Fuckin phone![]()
It's better to burn out, than to fade away.
No, I know you're notHonestly, I don't think you'll find (m)any Arsenal fans who didn't prefer it when we had that nasty edge, and could intimidate other sides just by lining up against them in the tunnel - it's just a question of it being a fair fight. As I said, I'm more than happy to give as good as we get again, if the FA are happy to let us all just get on with it. Or I'm happy for everyone to try and play fair, and for the same zero-tolerance approach to be applied to anything OTT. But what we can't have is what ended up happening, where we had that ability to stand up for ourselves ruthlessly stamped out of us by the FA, while our opponents were allowed to carry on regardless?! Put everyone in the same boat, one way or the other, but don't just chuck us in the ring with our hands tied behind our back - that's BS...
This time last year we were 6th on 39 points, 14 point behind Chelsea where as this season we are top on 44 points. You can argue it either way, We have improved on the points tally but the league in general has gone down a level or two.
The league seems to have generally become more competitive too, you don't have the huge gap between the top few and 'the rest' you often get.
Either way it doesn't diminish the achievement of whoever wins the league. One could argue it enhances it - back in the day we only had to finish above Utd, now we have to finish above a few teams who are title contenders.
I think it's more than the top teams aren't as good, they use to dispatch the lower teams without too many problems when they were very good, the top teams just aren't as competitive which also explains why were top despite not even having played that well.
It's one of those seasons where you don't need to be anything special to win the league, just like Man U in Fergusons last season, won the title but weren't a great team.
You still need to be better than everyone else, and if the league is more competitive (either because the top teams are worse or the lower teams are better, it doesn't matter which) then that makes it harder to win as more teams have a credible chance.