Arsenal have had a better season than any of ours post Fergie. They fell short in the end, but played some exhilarating football, with a young team and look like there's even more room for improvement with the players they've already got at the club.
Who had the better season? Arsenal or Man utd?
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Oh no, another thread asking this! Was the 40+ page thread mocking Arsenal fans for thinking 2nd was a success and where this topic is discussed to death not enough?!
Stupid post. Both teams exceeded expectations.
Man United.
I would rather take Arsenals 2nd place to our 3rd with a league cup trophy....
Why? Ultimately 3rd and 2nd place both bring you CL, trophy is a trophy though.
Managerial context should also be a factor. The first PL season is tough. Pep also had a hard time with a much better foundation.
I get people saying Arsenal have had a "better" season because they played good football, does that mean that if we won the title and played average football, people will think a team that plays better football and come 2nd had a better season?
We won a trophy and finished top 4, got FA cup final too.
So, would fans happy for us to be 5/6th and play good football then?
We won a trophy and finished top 4, got FA cup final too.
So, would fans happy for us to be 5/6th and play good football then?
Pretty much this.
Manchester United fought on multiple fronts and won a trophy as well as making the final of another; played far more games with a poor group of players and still only finished a few points behind Arsenal.
They had by far the more aesthetically pleasing season, but even with a sole focus faded badly. Of course, the City cheating machine distorts the title race, but even within themselves, Arsenal faded and nobody will care about what they did this season by August.
Nobody cares about the mickey mouse League Cup, we all know it even if it was nice to win.
We finished fourth, just, after extended periods of looking like we were going to feck it up. In the process we got tonked 7-0 by our biggest rivals and then to boot our nearest and dearest beat us 6-3 away from home and beat us easily in another cup final. The 7-0 is the abiding memory of the season for me.
We were nowhere near title winning form and for large periods played tumescent football too. Our away form was absolutely abysmal and when we lost, we usually got absolutely battered. The manner in which we collapsed against Sevilla showed us that we haven't changed a bit.
We all want to win the league and get closer to City but who got the closest? Arsenal.
Say what you want but we used to mock Arsenal for being top-4 merchants and occasionally winning a cup whilst we were challenging for the title, even the years we didn't win it. We've just had one of those seasons.
They've had comfortably the better season.
We finished fourth, just, after extended periods of looking like we were going to feck it up. In the process we got tonked 7-0 by our biggest rivals and then to boot our nearest and dearest beat us 6-3 away from home and beat us easily in another cup final. The 7-0 is the abiding memory of the season for me.
We were nowhere near title winning form and for large periods played tumescent football too. Our away form was absolutely abysmal and when we lost, we usually got absolutely battered. The manner in which we collapsed against Sevilla showed us that we haven't changed a bit.
We all want to win the league and get closer to City but who got the closest? Arsenal.
Say what you want but we used to mock Arsenal for being top-4 merchants and occasionally winning a cup whilst we were challenging for the title, even the years we didn't win it. We've just had one of those seasons.
They've had comfortably the better season.
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2nd or 3rd makes no difference, only one club won silverware though, so why is this even a question?
Obviously United had the better season.
Obviously United had the better season.
Some fan you are, you don’t even know where we finished.
We finished 9 points behind 2nd, but 8 points above 5th (Liverpool to boot) and 4 points above 4th. Comfortable.
If I’d told you before the season we’d get 3rd, win one cup and reach the final of the other, get to the EL quarters and finish 8 points above Liverpool, all without a striker for most the season, every single fecking one of you lot in here would have bitten my hand off.
Fine, we finished third. Makes so much difference between 3rd and 4th that I'm appalled I made the mistake.
When you are called Manchester United you can't play good football and finish 5th/6th. Maybe when you are called Brighton you can.
Also Arsenal finished above us, quite comfortably and in the PL they clearly played better football. It's not like we won the league and Arsenal were considered to have a better season than us while finishing 2nd.
We actually finished 3rd.
Back in Fergie's day, United fans were gleefully mocking clubs who thought the League Cup was a major competition.
I think neither side has bragging rights when Man City were so dominant. That said, Arsenal looked much the better side for most of the season.
I think neither side has bragging rights when Man City were so dominant. That said, Arsenal looked much the better side for most of the season.
It also makes no difference between 2nd and 3rd, but that irony seems lost on you for some reason.
You also seem to not understand context - Arsenal are 3 years into Lego Pep’s project, this was our first season under ETH and coming off the back of an absolute disaster.
The fact anyone in here rates Arsenal’s season higher than ours is absolutely laughable.
Guess we don’t judge success on trophies anymore?
If we'd ended last season on the same points as Arsenal, they'd easily have had the better season this year. You're being clouded by how bad we were last year.
I'd take being in a title race until the final few games over winning the league cup. Doing the whole 'we won a trophy' when it was that and we were nowhere near in the league is something small teams do. Like I said we used to mock Arsenal under Wenger for a season like we've had when we were challenging for the league most seasons.
Also, Arsenal didn't "almost" win the league.
So I ask you, what is the metric to a better season? Playing better football on the eye or silverware?
Anyone can win a cup on their day. Birmingham City won it once. Wigan won the FA Cup. Any supporter of the big teams normally calls the league cup a mickey mouse trophy.
Last season was an anomaly and we've returned to being about as good as we were under Jose and Ole, so have we really been a success or made any progress?
And people might point to ETH and the job he's doing but for most of the games this season, his style wasn't apparent at all. We barely pressed, we scored goals in moments just like we were 'moments FC' under Jose/Ole and we were so naive away from home that our record was appalling and we collapsed against teams just like we've always done since SAF left.
If you call leading the table for most of the season not almost winning the league then I don't know what to say.
Compare oranges to oranges... you can say this if throughout the season the teams have played the same number of games.
City were always playing catch up, Arsenal were more often than not 2 games ahead of City.
That is why we have a debate, because it depends on the context. We won the smallest trophy possible, but we won something while Arsenal hasn't won anything but were clearly better than us in the PL.
So, two years from now if we win nothing but come second and be a laughing stock for capitulating with just a few games to go having been top of the league for three quarters of the season you’ll be happy?
Personally I think that would be a step back from where we are right now. That is how context works.
We’ve done nothing for a decade, SAF has been retired 10 years and almost died since we were last in a position to mock teams for merely challenging and winning a trophy.
You’re in denial and living off former glories like a Scouser if you can’t accept that.
Claiming that Arsenal "almost won the league" is the most Arsenal thing I've heard.
At the end of the day they were still 5 points off, and that includes City dumping off the last game of the season in order to focus on the cup. Ultimately it wasn’t even really close.
I agree that we won the smallest trophy. I also agree they played the better football but more successful season would be ours imo. A trophy and top 4 is better than just top 4.
Not a lot in between them in the end. Arsenal played better football over long stretches but didn't take anything home besides more points in the league, while United took at least the lesser of the domestic cups and both got CL.
Both clubs qualified for the CL plus we won a trophy, so we had the better season
CL + no trophies or CL + trophy? I know which season I’d rather have.
They finished 5 points behind the champions and stopped being top 5 matchdays before the end, not to mention they had played more games than City for most of the season so their larger leads were never entirely real. That's absolutely, 100%, not "almost winning" the league.
They had an excellent first half of a league campaign, and that's it. Their second half of the league and their cup runs were between mediocre and awful.
Thinking even more deeply about it, the only way you could claim that Arsenal had the better season is if you remove all context.
And common sense.
Top 4 and bombing out of every other competition early, versus top 4 + domestic trophy + domestic final + European 1/4 final.
Don’t really even need context to judge that do you.
Us, obviously.
I mean, I can understand rating the PL so highly that it trumps the domestic trophies. It's a valid argument.
But when you look at all the circumstances it becomes clear that United did better: Ten Hag's first season in England, the injuries, the Ronaldo situation, the arguable Casemiro suspensions (at least one of them), the number of matches... It all adds up and should be taken into account.
When it's all said and done and you factor in some context (starting positions, number of matches played, competitions competed in/for, injuries, fatigue, actually winning something)....i'd take ours.
We played 62 games and won 42. (68% win ratio)
Arsenal played 49 games and won 32. (65% win ratio)
We played alot more games. Had better win ratios. Qualified for CL and won a cup. If Arsenal played as many games, injury and fatigue would have hit them hard. I'll argue we have a much better season.
Arsenal played 49 games and won 32. (65% win ratio)
We played alot more games. Had better win ratios. Qualified for CL and won a cup. If Arsenal played as many games, injury and fatigue would have hit them hard. I'll argue we have a much better season.
Also, how many games did Martinez, Varane and Casemiro start together? Because this is pretty much our entire defensive and transitional foundation.
And that's before mentioning the striker situation... From Ronaldo's tantrums to Martial glass-like physique to.. Whatever the feck Wout was doing.
And that's before mentioning the striker situation... From Ronaldo's tantrums to Martial glass-like physique to.. Whatever the feck Wout was doing.
As a fan I am taking our season over Arsenal's all day long, I've been to 2 Cup finals this season and we finished top 4 comfortably
This might be hindsight as they were leading the PL for most of the season however
This might be hindsight as they were leading the PL for most of the season however