Who had the better season? Arsenal or Man utd?

We need a new stat called expected trophies (xT).

If you played that season out an ∞ amount of times, Arsenal won more trophies than United.

However, United won more trophies in the only metric which withstands time, actual trophies.
 
It’s hilarious watching people trying to go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to convince themselves that United had a better season
 
TheReligion said:
No one is ignoring the negative context for United. It’s been a tough season for a number of different reasons.

For Arsenal? Well they come up short again. I imagine it’s been quite a frustrating season especially when you look back at some of the awful dropped points at home to the likes of West Ham. Unless we are still pretending Arsenal have no right being in a title race and are punching above their weight?
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Who’s pretending that. My point is that Arsenal are among the group of clubs that expect to be challenging for top honours. I’m not sure how it’s possible to make that any clearer.

I also thought of United as being one of those clubs. That’s why I thought a season where you finish mid-table of the Premier League and last in your Champion League group wouldn’t be rated above a team that made a decent challenge for the big trophies.

Once again, I see where you’re coming from. In the 2014, Liverpool took City to the last day and finished two points off of them, whereas Arsenal ended up 7 point adrift. I wouldn’t have swapped our FA Cup win against Hull for Liverpool’s title challenge, as it ended a nine year trophy drought and we qualified for the CL.

But for us it was a trophy to go alongside a top four finish and making it to the knockout rounds of the CL. Not great, but passable. United’s season as a whole wasn’t passable - it was woeful. You may prefer your season, but to state it’s objectively better sounds like ETH has managed to finish job Mourinho started with his “football heritage” speech.

Anyway, we can agree to disagree.
 
Do we have any Arsenal fans on here?

I think the question is wrong would Arsenal trade being 2nd with no trophies to finishing outside top 4 but beating Spurs in the FA cup final, I think they might just take that one maybe
 
Gavinb33 said:
Do we have any Arsenal fans on here?

I think the question is wrong would Arsenal trade being 2nd with no trophies to finishing outside top 4 but beating Spurs in the FA cup final, I think they might just take that one maybe
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And bumping Chelsea to the conference league..
 
golden_blunder said:
It’s hilarious watching people trying to go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to convince themselves that United had a better season
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ETH and united won a major trophy against rivals City and knocked their main rivals Liverpool out of the competition along the way which also derailed Liverpool’s bid for a title. Arsenal won nothing. You could understand supporters and hopefully INEOS thinking united had a better season even if the did set records every week in futility. Maybe he should stay. Sometimes winning a cup breeds confidence going into the next season.
 
I'll add my two cents although it isn't anything deep and analysed (too tired for that - will respond in more detail)

IMO - we did. We have a trophy. Just my take.
 
Gavinb33 said:
Do we have any Arsenal fans on here?

I think the question is wrong would Arsenal trade being 2nd with no trophies to finishing outside top 4 but beating Spurs in the FA cup final, I think they might just take that one maybe
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Its not just about 'being second'. You could finish 2nd 15 points off the pace, however finishing 2nd, 2 points off the pace with an 89 points total is an indication we are knocking on the door in regard to the league title. Especially with a goal differential of 62+ which is a massive number.

Im sure Man United want to win the PL again, however before you win it again, you will need to have a season where you finish above atleast 80 points minimum. You wont go from a point tally of 60 with a negative goal difference to winning the league without fixing some of the underlying issues in your sqaud and club.

I know this, because when we won the FA Cup and finished 8th, it did nothing to turbo charge us up the league. We went up the league table when we binned the likes of Aubamayang and other high earners who thought they were doing the club a favour in playing for us. We went up the league table after a few robust transfer windows and development of younger players.

Dont let the FA Cup win fool oyu into thinking ETH has it all under control - he has mountains to move to get Man United competing for the league again. And there are some who think United wont compete under ETH due to evidence of poor recruitment and an inability to develop a style of play.
 
ArtetasHair said:
I am generally commenting on what the general 'mood' then was to what it is now. I suspect its because its Arsenal. Had this been any other team (and Liverpool) this thread would have had a very different tone. Probably can say the same thing the other way around too I suspect.
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There was no general mood. It was split or more towards Chelsea and it's split now.

In the same thread you can also see Arsenal fan arguing Arsenal had better season because of FA cup.
 
I’d take the FA Cup over finishing second in the league. We had an awful season punctuated with humiliation, and Arsenal looked several levels above what we were doing.

But we won a major trophy and they didn’t.

The CL right now is pretty much dominated by a handful of clubs, and Arsenal is not one of them. Even if we had qualified for CL this season, we would get found out sooner rather than later, and crash out. Is playing CL football with no hope of winning actually better than winning an historic competition?
 
Gavinb33 said:
Do we have any Arsenal fans on here?

I think the question is wrong would Arsenal trade being 2nd with no trophies to finishing outside top 4 but beating Spurs in the FA cup final, I think they might just take that one maybe
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Basically you are asking if we would prefer our 2019-2020 season over last season.
Every arsenal fan would prefer our last season.

Also our 2019-2020 season is a decent indicator to how much ManUtd would have to work to get close to winning a league. Offcourse if things work out well it can take shorter but seeing the amount of work needed it won't be easy.
 
njred said:
ETH and united won a major trophy against rivals City and knocked their main rivals Liverpool out of the competition along the way which also derailed Liverpool’s bid for a title. Arsenal won nothing. You could understand supporters and hopefully INEOS thinking united had a better season even if the did set records every week in futility. Maybe he should stay. Sometimes winning a cup breeds confidence going into the next season.
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We won the league cup and this year is our worst ever finish. Worse than David fecking Moyes
 
If we (Arsenal) 'swapped' seasons then we would be swapping our consistency for Man United inconsistency. Trading places with the current Man United is not worth an FA Cup. Arsenal have been in 8th place with an FA Cup - I wouldnt want to go back to it from our current position.
 
We had a season where we really were a pain to many clubs.

But no way we had a better season than Arsenal.

They have a good team, good chemistry and have been challenging for top honors. They have more momentum going forward.

We need to fix half our team and possibly find a new coach.
 
Sky1981 said:
We won the league cup and this year is our worst ever finish. Worse than David fecking Moyes
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You improved and ETH got himself a bigger cup, meaning success is just around the corner. I’m positive he’ll make the right decisions in the transfer market and in his on field strategy once he gets that green light of not being worried about his future. He’s gotta stay.
 
njred said:
ETH and united won a major trophy against rivals City and knocked their main rivals Liverpool out of the competition along the way which also derailed Liverpool’s bid for a title. Arsenal won nothing. You could understand supporters and hopefully INEOS thinking united had a better season even if the did set records every week in futility. Maybe he should stay. Sometimes winning a cup breeds confidence going into the next season.
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Finally some sense in this thread.
 
njred said:
You improved and ETH got himself a bigger cup, meaning success is just around the corner. I’m positive he’ll make the right decisions in the transfer market and in his on field strategy once he gets that green light of not being worried about his future. He’s gotta stay.
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Leave him be.
 
ArtetaInInIn said:
If we (Arsenal) 'swapped' seasons then we would be swapping our consistency for Man United inconsistency. Trading places with the current Man United is not worth an FA Cup. Arsenal have been in 8th place with an FA Cup - I wouldnt want to go back to it from our current position.
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No one cares though in 10 years will be talking about league position etc or will we remember beating our rivals in the cup final
 
2023-4 season will never be forgotten by United fans after the way we won the Cup. Do you think Arsenal fans will be talking about the 2023-4 season when they ran City close and had a +62 goal difference, in 5/10/20 years time?
 
Gavinb33 said:
No one cares though in 10 years will be talking about league position etc or will we remember beating our rivals in the cup final
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No big club cares about the FA cup either, apart from the team that wins it. I don't remember any rival fans giving a shit when we won 3 in 4 years a decade ago. No one really cares that we've won it more than any other club. It used to be important but it's a pretty tin pot trophy now
 
njred said:
You improved and ETH got himself a bigger cup, meaning success is just around the corner. I’m positive he’ll make the right decisions in the transfer market and in his on field strategy once he gets that green light of not being worried about his future. He’s gotta stay.
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So the only thing stopping ETH from being brilliant and not buying dross was a new contract. Who would've thought
 
It's absurd to suggest finishing second is better than winning the FA Cup.

If you win a trophy you're in the history books. Even if you don't care about the FA Cup (I do) every instance of us winning it has added to our legacy as a club, including the win this year. No-one is mentioning the times we finished second when they talk of our history as a club, and rightly so.

Did Arsenal play better than us this season? Yes, obviously they did, by some distance. That doesn't mean they had a better season since they have nothing to show for it.

They finished second the last time we won it as well - does anyone care about or remember much about that? Would you have traded that second spot for our FA Cup win that season? Absolutely not.
 
I reckon not only did Arsenal have a better season, but their fans are more optimistic about next season. City weren't at the imperious best this year, but their PL run-in form made them almost unbeatable - 15 wins, 3 draws and no defeats! Arsenal dropped vital points as expected. City didn't, also as expected. Arsenal have a foundation on which to build.

I could count on one hand, the number of decent performances we put in this year, obv including the cup final. We're still a shit team that plays shit football. That won't change next season unless something exponentially different happens with our coaching, recruitment (and injuries). The win over City is heavily skewing people's opinions. 9 times out of 10 they win that game.

We can take pride in beating the 115 crew in a one-off game, but Arsenal had the better season for sure.
 
Arsenal have been easily the better side but history will remember the trophy. This is a fact, nobody ever wants to remember who came second or top 4. Fans remember trophies fondly and lifting it, not when they lost it and won nothing(regardless of the football).
 
CannonBalls said:
Basically you are asking if we would prefer our 2019-2020 season over last season.
Every arsenal fan would prefer our last season.

Also our 2019-2020 season is a decent indicator to how much ManUtd would have to work to get close to winning a league. Offcourse if things work out well it can take shorter but seeing the amount of work needed it won't be easy.
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You didn't beat Spurs in the cup final that year
 
ArtetaInInIn said:
Its not just about 'being second'. You could finish 2nd 15 points off the pace, however finishing 2nd, 2 points off the pace with an 89 points total is an indication we are knocking on the door in regard to the league title. Especially with a goal differential of 62+ which is a massive number.

Im sure Man United want to win the PL again, however before you win it again, you will need to have a season where you finish above atleast 80 points minimum. You wont go from a point tally of 60 with a negative goal difference to winning the league without fixing some of the underlying issues in your sqaud and club.

I know this, because when we won the FA Cup and finished 8th, it did nothing to turbo charge us up the league. We went up the league table when we binned the likes of Aubamayang and other high earners who thought they were doing the club a favour in playing for us. We went up the league table after a few robust transfer windows and development of younger players.

Dont let the FA Cup win fool oyu into thinking ETH has it all under control - he has mountains to move to get Man United competing for the league again. And there are some who think United wont compete under ETH due to evidence of poor recruitment and an inability to develop a style of play.
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Liverpool went from 75 to 97, Arsenal themselves under Arteta went from 69 points to 84 points just recently, so this is factually wrong you can jump from a lower points record to a higher one and look to challenge for the title you might not make it like these sides but it absolutely can happen and it can happen in one season, now to do it lots of things have to align of course
 
Every team that finished with Silverware had a better season than those who did not. 1.city, 2 Utd, 3. Pool.
 
A trophy to finish the season is always better. But then when the CL starts next season, i’ll feel a little sad that United’s name aren’t in there for the draw
 
Arsenal had a much better season throughout. We had a few better individual games that came at the right times to get us a trophy.

Trophy is worth extra to us due to two teams we beat. But objectively there'd be good reasons to wish our season results were flipped. I'd feel a lot more confident we can deliver a solid next season if we had their results. They are much more likely to challenge for the league, and they get CL.
 
alexthelion said:
This is the correct answer.
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Would you seriously rather we win another FA cup, place 8th and qualify for Europa League, than to fight for the league title, place 2nd and qualify for Champions League - if these were your two options for next season?
 
matsdf said:
Would you seriously rather we win another FA cup, place 8th and qualify for Europa League, than to fight for the league title, place 2nd and qualify for Champions League - if these were your two options for next season?
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Yes. A trophy trumps all, that's why games are played.
 
alexthelion said:
Yes. A trophy trumps all, that's why games are played.
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Wow, does it really if there's no progression towards becoming an elite team? Would you be happy to perpetually win an odd FA cup and never progress towards a team that challenges for league and CL titles?
 
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