Anyone else agree that our 01-02 squad was better than the invincibles? In the invincible season we had 12 draws and I felt at the end we were trying to not lose rather than to win.
01/02 squad by most starts~ Seaman Lauren Campbell Keown Cole Ljungberg Parlour Viera Pires Wiltord Henry Honourable mentions to Taylor, Luzhny, Adams, Upson, Van Bronckhorst, Bergkamp and Kanu. 03/04 Lehmann Lauren Campbell Toure Cole Ljungberg Silva Viera Pires Henry Bergkamp Honourable mentions to Cygan, Edu, Parlour, Wiltord and Reyes. Meh.
I don't go big on comparisons but I've always said the invincibles year was more about not losing in the last month or so of the season as the OP says - we drew 5 of our last 9 games from memory against the likes of Birmingham and Portsmouth. I also remember being at Loftus Rd when we beat Fulham 1-0. Reyes scored after about 5 mins and nothing whatsoever happened in the game beyond that, it was 1-0 and keep ball. In 01/02 we won something like our last 14 league games including a run of clean sheets, that run down the stretch was as good as anything we've produced in history IMO.
The quality of our team would surely be determined, to a greater extent, by the quality of our opposition and how they performed against them. Just as our team changed during this period so had the others in the league, so any attempt to make a fair comparison is futile imo. But don't let that stop you