The chase for 4th place (not top 4)

Topgun1 said:
What glorious chance? We're still about 12 games to go, there's so much football to be played, including against United, Chelsea, City, Liverpool etc.

What do you mean glorious chance? I really don't understand that.

I'm not even sure we have the squad to dig in and get any kind of results in the big fixtures. We lost every big fixture bar Spurs. If Lacazette gets injured, we don't have a striker.

What amazes me though is United letting go Martial & Van De Beek in the middle of a top 4 scrap. It's just as braindead as letting go Aubameyang.

A bit unlucky with Greenwood situation as well.
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Points from matches played gives Arsenal a glorious chance.

In regards Martial & Van De Beek they weren't getting many starts and that wouldn't have changed without the loan moves. Greenwood different situation as he was seen more of a first choice first player however Elanga has taken his opportunity thus far.
 
The Corinthian said:
Arsenal were lucky today. Very lucky.

Hwang should have made it 2-0 at the start of the second half.

Then Martin Atkinson blew for a non existent foul when Conor Coady was through on goal. In fact, he missed so many calls in that game all to the favour of Arsenal. Really shambolic performance from the ref. He even booked Raul Jimenez for not going off when subbed...even though another shirt number went up. That ineptitude took an extra minute which then was a part of injury time. It's just such poor refereeing.
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Exactly, and top of it that ben white dive to stop a 1v1 chance for wolves. Surely atkinson helped them get a victory.

But then these arsenal fans will come up with clips of McT tackles and call for red cards. :D
 
Topgun1 said:
I agree. That's actually shocking. Tuchel had a really bad league season. His title bid collapsed early and at this stage of the season Arteta is only 5 points behind Chelsea, with a game in hand over Chelsea? I could never have predicted that.


Mate we have Arteta. It ain't gonna happen with him. I would have been content with whatever happens this season if we got rid of him. But now that he's staying, his only option for me to get top 4. And even then, I'd still probably want rid of him.

I knew this guy was a fraud when we imploded against Villareal last season, not to mention his atrocious league finish last season.

Arsenal are like the mirror image of United. When things go badly wrong at United, it's always the managers fault. But when things go badly wrong at Arsenal, it's always the players fault.

The Board would rather get rid of Ozil, Saliba, Gendouzi, Aubameyang etc. for falling out with Arteta (they all fell out with him), than get rid of Arteta. Now Auba is banging the goals in for Barcelona.

If Arteta is going to be a dictator, he better have the results and the football to back up his arrogant stance.
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Arteta a fraud? You clearly dislike the guy, nothing to do with his performance as manager.
 
I must admit, I am concerned how this is going. Obviously, United need to be concentrated on Watford and each game as it comes after. Arsenal have an advantage in that there is a lot of space in between their matches. There does always be a huge amount of stoppage time at the Emirates.

We need to get functioning in supporting Ronaldo up front amounted not leaving him isolated up front and somehow that needs getting Cavani fit or even better Rashfordinto some sort of form.
 
Arsenal's ability to find a way tonight worries me and they look in the driving seat
 
charlenefan said:
How are Arsenal 5 points off Chelsea with a game in hand? Chelsea should be embarrassed by that
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We did beat them in the cup final and twice last season; never been a big gap between the sides as English media portrays.

In history, the champions league winners aren't necessarily Europes best team.
 
MO_Football92 said:
We did beat them in the cup final and twice last season; never been a big gap between the sides as English media portrays.

In history, the champions league winners aren't necessarily Europes best team.
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I notice you omitted the game we played this year!
 
croadyman said:
Arsenal's ability to find a way tonight worries me and they look in the driving seat
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TBH the lack of football has probably helped to no end. They only played 2 games this month and their next game is in 10 days. All of which will lead to a pile up of games at the tail end which isn't the best for a small squad.

Last night i thought that extra freshness helped
 
Che Guevara said:
That was a show of character by Arsenal. In the old days they wouldn't have come back into the game. Wolves are in top form at the moment and to beat them twice in succession was remarkable tbf.
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One of the most remarkable achievements in the history of football, up there with United's treble and City reaching a 100 points.
 
Yorke to Cole said:
I must admit, I am concerned how this is going. Obviously, United need to be concentrated on Watford and each game as it comes after. Arsenal have an advantage in that there is a lot of space in between their matches. There does always be a huge amount of stoppage time at the Emirates.

We need to get functioning in supporting Ronaldo up front amounted not leaving him isolated up front and somehow that needs getting Cavani fit or even better Rashfordinto some sort of form.
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Ronaldo has been horrific at finishing. He’s ranked 11th for United in xG. People complain about his lack of service but he’s been atrocious since the new year started. Cavani without goals is better than Ronaldo without goals right now.
 
Some people need to calm down a bit. Arsenal had a good result last night but so what? Everyone was getting spooked by Spurs winning at Wastelands. Next game they lost to Burnley.

The sad truth is none of the teams trying to qualify for the Champions League, except City and Liverpool, are consistent. There will be many more ups and downs between now and May.
 
NewYorkRed said:
Arsenal are not going finish top 4. Just not enough goals in that team. It’ll be either us or Spurs, Ronaldo and Kane will prove to be the difference. if we get a win and a draw against city and pool then we should be huge favs, but I have no faith in us either so it’ll go down to the wire.
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You do realise ESR has as many goals as Ronaldo and two more than Kane and hasnt taken a penalty?


This kids going to be a 20 goals a season player
 
We are lowkey building a great team of qaulity and ch
NewYorkRed said:
Arsenal are not going finish top 4. Just not enough goals in that team. It’ll be either us or Spurs, Ronaldo and Kane will prove to be the difference. if we get a win and a draw against city and pool then we should be huge favs, but I have no faith in us either so it’ll go down to the wire.
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Spurs are de-facto 7 points behind us due to their woeful goal difference and ESR from the bench has outscored Harry Kane this year.

Its between Arsenal & Man United & I am genuinely confident we (Arsenal) can not only nip it, but open up a bit of a gap and even threaten Chelsea at 3rd.

Still to welcome back Tomiyasu who offers a much better dynamic than Cedric, and hopefully this 'goal' gives Lacazette some confidence.
 
It's going to go right to the wire. The one sure thing is all of the teams will drop points, and this thread will look very different week to week.

Every time I look at the Utd side, it looks great on paper, like really strong (apart from the midfield 2, who have won the lottery to be playing at a huge club), but the performances are so disjointed. If I didn't get to watch a single game, and was just shown a list of the squads in the league, I would bet my hard earned money it would be Utd and City battling it out for the title. I thought Sancho would flop, but he is starting to prove me wrong, and has been your best player of late. Elanga is raw, but I really like him.

Tottenham... well they have Son + Kane, plus 9 other randoms, mostly poor, but having those 2 always give you a chance against anyone, especially Kane, who is unreal, and one of the top 2 players in the league. The rest of the team being so average has to be their downfall? I expected more from them with Conte coming in, as I knew they would work harder, but he is so unstable and that must be unsettling.

West Ham and Wolves have done brilliant, but it won't be them, and I never for a minute thought it would be.

I think it is a 2 horse race between Arsenal and Utd, and I would put it at 50/50 right now regardless of the games in hand. I bloody hate games in hand. We are performing better than Utd, but we are also a couple of injuries in the wrong area away from disaster, lucky we are only playing in one comp and hopefully we can scrape by.
 
The Corinthian said:
Arsenal were lucky today. Very lucky.

Hwang should have made it 2-0 at the start of the second half.
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allen7 said:
Exactly, and top of it that ben white dive to stop a 1v1 chance for wolves. Surely atkinson helped them get a victory.
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"Very lucky", "Atkinson helped them get a victory". How can anyone have watched that game and come to these conclusions. Classic case of bias completely taking over.

Don't worry we all do it. I find myself often thinking that our rivals have fluked another result (Spurs, yourselves) but then I am surprised that my neutral friends don't agree with me. We really tend to see what we want to see.

Wolves scored from a dreadful back pass, definitely a gift. I guess that isn't considered unlucky in your viewpoint. They then had probably 1 other great chance. Apart from that they were just defending for their lives, whole 2nd half they were holding on.

We had 26 shots to their 6, Lacazette on another day could have got a hattrick, Odegaard hit the woodwork. Only our finishing was letting us down. Ask any neutral who watched that game if we were lucky or read any match report. Most will tell you that was a deserved win.
 
We have the toughest run coming up. We will know if we finish fourth by early April. The atletico performance doesn’t fill me with confidence. We have to play a lot better than that.
 
It was both a deserved win, and also one where a few key decisions went in Arsenals favour. If those decisions went differently Wolves could have had a second and that would probably have been game over.

The manner of the victory makes it seem bigger than it is, but in reality its no more important than United beating Brighton at home. They are home games you expect your rivals to win. There are much bigger tests to come for both sides, and the United Arsenal fixture will probably ultimately decide this.
 
MalBot said:
Ask any neutral who watched that game if we were lucky or read any match report. Most will tell you that was a deserved win.
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Have a look on the Wolves forums, they absolutely agree they were totally outplayed, and Arsenal deserved to win, no question.

I get it many here don't like Arsenal, but I have no idea what people were watching. Wolves did have a couple of decent chances on the break, but they are a very good team, and we were pressing for a goal after shooting ourselves in the foot early. Although I don't remember Ramsdale making a save to be honest.

Nobody outplays Wolves like that, when they played at Old Trafford a few weeks back they had 19 shots on goal on their way to a comfy 3 points! I always give credit where it is due, regardless of my feelings towards other clubs, and for us to beat Wolves twice in 3 weeks is good going.
 
Its not going to be us, we're playing City away, spurs at home and liverpool away after watford. Oh and there's the small matter of playing Atletico somewhere in between that run too. We might get something against spurs but city and liverpool will beat us. After that, we have 8 more games left (2 of which will be against arsenal and chelsea). Too much ground to make up i'm afraid with not enough games left and far too many difficult games to play!
 
BurgerVan said:
Have a look on the Wolves forums, they absolutely agree they were totally outplayed, and Arsenal deserved to win, no question.

I get it many here don't like Arsenal, but I have no idea what people were watching. Wolves did have a couple of decent chances on the break, but they are a very good team, and we were pressing for a goal after shooting ourselves in the foot early. Although I don't remember Ramsdale making a save to be honest.

Nobody outplays Wolves like that, when they played at Old Trafford a few weeks back they had 19 shots on goal on their way to a comfy 3 points! I always give credit where it is due, regardless of my feelings towards other clubs, and for us to beat Wolves twice in 3 weeks is good going.
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Arsenal did well to win
But wolves missed about 3 or 4 great chances

Against United most were tame long range efforts from outside the box bar one great neves effort
 
This "it's Arsenal" mentality is really idiotic here, weird arrogance that will see a lot of posters here look like clowns. The reality is they have a young and talented squad that has twice the work ethic of many of our players, they've been fairly good for a while now. It's as if people here stopped watching them after their first 3 games. If they keep this trajectory they are well on course for Top 4, for instance a player like Saka knows what he should be doing for the team, Rashford on the other hand plays for himself. I think the mistake they made was getting rid of Aubameyang in January but what they have in their favour is all their eggs are on the Premier League.
 
Red4Ever said:
Against United most were tame long range efforts from outside the box bar one great neves effort
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I watched that game, and Wolves were the better team and for sure deserved to win. But they are tough to play against. Lage has done great.
 
Red4Ever said:
Arsenal did well to win
But wolves missed about 3 or 4 great chances

Against United most were tame long range efforts from outside the box bar one great neves effort
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Yh I think on another day Wolves could have been 2-0 up and game over, but on balance the majority of the game we were on top.

The White foul on Coady was quite bad from the ref, but I also thought it was a Pen in the first few mins.
 
MyOnlySolskjaer said:
This "it's Arsenal" mentality is really idiotic here, weird arrogance that will see a lot of posters here look like clowns. The reality is they have a young and talented squad that has twice the work ethic of many of our players, they've been fairly good for a while now. It's as if people here stopped watching them after their first 3 games. If they keep this trajectory they are well on course for Top 4, for instance a player like Saka knows what he should be doing for the team, Rashford on the other hand plays for himself. I think the mistake they made was getting rid of Aubameyang in January but what they have in their favour is all their eggs are on the Premier League.
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Yeah they've been better than us for a long time now, a well balanced team.

Ignoring the big fixture advantage they have I don't know how anyone has watched us lately and thinks we're on a path to getting better results than them to the end of the season.
 
Ayoba said:
Its not going to be us, we're playing City away, spurs at home and liverpool away after watford. Oh and there's the small matter of playing Atletico somewhere in between that run too. We might get something against spurs but city and liverpool will beat us. After that, we have 8 more games left (2 of which will be against arsenal and chelsea). Too much ground to make up i'm afraid with not enough games left and far too many difficult games to play!
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This is a top 4 dogfight. 3 wins in a row after that fixture list and you’re right back in it.

“Too much ground to make up” we are literally in the top 4. If you want to talk about difficult fixtures, Arsenal’s two games in hand that would take them above United are Chelsea away and Spurs away.
 
Offside said:
This is a top 4 dogfight. 3 wins in a row after that fixture list and you’re right back in it.

“Too much ground to make up” we are literally in the top 4. If you want to talk about difficult fixtures, Arsenal’s two games in hand that would take them above United are Chelsea away and Spurs away.
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I meant too much ground to make up after we lose to city and liverpool. Arsenal in the meantime will play watford, lecieseter and villa. I dont know when their games in hand will be scheduled for
 
I think the current top 3 will stay as it is. However, you've got to think Lé Arse will finish 4th as they've got the easiest run in and they have the freshest squad owing to the lack of European football.
 
Red4Ever said:
Arsenal did well to win
But wolves missed about 3 or 4 great chances.
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I really can't remember Wolves having 3 or 4 great chances. I can only remember Hwang having a great chance at the start of the second half to make it 2-0. The only other decent chance I can remember is Neto dragging a shot wide.

Shots: Arsenal 26-6 Wolves
xG 2.7-1.1

Yes wolves could have won..if they pretty much converted 100% of their chances and we missed all our ours. On balance of play they didn't deserve to get anything out of this game. Something their own players even admitted. Ruben Neves: "We didn't deserve to win to be honest. We had some good chances to score, but we didn't play well. They took us back all the game after going 1-0 up & we just defended. When you don't have the ball against these kind of teams you will suffer"
 
Offside said:
This is a top 4 dogfight. 3 wins in a row after that fixture list and you’re right back in it.
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Exactly this. It is a dogfight and all it takes is a couple of results to go your way or against you and the landscape has changed again. Still a long way to go.


Offside said:
If you want to talk about difficult fixtures, Arsenal’s two games in hand that would take them above United are Chelsea away and Spurs away.
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You have made the same mistake as others and are looking at this in the wrong way. The post below explains it perfectly...

Powderfinger said:
I don't know how many times this has to be repeated, but "games in hand" is not the same thing as "matches which were postponed."

United still has to play Spurs, Chelsea, and Liverpool too. We each have to play them once, that's how it works.

If anything, the most accurate way to think about "games in hand" vis-a-vis United specifically are games against teams that are not common opponents for the two squads.

Teams Arsenal has to play that United doesn't: Wolves, Villa, Southampton, Leeds, West Ham, Newcastle.

Teams United has to play that Arsenal doesn't: Man City, Brentford, Norwich.

If we imagined for a moment that both squads got equal points against their common opponents, then Arsenal would need 4 more points out of those six games than United got out of their three games in order to draw even in the table.
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Thought Arsenal were very lucky last night. Didn't really create much at all and Wolves had 2-3 really good chances on the break. That Jimenez finish a minute or two after the first goal and Neto missed a good chance near the end.

Ultimately though they got the win. 45 points with still 14 games left to play, basically means win 7 games and they're on 66 points. I think 70 points comfortably gets you 4th this season as I don't see Man. United reaching that figure and the others are too far behind now.

Still a few twist and turns though.
 
MalBot said:
"Very lucky", "Atkinson helped them get a victory". How can anyone have watched that game and come to these conclusions. Classic case of bias completely taking over.

Don't worry we all do it. I find myself often thinking that our rivals have fluked another result (Spurs, yourselves) but then I am surprised that my neutral friends don't agree with me. We really tend to see what we want to see.

Wolves scored from a dreadful back pass, definitely a gift. I guess that isn't considered unlucky in your viewpoint. They then had probably 1 other great chance. Apart from that they were just defending for their lives, whole 2nd half they were holding on.

We had 26 shots to their 6, Lacazette on another day could have got a hattrick, Odegaard hit the woodwork. Only our finishing was letting us down. Ask any neutral who watched that game if we were lucky or read any match report. Most will tell you that was a deserved win.
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Yes arsenal deserved the win for fighting it till end but my point was some key refereeing decisions looked controversial.

Care to explain the dive and blatant fouls made by white? Still went unpunished and imagine the outrage if it was an United player

 
charlenefan said:
How are Arsenal 5 points off Chelsea with a game in hand? Chelsea should be embarrassed by that
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Arsenal have a leisurely 1 game a week and are in 1 competition. They can focus 100% on the PL and can play a consistent XI every match now.

We are in 4 competitions and have been plagued by injuries all season long, including to arguably our 2 most important players Reece James & Chilwell who have missed months of the season.

Despite that, we still have a little breathing room between ourselves and Arsenal, have a +20 goal difference advantage on them, and have a considerably softer remaining fixture list than they do.

The only thing that’s embarrassing is that we’re so far behind City and Liverpool. We still have a chance to win 3 more trophies this season having already won 2. A situation Arsenal fans could only dream of these days.
 
I'm not sure where the confidence that we will finish 4th ahead of Arsenal is coming from. That win really does put Arsenal in the driving seat. You just need to look at our fixtures compared to theirs. They have 2 games in hand where they can afford to lose both and we would still need to get something from Liverpool and Man City games. Arsenal don't play either of them 2 anymore.

Arsenal v Man Utd at the Emirates could be the decider in April!
 
allen7 said:
Yes arsenal deserved the win for fighting it till end but my point was some key refereeing decisions looked controversial.

Care to explain the dive and blatant fouls made by white? Still went unpunished and imagine the outrage if it was an United player

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Yes White did dive there. So this is controversial and an outrage but when a Wolves defender in similar position went down after he lost the ball it is ok? Or when Samedo took out Martinelli inside the penalty area when he was about to shoot at goal it wasn't a penalty?

If you only start looking at the decisions that went for us but forget about the ones that went for Wolves, then of course you would think this was a controversial win.
 
Not counting any chickens before they hatch.

Only a few weeks ago it was everyone else had games in hand, whilst we were slightly ahead. Now we have the games in hand - but they will come thick and fast, and our depth (up top in particular) is worrisome.

Laca and Eddie are a bottom half of the league kind of forward group. We risk burning out and of Saka, ESR, Ødegaard and Martinelli. Thankfully Pepe is back, as he is going to have to step up in a big way consistently now.
 
allen7 said:
Yes arsenal deserved the win for fighting it till end but my point was some key refereeing decisions looked controversial.

Care to explain the dive and blatant fouls made by white? Still went unpunished and imagine the outrage if it was an United player

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Who would be outraged exactly?

United have been absolutely kissed on the schlong when it comes to penalties for years now - every other supporter base calls the club, "Penchester United," for a reason.
 
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