Arsenal keeping firmly to their traditions - shooting themselves in the foot when the going gets tough. When you can't beat a mid-table side at home you send a clear signal to every other side ARSENAL ARE THERE FOR THE TAKING.
Each to their own opinion but I have to agree with you here, we've been good this season at times and our league position is proof of that.
We're unlucky not to be further ahead of fifth considering our points haul at this stage of the season.. Could typically require a record amount of points to secure fourth this season. Our next cup final after the next cup game? Swansea at home.
I think Liverpool are actually favourites. Arsenal have looked jaded lately. They never got going against Liverpool and didn't really put Utd under serious pressure until the 2nd half last night. Bearing that in mind and 1. Arsenal have Bayern at home next Wednesday, I'd expect to see a second XI. It will still be a decent team but there is no way on earth that Wenger will play his entire first XI in this game. 2. Liverpool have no European football this season, so Rogers should target the Cup as well as TOP4 (Especially as next Season they may have to cope with PL and CL commitments so best get used to multiple targets) and I'd expect to see very close to Liverpools strongest XI. Also, a draw would be more of a problem for Arsenal but not the end of the world for Liverpool.
I don't agree that we are favs, even though there are CL games for the others they have larger squads that are able to cope with the additional games. This is comething we will have to sort out if we are in the CL.
Been saying this to a few mates recently. The interviewers keep asking are we chasing the title or 4th spot but we have no option to do one without the other. To get forth we are going to have to keep winning, spurs are close, Everton not too far off, and we still have Chelsea and city at our place. We may well have to pick points up in those games just to secure forth; pick the points up and we will be in the mix depending on our results against the rest. Not sure you can mention going for forth without bringing the title into play in some shape or form. Maybe if we were a number of points off forth now, lets say eleven, then forth would be something you might hope to aim for but in our position keeping winning will bring bigger rewards.
Bit of discussion on whether last nights performance was good or not. For me its simple. Last year, we would have lost that game! We are doing what we are trying to do, which is improve. Im just hoping for top 4 for now, anything else is a bonus. Think some people are a bit unrealistic in their expectations. Fulham are fighting for survival. This was never going to be any easy game
Why has no-one taken us out of the top four yet then? Why are you three points further behind us than you were at Christmas??
We were playing Man City and Chelsea while you were playing West Ham and Newcastle Now you have to play top and middle table teams we see your true form Out of the top 8 you've dropped points against Liverpool, Man Utd and Southampton, with Chelsea, Man City, Spurs and Everton still to play
Agree 100% RB. It wasn't pretty and we can all see where our problems lie but results like last nights are massive. The 3 points was way, way more important than the performance. This is the results end of the season....nothing else matters to me at the mo. Obviously I wish we could play like we did against Arsenal and Everton every week but it's just unrealistic given what we know about the weaknesses in our team/squad. How many people talk about how poor City were in the game against QPR the day they won the league?? Whether it's grit and determination, a slice of luck or just something rash from the opposition I really don't care right now, just keep racking up as many points as we can
The performance in terms of style and form etc wasn't great but in terms of grinding out a win when not playing great, it was superb.
This can't be a serious comment surely? You were playing City and Chelsea then precisely because you HADN'T played them yet for the first time. You were top simply because you hadn't played them at that point whereas we had. Then you played them and ended up 6 points behind us. We were still top after playing every team once (whether they were top, middle or bottom). I agree we're going to drop points in every one of those tough remaining games. But similarly, we should pick up tons of points in all the easier ones. It's what we do. Other top teams though have far more exciting seasons where they can beat each other but lose points to the dross.
Because you always play well up until around this time of year before bottling it (last season aside when you'd already gone out of the CL) In fairness though you keep getting into the top 4 every year as well so I'd never write you off for that. What I will say is your team looks tired right now (although I've only seen the highlights from last night) and the CL hasn't even started back up again yet. Not having Ramsey seems to have sucked a bit of the energy out of your midfield so getting him back will be a big thing for you. You do however now have 3 games in a row from which you should take 9 points so this time next month you should still be in the chase.
Of course we both play all the teams twice but for Arsenal it's potentially more difficult because the timing of the games against top teams might kill your momentum dead and this is in addition to you already losing the momentum Ozil's signing gave you at the start of the season
Bottling what exactly? Barring 07/08 when have we been close to winning something and 'bottled it' at this time of year? Conversely, we've actually more often found ourselves in a position outside the top 4 at this point and then we start a run and get back into it. For once we're in a position where not needing to play catch up... which means sods law this will be the year we finish 5th probably! :S NB. The CL is irrelevant, that's just two games... we're going no further let's face it.
Did it kill our momentum dead when we played Everton, City, Napoli and Chelsea back to back in December and won none of them? Did you overtake us then when we suddenly stalled?????
