We also bottled the Premier League in 15/16, despite never being top at any point. Arsenal didn't bottle that title, despite being top until January 23rd.
Go on. Enlighten me. But if this is gonna be some spiel about how Arsenal fans are insufferable, I'm not interested in hearing that narrative because every big club has fans that are annoying and weird.
The league is in a bit of an odd place right now. Pep’s City are a machine and given they seem to consistently get to the high 80s at the very least in terms of points, realistically you have to get around 90 points or more to win the title. That’s an enormous ask the the margins are so fine at that end of the table. Pep has said he’ll be here next season but the big question is whether he’ll be at City past that. Teams who can try and time their peak for the 2025/26 season might be on to something. The transition that club will have to go through when Pep leaves will be enormous. I imagine there will be quite a few challenger clubs looking at next season as a building/developmental one with a view to peaking the first season Pep is gone.
The Poool and Citeh in managerial rebuild over the next 1-2 seasons will be interesting. As will whether the FFP regimes stop the Toon Al-mi from doing a Citeh.
Exactly. Pool under Slot will be an unknown quantity for a while. Arsenal might be worrying they’ve peaked too soon and definitely need to refresh the side if they want to continue like this. Then you have all the chasing pack, Spurs included.
Aha! That must be the reason. For my sins I will confess I am not from North London, I'm from East London. But as a kid with limited to zero knowledge of geography I genuinely thought Spurs were my local team. So that's my excuse. The closest professional club to me was actually Leyton Orient. Anyway, now I know why I spread my hatred around more.
I don’t think that’s true at all. I’ve come across Spurs fans in Malta, Portugal and even met a Russian one in Amsterdam and there’s always been an agreement of “**** Arsenal” in our conversations. Gauging social media over the last week or so, the general consensus is indeed “**** Arsenal” amongst the fanbase and that seeing their disappointment of missing out on the title on the final day brought many joys to Spurs fans, I’d have expected no less nor no different if the shoe was on the other foot. Outside of Not606, I’ve yet to actually see any sign of a Spurs fan preferring Arsenal to have won the league.
But how far do you take this? Are Arsenal fans secretly pleased that they ****ed up their Championship push by losing to Villa so consequently kept us out of the CL positions? I definitely don't want Arsenal to win at all but I draw the line at accepting Spurs losing to mess them up.
And yet you knew what it was going to be before I even said a thing! Your manager and players have also pissed a lot of neutrals off. West Ham think that we're their biggest rivals, yet they really didn't want you to win it. AFTV and the general Arsenal online presence probably hasn't helped, but that's not it.
Obviously not because they had bigger fish to fry. Them winning the league is far more important to them than us finishing in the CL three spots below them. Us finishing in the CL was as good as dead when we lost 4 in the last 5 prior to facing City. The fact that a win over City didn’t even guarantee us anything too made it a game the majority of the fanbase were happy to sacrifice if it meant almost certainly guaranteeing Arsenal don’t win the league. That in itself was a small win. The funniest aspect is those thinking we genuinely had much of a choice in the matter anyway, City are the best team in Europe, it weren’t as if we were facing Luton and expected to win. Sunday ended up being very enjoyable for about 99.9% of this fanbase with seemingly a handful of people on here aside; we secured Europa League and watched our biggest rivals fail to win the country’s biggest prize.
I mean, look, I'm not denying that sections of our fanbase are insufferable, delusional, loud and annoying, but again - how is this any different to many rival fans out there? Man Utd fans? Liverpool fans? Chelsea fans? Why are fans of these clubs any different? Because they also have insufferable, delusional, loud and annoying fans, too. How many managers at a 'big club' have been gracious losers or wholly accepting of decisions that they perceive haven't gone their way? How many title-winning/contending sides have players who don't use underhand tactics in-game to disrupt/irritate the opposition? I can tell you now that pretty much every single successful side has utilised 'dark arts' or taken a slightly more sinister approach to gain an advantage. Again, how is this different to anyone else in history? That's because their fans are gobshites and because we bought their captain from them. I feel like that Rice transfer was always going to add a bit more spice to the games against them and they'd hold a bit resentment toward him for it. Probably didn't help that reports emerged he was in talks with Arsenal mid-season during January 2023. I know West Ham fans were annoyed about that. Do you not feel like you're projecting your personal experiences here as the general rule of thumb, though? I'm sure you know some idiotic Arsenal fans, maybe you even work with them or are related to them. But, as I said, within a diverse fanbase, you'll always get people like that. It is what it is.
Ligue 1's 17th place team is relegated, while the 16th place team goes to a play-off. Lorient and Metz ended the season with 29 points and -23 goal difference. They both won by a goal at each other's ground: Lorient 2–3 Metz, Metz 1–2 Lorient. Lorient go down by away goals scored. Talk about fine margins.
It’s now being reported Scott Carson was kicked out of a nightclub at 4am after celebrating City’s win. Wins 11th trophy having played just 107 mins in 5 years and then gets on the piss to celebrate. Honestly, best job in the world. He’s now officially my idol.
Most of the Arsenal fans that I actually know in person are fine. There's the odd exception, of course, but that's expected. Those that aren't fine are outstandingly twattish, though. That seems to be a theme. Partially numbers and partially frequency, in my opinion. It's not really the cheating that's annoyed everyone, though you do have your own song that everyone knows. It's acting like ****ers. Arteta's a ****er on the pitch, for example. He won't get off the ****ing thing, for a start. You won't see me defending West Ham fans, but they're used to losing their best players. They're probably happy that it's not us nicking them any more, more than anything. Rice is no Paul Ince though, to use the obvious example. It's more than that transfer.
Honestly don't know he can even feel any sense of accomplishment, let alone happiness warranting an all-nighter.
Good points but I personally hate the "true" v "armchair" fan stuff. On a personal level, I couldn't go until I was 14 yrs old. Went regularly until I was 17 but then couldn't afford to go as I was living alone, trying to make ends meet. Then when I got my life a bit sorted at 20 I went 3 or 4 time a year for the next 6 years. Then couldn't go cos of money and kids. But started going with the kids in 2003 and have been a member for the past 20 yrs and go to 10-15 games per season. At no point was I ever a proper fan or an armchair fan. Have always been as much as a fan as any season ticket holder imo. Same goes for any fan who don't go to games imo.
