Fuck me. Grim times.
Things falling into place for this.
West Ham facing Liverpool tomorrow and have a tough schedule ahead.
Man Utd going from worse to worse.
Big opportunity for us to go into 2022 in an advantageous position in regards to Top 4.
What’s it gonna be? Same old Arsenal not being opportunistic or will we take advantage of others doing bad.
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Top 4? We’re going to win the whole thing!!!
Excuses!?
There are none, I expect to be competitive up until the last day
We’ll have one bad result, we’ll be back to everything being shit and everyone being a cunt and this will be back to being a pipe dream not to mention even suggesting that we could achieve it might lend weight to the suspicion that you don’t think Arteta is the shittest manager of all time which will be footballs greatest crime.
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Easy top 4 finish this season.
We should push for third though, just to make a statement.
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I’ve answered this in the other premier league fixtures thread, over 38 games even with Ole I think United will edge 4th as they have a significant talent advantage.
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Lets get it right, top 4 would be a fantastic achievement for this squad this season and the much maligned duo of Arteta and Edu. Before the season started you had the most nailed on top four in history and the likes of Leicester, Spurs, ourselves, West Ham and potentially Villa, Everton etc all threatening to compete for it should anyone of those four slip up. We had lost our first three games and were miles off. It would be a very successful campaign and step forward to make it back to the Champions League over Man United with all our current limitations. Huge for Arteta if it happens.
People will still downplay it because of no European football and one game a week but before the season Arsenal would have bitten a hand off to break into this. Even top 6 looked extremely difficult. We were rank outsiders and frankly no one was even talking about us.
Still an awful long way to go though and every team in the running will suffer from big dips in form. Big injuries are bound to happen at some point and we’ll need our back up players to step up and deliver like Maitland-Niles did the other day. Sadly I still think we’ll fall just short but hoping we’ll prove the doubters wrong.
The fact we’re in with a chance brings a degree of pride because it shows the team and manager have fought back. The signings have done well against most of our predictions. You have to give these guys some credit.
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We need to pull a Liverpool and just have no injuries to key players for the whole season.
Keep white, Gabriel, tomi, partey, Saka, ESR and Auba playing in the team for as long as possible and with the benefit of no EL football I think we can do it.
The issue is start taking a few of these players out and we immediately drop to a bottom 10 team.
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Liverpool, United, Everton and West are 4 of our next 6 games, we’ll need to win a couple of them.
Afcon is what has me worried. We will be missing a lot of our key starters. If it wasn’t for that, then sure, top 4 should happen from the looks of it, but even without Afcon I’m sure we would have a few blips. With Afcon it could be far more than a few.
Auba and Partey basically…
We’ve managed to get some results with Auba in shit form, also some without him… Same with Partey. Great player but you can’t still say he carries us constantly. You can’t say they have the impact in us that Mane and Salah have on Liverpool…
If the rest of the squad is in decent shape at the time, it shouldn’t affect us massivelly imo. Although, if you combine AFCON with some injuries that could be a problem. No reason to worry about that scenario atm. We have decent options in the bench, we’re not playing Euro comps… If Arteta can get/keep the squad going before the Afcon, the Afcon itself shouldn’t play a big role in our season.
So much of how a team is treated / perceived is based upon fear factor.
If we’re suddenly viewed as a team that can beat the press, for example because our GK can hit an accurate long ball over the top, or we have a CB who will carry the ball decisively through a gap, or simply because we are better at navigating through a high press - suddenly teams step off you. They give you more respect, they don’t come at you with 100% confidence, they don’t think they can simply intimidate Arsenal into mistakes.
Once you’ve established a dangerous playing style, most teams no longer try and bully you in the same old way. Teams back off City when they have the ball from a goal kick. They set themselves up in a more typical defensive shape closer to their half. Because they know if City break through that high press, they’re up shit creek.
Winning is the only way you get that respect and fear factor back. A top four team has so much more fear factor. Sadly over the years, our fear factor has dwindled and dwindled.
A performance against Liverpool will help us on the path to building it back. We can’t afford to get battered like we normally do.
It’s been like that the the past few years. Teams like fucking Leicester and Villa come to our ground and smell blood. City treat us with utter contempt and a lack of respect. Fuck that.
I used to remember how we’d beat teams in the tunnel at Highbury. They’d see the players we had, they’d see Arsène standing in the dugout. As a result, they’d set up so defensively, you could sense the resignation after the first few phases of play, heads dropping when that inevitable first goal went in for Arsenal. Let’s bring that shit back.
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You’re right.
I can’t remember many teams coming to the Emirates and treating us with the same respect they did when we were at Highbury.
The players we had then were all physically strong with a winning mentality but, in recent seasons, we have been carrying too many passengers that are either too lightweight, too inconsistent, or just useless, or sometimes all of the above.
There seems to be a bit more confidence in the team since we’ve been on this winning run so if we do lose to Liverpool, it will be interesting to see how the players react and how it will affect them in the following games.
Liverpool and Leicester for me.
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Mendy will be a big loss for Chelsea. Not sure Ziyech will be called. Seems out of favour.
But yeah, Liverpool for sure. Mané and Salah is their core.
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Why are we even there lmao
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What do you mean?
Chelsea have reached a point where personnel barely matters though. Tuchel got those players playing like robots. I doubt Chelsea will struggle with Kepa for a few matches.
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He means you’re not allowed to believe we have a shot at top 4