3rd/4th vs A domestic cup double

[LDG]

Against B&Q? Oh shit

[Syn]

I don't think its a deliberate hatred of us, i just think they are shit.

There are certainties that you can do nothing about. e.g. the refs will always look to even things up. If they book 4 Stoke players, they'll give Koscielny a bullshit yellow for the sake of it.

But we can influence it. Our players don't even bother appealing for 50/50 pen shouts any more...they just assume they're not getting it. If we were a bunch of whiny ****s like Barca, we would get so many more decisions. Not through diving. But through moaning at the ref. Cesc was fantastic at that - he knew how to play the game. He would be at the ref's ear all game.

The crowd as well play a massive part. It's not possible to ignore 50,000 people thinking you've fucked them over. Against Newcastle, the fans got us that 5 mins added on. It may have been 3 or 4 without it, but it was 5 because they were booing Krul for time-wasting from the first minute. Everyone was made aware that Krul was taking his time and so an extra min or so gets added on. Stuff like that helps.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

What about the rest of the season and all the horrendous results, are those to jus tbe ignored and forgotten then?

Things don't just change overnight, we've proven time after time that when we're in the hunt we haven't got the bottle. The pressure thing is very relevant, when you've got not trophies on the line the pressure is much less that's a fact, in many ways the pressure was off us with regards getting 4th, the teams above us were seen as better and were seemingly out of sight.

I'm just not convinced that a few good wins at the end of the season proves anything, our achilles heel has always been our ability to cope with the pressure of winning a trophy, nothing we've done this season points to anything different.

The defence is still suspect IMO, they might not be conceding that many however there's times we've still be horribly exposed. Up front we know we're short, we also definitely lack a star player or two.

The worrying thing is Wenger also has a short memory and I can see him doing very little in the summer leading to the same problems resurfacing next season, it's like we never learn.

Rubbish, total rubbish, were under more pressure then Spuds and Chavs to finsih 4th and you know it what the lads have done under this pressure has been good. We still may not even make the top 4 so there is lots pf pressure there.

Only reason City are under pressure is because they spent silly money and have to win the league, Utd are under pressure because they don't want to loose their title to their rivals.

Spurs were never under pressure this season if anyhting they had the least pressure out the top 5 tbh.

what if our boys said feck it and just not bothered after the sunderland fa cup game. You have called them bottlers etc.

We still not assured of top 4 so there pressure is still there, its about if we loose a game in this run how we bounce back from that then we will see what the lads are made off.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

I think the quality is there to compete for a cup as well as CL football, the problem is that we can't seem to cope when the fixtures pile up and we get a "season defining" week. When have we ever come out of one those in good shape? The Sunderland defeat following Milan was the most predictable result going.

It's not right to say the pressure was off. 0-2 down to Spurs the pressure was most certainly ON.

We've done remarkably well to put this run together, but I guess the frustration stems from what was mentioned earlier in the thread about Cups being for the fans, for me there isn't another buzz like it and it's disappointing that despite consistently being able to achieve our goal of top 4, we haven't managed to deliver a cup or 2 along with it.

It's not a question of one or the other, we absolutley should be able to do both. Just as Liverpool should be able to compete for the top 4 as well as the cups. It's not like City and United have monopolised these competitions as well, plenty of teams on our level and sometimes below us reach the latter stages.

Spot fecking on MOe. We have a sqaud that was good enough to win something this season, then frustation is because we failed to.

Lets be real the only 2 comps we had a chance in this season was the domestic cups, no way we had to splash out to win one of those.

If all we won was the CC yes its better then nothing but it does not indicate a succesful season, same as pool finshing 8th no way can you say they had a successful season because they won the CC.

Id say our season has not be a failuire but a dissapointment. Had we had this momentume earlier in the season we'd be up there challgenging.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

Furthering to Syn's post - what I don't like is this idea that being content with finishing third or fourth isn't what 'football is about' but winning trophies is. Sure for players or managers as it would be as it is a personal accolade but really, doesn't only being happy from winning trophies as a supporter just remove the enjoyment of supporting your club and watching the sport as much as settling for a supposed 'mediocre position'? Isn't it just as cynical in the end?

If trophies are all that matter then there are a minimum of 80 depressed sets of football supporters every season in this country and personally, I can't say I remember supporting Arsenal because I wanted trophies.

Top post.

Being a fan is about the ride the team takes you on. This season has been a weird one but a quite enjoyable one, hopefully next season will be even better.

No fan should expect their team to win a trophy no team has that devine right. only reason A trophy is a big deal because we have not won one in a long time, other wise not many could care.

[Letters]

Rubbish, total rubbish, were under more pressure then Spuds and Chavs to finsih 4th and you know it what the lads have done under this pressure has been good. We still may not even make the top 4 so there is lots pf pressure there.

A lot of people on here take a position and then fit the facts around that position (as opposed to a more sensible approach of letting facts shape and change that position over time). Arsenal can't deal with pressure is a common one (not without justification) ergo when we lose a game it is said to be a high pressure one and upheld as proof. We go on a winning run so rather than reconsider that position they take the other option and declare those games not high pressure.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

A lot of people on here take a position and then fit the facts around that position (as opposed to a more sensible approach of letting facts shape and change that position over time). Arsenal can't deal with pressure is a common one (not without justification) ergo when we lose a game it is said to be a high pressure one and upheld as proof. We go on a winning run so rather than reconsider that position they take the other option and declare those games not high pressure.

Yep, Even if we won something this season those same people would of come on with how lucky we were, its was a pub team we beat etc.

Everyone knows out of the big 5 we had been written off and we even finish 7/8th they said. so if we do finish 3rd you have to say the lads showed some bottle from where they were in the 1st few games of the season.

Its about building on that for next season is all that matters.

[Ernesto]

There are certainties that you can do nothing about. e.g. the refs will always look to even things up. If they book 4 Stoke players, they'll give Koscielny a bullshit yellow for the sake of it.

But we can influence it. Our players don't even bother appealing for 50/50 pen shouts any more...they just assume they're not getting it. If we were a bunch of whiny ****s like Barca, we would get so many more decisions. Not through diving. But through moaning at the ref. Cesc was fantastic at that - he knew how to play the game. He would be at the ref's ear all game.

The crowd as well play a massive part. It's not possible to ignore 50,000 people thinking you've fucked them over. Against Newcastle, the fans got us that 5 mins added on. It may have been 3 or 4 without it, but it was 5 because they were booing Krul for time-wasting from the first minute. Everyone was made aware that Krul was taking his time and so an extra min or so gets added on. Stuff like that helps.

Good point, but the exception to the rule was the home game against Milan. You'd have thought the crowd getting on the ref's back would've worked in our favout, but it didn't. We got a couple of dodgy looking yellows in the first-half and, subsequently, the rest of the game was on a knife-edge.

[Syn]

Good point, but the exception to the rule was the home game against Milan. You'd have thought the crowd getting on the ref's back would've worked in our favout, but it didn't. We got a couple of dodgy looking yellows in the first-half and, subsequently, the rest of the game was on a knife-edge.

He really didn't want to give the pen either did he?

Then he got all anal about where Van Persie was taking the pen from.

Yeah, he was a dick. We get a lot of them in Europe.

[Letters]

Yeah, he was a dick. We get a lot of them in Europe.

I always felt the refereeing in the CL is noticeably better than in the PL but not this year.