Newcastle could be above you by Monday if you fail to beat City. Stupid and delusional thing to say. They have a far more favourable run in than you as well. ------------------------ Newcastle will not be ahead of 2/3 of Spurs, Chelsea or Arsenal though. That is why I am so confident about it. Anyway, you are a Chelsea fan who probably knows nothing about football since before RA has been around. I bet you get so giddy about City becoming the 'new Chelsea' that you have a picture of you in front of the Etihad.
If Newcastle want to get into the top 4 then they will have to grind out results, and they appear to be doing just that. I thought, wow, beating a good Swansea side at their back yard was an excellent victory. But on closer inspection, Swansea had around 68% possession and 13 shots on target (19 overall). However, Newcastle only had a 32% possession and 4 shots on target (5 overall). Now that is what i call clinical and this is down to their quality strike force.
They actually had more like 78% possession To be fair about 10 of their shots on target were Gylfi Sigurdsson potshots, they created basically nothing and although during the match I was worried about the possession stat more often than not I was just bored because they really didn't look like scoring. We lined up to play in fit starts, spells happy to watch Vorm and their defence pass it to each other to conserve energy, then spells of pressing them hard up the pitch into mistakes. They were very good at closing our players down though and it was basically Cisse and Cabaye that were the difference in the end. EDIT: For the record I don't think we'll come fourth but we'll give it our very best shot I'm proud of all the fellas involved whatever happens.
Definitely now taking Newcastle seriously. I think Arsenal are the least likely to finish top 4 now, given the now admitted lack of character in the team. It's only going to get more pressurised from here on in. Unless Arsenal change the trend of bottling it at important times, Newcastle and Spurs could battle for 4th, with Chelsea taking 3rd.
I think Man City are at their most vulnerable and we should go all out and try and destroy them. We are Arsenal and do what we do best and attack! Most of the pressure will be on them so we should just pick them apart. They can't afford to sit back, they will try and win also. We must take advantage of any mistake and punish severely. Hopefully mid-way after we smash a couple of goals past them, a Man City melee will occur between Balotelli, Tevez, Dzeko, Toure and Kompany to complete the entertainment...
it'll certainly be a nice change to see newcastle finish in the top four (as long as its not at arsenal's expense) and forget fourth i thin they have a great chance at third. As far as arsenal are concerned call me superstitious but i'll be happy as long as people keep writing us off because thats when we perform best.
we're considered the least likely to get top 4, and yet we are in 3rd place. please explain this to me, especially considering we have won 7 out of our last 8 games.
That was an assessment of how the game went. Nobody 'admitted' that there was a 'lack of character' the team, that's just you putting your own negative slant on it.
Also Jayram, can you please answer Drude's question - how does being in 3rd and winning 7 of our last 8 make us the 'least likely to finish in the top 4' ?
When our own manager admits that QPR wanted it more than us - at this stage of the season - that's a lack of character. You can put any positive spin on it you like.
We've bottled this stage of the season consistently - as well as every key stage of the season where we've got knocked out of every trophy in a short space of time. Under pressure we have shown we fold. It happened again last week against QPR. You seem to think the seven game winning run changes everything - I don't know why. We were very lucky in more than one of those games. Good run, but don't go over board - we've been poor this year and well off the pace.
oooh boy you really project a grim outlook of things don't you. I actaully think we've had a brilliant season taking everything into account. Just because we dont have a trophy to show should'nt really take away anything from our achievements.
we are in 3rd place and as long as we dont play as cr@p as we did last week we should be ok . But its not quite cut and dried as we saw against QPR . We NEED to show up for these games and not just go into zombie mode. we were C R A P against qpr . I hope wenger has told them to pull their socks up.
