuses for it

[Marc Overmars]

The point is title challenges don’t allow for weakness or slip ups. The first half of the season is largely about putting yourself in a position where you can go on a run in the second half

Historically this is how we’ve won most title races in the modern era


The 97/98 season required us to win eight games in a row. The 01/02 season required 12 wins in a row


Yes defeats happen, but that’s an excuse for losers. The fact is when it comes to the crunch, you find a way to win. Like we had to on Good Friday 2004 when we went twice behind to Liverpool. Defeat is what happens to the other teams. Whilst I don’t know if the club has a losers mentality, I think too many of the fans do.

We recovered a draw against Bayern Munich? So what? We should never have been behind to them to begin with. Come back to me and tell me it’s not a collapse if we achieve what Dortmund did last night with a 4-2 win.


Wenger discovered whilst in Japan he had a problem with his players at Grampus Eight, what that problem was that although the players were hardworking, did everything he expected of them and more. They were losing games because they didn’t hate defeat…they saw it as an occupational hazard.


No you have to hate defeat, make it make you physically ill to lose like it did Wenger when he had the passion. Not meekly surrender to it and say “don’t worry we will do better next time”. No you can’t change what was, but you make sure it never happens again.
What we do here is we make excuses for it

I agree with your sentiment but I also think you need to contextualise the situation at the same time. It’s not an excuse to comment on the strength of City because it’s just a fact. What they’ve done to this league is unprecedented, they’re likely to win their 6th in 7 years which I believe is a record for a 7 season span.

The league is what it is now and while we need to be pushing every year to try and win it, actually doing it right now is a monstrous task. If City had been upset a few times then you could draw encouragement from that but that’s only happened once and it required Liverpool to win 26 out of 27 games from the start of the season.

[Marc Overmars]

Also those runs you mentioned from 98 and 2002, they wouldn’t be enough now. I understand winners don’t allow for slip ups but the more games you need to win the more chances you have to slip up. Had we carried on our run against Villa, it would have meant needing 17 wins from 18 games to win the title. A type of winning run we’ve never been on in our history.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Also those runs you mentioned from 98 and 2002, they wouldn’t be enough now. I understand winners don’t allow for slip ups but the more games you need to win the more chances you have to slip up. Had we carried on our run against Villa, it would have meant needing 17 wins from 18 games to win the title. A type of winning run we’ve never been on in our history.

Yet look at City compared to previous seasons. Liverpool lost out on the title despite winning 97 points, the nearest we’ve come in that time is 84 points.


If we lose one game all season and still come up short, then I’ll put my hands up and say it’s not fair.