The gap is 6 points between Spurs and Arsenal after 20 games, still on course for a 11+ point gap after 38 games
You gotta love the biasness of the English press, so Spurs play well, fail to win, and they're still getting praised for playing great football, and supposedly showing good signs. Arsenal on the other hand if we play well, dominate, and fail to win, the same press go on about how this shows Arsenal are just not good enough, that substance should take over style sometimes, where is the plan B, bla bla bla. Same with Chelski, they win a game in strong fashion for the first time God knows how long, they're still only 5 points above relegation, have been **** all season, but the praise is like they just won the world cup and how they have 'turned a corner', if Arsenal on the other hand were in Chelsea's position, we would be slaughtered, win or no win.
I take it as a compliment that everyone has such high expectations of AFC and shows surprise/regret when we fail to perform to the levels of excellence that 99.9% of the rest of the world can only dream of attaining. With a couple of exceptions, the vast majority of the football world aspires to be as great as us even if some refuse to publicly acknowledge that fact. The spuds get the occasional 'wow' headline because they are only expected to produce mediocre crap. Anything better than a loss is quite an achievement for them (unless it is a Europey game against a team with 'boys' in their name). Simply put, for the spuds to have had this level of success, albeit temporary, is even more of a shock to the football world than chelski's collapse, hence the OTT press interest. As for chelski, they are this season's anomaly. Despite being the most reviled club in Europe, their current (and hopefully long term) predicament is newsworthy. However, the press interest will fade when they are still fighting for survival or promotion this time next season.
You really are incapable of being objective about us . We played a fantastic first half against Everton and the second half was even. How does that equate to us being lucky? We hit the inside of the woodwork twice. And against Watford it was very even - they played well. No objective person however would say they were "better for most of the match".
If you'd read what I'd written you would have seen that I said 'in the end' you were lucky to come away with a point. In the second half against Everton, they were much better than you. It was a game of two halves with you dominating the 1st, Everton dominating the 2nd. Although a draw was probably the right result, in the last 15 mins they were all over you and probably should have converted their chances. Against Watford, again you were very lucky to come away with 3 points, when a minute or so earlier, Watford had one cleared off the line, with the ball being literally an inch from being over. If that had gone in then it would have been likely you'd have lost, or scrapped a point at best. I'm not saying Spurs haven't been playing well, they have, but you are the one not looking at it objectively.
Countinho looks like he has pulled his hamstring, will probably miss out when we face Liverpool next week, which is great news for us, because he is without a doubt their most talented player.
This crappy league cup game also adds an extra fixture to an already hectic festive schedule for them, while we get a weeks rest.
We're playing on Saturday against Sunderland and Liverpool are back in action on Friday v Exeter away, so we won't get a full week, and given our limited squad availability, there's not too much room to rotate. Lovren's pulled up with another hamstring injury. Hmm. Klopp's training regimes perhaps?
A weeks rest from the Newcastle game, which we needed badly. **** the Sunderland game, we must rest Ozil,Giroud,Bellerin and maybe Kos for that game. The league is there for the taking.
I hope so, but I don't think AW will see it that way. Also, I still can't believe Liverpool bought Firminho for £29m. He looks absolutely ****. 1 goal in 24 games is abysmal for an attacking midfielder.
Stoke look leggy as well. They also have to play another two games before we face them. Thank **** we went out of the league cup, an extra two games in this period would have finished our squad.
