What I’ve learnt the hard way in our failed attempts in recent seasons is that winning the easier games on paper is significantly more important than anything to win the league.
Last time City won it, they failed to beat both Arsenal and Liverpool in all their attempts. In fact, they lost to us that season. I also think they failed to beat Chelsea that season too.
Our biggest misstep in that regard so far has probably been Sunderland, and they’re proving to be a tough team to beat at their ground for anyone.
Don’t want to jinx it but we’ve haven’t really had those weird slips in unsuspecting fixtures like we’ve done in the past against Southampton, West Ham, Everton, Fulham, etc.
@Starboy questioned how we’re 6 points ahead in the match thread, that’s pretty much why.
It is a fact that Arteta has got us winning again, after every game we drew or lost.
We went on a 7 game winning streak, after losing to Villa.
I believe this is the first time that Arteta hasnt matched a result that man city got. They beat Liverpool at home. Not highly damaging though, as we’re still in the driving seat.
Our approach and results haven’t been to the expected Arsenal standards especially if we compare it to the last 3/4 seasons.
We’ve drawn at home to City, played a poor Liverpool side twice and gained only a point - scoring none, failed to beat 10 man Chelsea, lost to Villa away. The only exception being Villa at home where our 2nd half performance led to a convincing win.
Arsenal should be doing a lot better because that’s the bar Arteta set based on last 3/4 season.
To exclude Manchester United and Spurs as big games is desperately wrong.
We’ve seen how Manchester United “game-raise” against us. They’ve not only done it under F***uson, but every Man U manager thereafter. I don’t think I’ll ever witness Arsenal going to Old Trafford and winning 0-4 or better in my lifetime, given how they always approach the game against us.
Spurs is, at best, tricky and, at worst, tough. It’s never easy, owing to the nature of it being a derby.
It’s testament to us how good a run we’re having in these fixtures. We’re making them “look” easy, but they’re far from it.
Include United. But we were absolutely fucking shit and definitely scammed a win there.
In the league there’s no denying we’ve been very underwhelming againdt the best sides. United awful, Liverpool x2 awful, Chelsea awful, city awful, Villa x1 awful. Zero case to say we deserved anything more than 1 point in these games.
Villa and Newcastle were our only good performances. Spurs is a big game but we are objectively playing a bad side, they are and were woeful.
Criticism is fair but adding context to this game against Liverpool - everyone got swept up with the opps dropping points, saw that Liverpool were suffering even more injury woes + form this season/place in the league table = we should thrash them 10-0.
I was fine with us coming away from this with a 1-0 win for us. Obviously, it would be glorious to spank them and I think we have that in our locker.
HT talk didn’t seem to stem the scousers approach in the second half. A point is reasonable, we were nullified for half of the game.
I will still take the positives based on our position.
With every defensive signing the club has made and has significantly improved the side (from Ramsdale, White, Zinchenko to Raya, Timber and Calafiori) the opposite is true of the offensive signings. After six years we still go as far as Odegaard and Saka are going to take us and whilst Trossard, Eze and Madueke are useful players they don’t move the needle in a manner that has been needed. It’s weird and worrying that we still need guys like Martinelli and Havertz to make an impact.
Btw, was that yellow his first in the season? I think he got another one in the CL but can’t recall against who it was.
I don’t think I’ve seen him as agitated on the touchline in some time. I’ve lost count how many times they cut to hin turning to the staff in frustration.
Heinze popped me a couple times because he kept shrugging in response:
Towards the end Arteta started telling himself “calma, calma”.
Make sure the league is won and you are already in a category with only Arsene as a Premier League winner at this club. Make it a double and we go wild. A treble and a statue may be in order. I want this Carabao cup.
03/04 had similar feels, albeit not quite as big margins.
I think we’d just gone top of the league.
We were about to play Middlesbrough in the League Cup semi finals.
We were in the FA Cup fourth round.
We were still in the CL, and still buzzing after the San Siro.
Special mention for 97/98 as well where, while Man Utd were top, we were in both domestic Cup competitions at this stage of the season (it just felt like something special was going to happen)
This season feels good. While talks of a quadruple seem laughable, there is also the “who’s going to beat us” going round in the back of my head.
