Chelsea are horrendous though and the worst striker in the league bagged a hattrick against us. If we’d have defended deep I don’t think we’d have been as embarrassed as we were. But for Vicario, they could’ve scored another 5 or 6, he put in one of the best performances I’ve seen from a keeper yet still conceded 4 times because he was left exposed so much. Liverpool almost held us to a draw with 9 men but for a cruel own goal by Matip, I think they had a lot more pride in that loss than we had in ours to be honest. Thought it was incredibly naive management on Ange’s part.
I’ve been enjoying reading the discussion about which team we should want to win the league, and I just want to put over that, as a Spurs fan, it has to be City. I get the point that they may be anti football, but I would much rather live with that, than have to watch an open top bus parade with 100’s of thousands of Arsenal fans celebrating. Shouting their “what do we think of Tottenham….etc etc chant”. **** that. I am actually really worried that our players will produce their performance of the season when we play city, and effectively hand Arsenal the title. That would be so Spursy.
The coaching desperately needs to be changed. Our marking on them is just wrong. Vicario's problem is that we're not allowed to do anything to protect him and he can't do it himself. It's something that we need to force by making it an issue at both ends. Get someone like Bissouma and tell him to pin the opposition keeper on corners. He's not a goal threat on them anyway and either we join the cheating or it highlights it. There's an article in today's Torygraph about all of the **** that White got up to: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...dark-arts-vicario-arsenal-set-piece-vs-spurs/ There's also one about Arsenal's set-piece coach, but it's behind their paywall. If cheating isn't punished, then it's allowed. Start doing it outrageously and see what happens.
I agree. And for as long as city keep winning it, us, as well as many other clubs can hide behind the “anti football” excuse. “oh look, the doping team won it again. Surprise surprise etc”. The minute Arsenal win it, who are run in a similar way to us…
I forgot to mention that I spotted Mikey Moore walking around the edge of the pitch. He was with some of his other U18 colleagues, I think. I'd be surprised if he's in the first team soon, as he makes Gil look big.
I know a lot of people take a dim view of the dark arts and understandably so but I don’t get why we start getting in on it too. Pochettino was the first manager in years that turned us from being the bullied to the bullies and I think most would say we loved it under him for the best part of 4-5 years, it was nice to be that team no one liked to play, both because we played dominant football and then also pushed around the opposition at any opportunity. Dele would wind the opposition up like a man possessed, Dier would take anyone out that needed to be, Vertonghen was extremely sly and the likes of Dembele, Rose and co took no **** either. I want us to get back to that, the top two this season have both been well versed in dark art tactics and rightly or wrongly it’s clearly working in their favour.
I think that there are multiple sides to it and some is necessary, while others aren't. I don't want to see Maddison chucking himself on the floor, for example. The officials have put their stall out now. They can't complain if we shop at it.
We've certainly got ****ehousery in our half of the pitch with Romero most obviously while Porro can be a sneaky git when he wants to be, but if Richy isn't playing we're lacking it further up the pitch This also underlines we're not very ****ehousey in midfield at the moment, which is odd as I remember Bissouma being a pain in the ass at Brighton when he wanted to be (as opposed to how him strolling back into position when we don't have the ball is a pain in the ass for us), and Maddison was certainly capable of it at Leicester too
Oh without a doubt, I’ve long said diving isn’t a dark art it’s just being an absolute fairy. But the occasional nudge, blocking off a keeper, taking a tactical yellow to take out an opposition key player, saying things to wind the opposition up… I’m all for that.
Romero’s just a nut job, I’m not sure he’s a dark art connoisseur, just a ****ing lunatic! If we could find a prime Dele regen… Jesus that’d go a long way to helping us out I think. He pissed everyone off in his first few years, was glorious.
Yeah exactly this. Man City winning the league doesn’t have any effect on me. Arsenal fans (and also Liverpool fans to a lesser extent) would be unbearable if they won the league.
So is this about where you live? If you live in North London obviously you come in contact with Arsenal supporters all the time. Whereas I live in Scotland and have one neighbour who is an Arsenal supporter and we just banter good humouredly.
Thought it was a very strange game if I'm honest with you. I didn't think we played well at all in the first half, yet we found ourselves 3-0 up. And I still didn't feel comfortable despite the commanding lead . Part of that was the natural nerves and anxiety that comes with playing an NLD, but also because it wasn't a 3-0 game and you guys looked dangerous every time you went forward. We were sloppy in possession, had a lot of gaps out wide and in the middle, we looked weak from set-pieces ourselves and we couldn't control the game how we wanted in possession. I think we were just ruthlessly efficient in the final third (we got 3 goals from 2 shots on target) and had to ride our luck at the other end (Romero two very good chances from corners, Van der Ven's marginal offside call for the equaliser, the fact you could have made it 1-1 before we countered to make it 2-0). Set-pieces are clearly your achilles' heel, we did our homework and took advantage. Likewise with the Saka goal, which was a classic counterattack and you'd overcommitted in search of an equaliser. Second half, I thought we actually played much better and wrestled control of the game, created better opportunities and entered the final third more (up until the final 20 minutes). Yet we didn't get any goals and you guys got 2. Then we had to ride the storm to see the game out. Luckily for us, we did. Ultimately, at this stage of the season, when we are aiming to gain the title and you guys are going for top-4, whilst also wanting to crush our title hopes in the process, I would take any win we can irrespective of performance. It was never going to be a stroll. Having played so much football the last few weeks, result was the only thing that mattered. Surprisingly, this was the first time we've won back-to-back derbies at your ground since 1988. So even Wenger never did anything like this (which I didn't expect). Regrettably, still think City are going to win the league, which will be gut-wrenching considering how good we've been in 2024. But I feared that run of 1 win in 6 back in December would cost us and it seems like it will. There's always next year....
A fair assessment Brunel. The way your team worked as a unit on corners and in defence was very impressive so in both cases it points to you having earned the win despite us having enough chances to have at least drawn the game.
