Who had the better season? Arsenal or Man utd?

United of course.

No one cares about whether you are 2nd or 3rd and cups and titles are what is important.

At the end of the day we got a silverware and both teams qualified for CL.
 
Arsenal. They won nothing, but they played great football consistently and nearly won the league. If that had been our season we'd have been proud of the improvement. We forget that Arsenal were starting from a pretty rubbish place too.

Had we won the FA cup - i'd have said us. We have had a patchy season, but to end up third and win 1 trophy is decent, to win two would have been awesome.
 
Ish said:
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.
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Definitely. You can't even say they were in a real title race as justification for their season. As soon as it became an actual race they wilted.

We had deep cup runs, domestic trophy and CL qualification coming off an absolute disaster of a season.
 
I don't know that I'm mithered who has, except for what it might tell us about next season.

After coming fifth the season before, let's not forget that a lot of commentators thought Arteta would be the first manager sacking of the season. To end up second after leading the table for a good part of the season has to be counted as exceeding expectations by a good margin, especially in his 2nd full season. Apart from the initial failure with Emery, Arsenal navigated their way out of the post-Wenger era very well, far better than we have post-SAF. It was clear during the season that they could fail to City though, that's just to do with depth of squad, where City have a huge advantage, in an odd season with the World Cup in the middle.
ETH started out in a different place and to get third spot in the circumstances is realistically the best we could get. Anything better would have required Arsenal, and City in particular, to have some catastrophic fall off in form rather than miraculous recovery by Utd.
On paper, Arsenal had the better season, to do that in two-and-a-half seasons under Arteta is an achievement. We've done well considering the way the Ronaldo farce derailed our strategy to accommodate a fading club legend. I'd call it about even.
Where it matters is that Arsenal are likely to be a contender again next season, so we're probably in at least a three-way fight with them and City, possibly four-way again if Newcastle's form continues, and with Liverpool as an unknown, depending on their summer transfer window. So we need to improve very quickly if it isn't going to be another uncomfortable 3rd or 4th.
 
matherto said:
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.
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Its obvious where you stand regarding ETH. You want to see what you want to see or dont want to see.
This thread is basically another safe heaven for ETH doubters.
 
Without a doubt we did.

A trophy + Champions League qualification vs Champions League qualification isn't a contest frankly.

I would wager that if offered a sort of title challenge vs league cup and top four at the start of the season both sets of fans would have took the latter.

Potentially controversial opinion... I think we finish higher than them next year.
 
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Both teams failed. If you're measuring the degree of failure, I'd argue that a trophy and an FA cup final better than no trophy at all, personally. Were our second place finishes under Solskjaer and Mourinho successes?
 
On paper, United. Because 2nd or 3rd doesn't make any difference (unless you really like the Community Shield) and United won a trophy

Next season I'd rather have their season because United haven't even put up a title challenge for 10 years. I can't even remember how it feels.
 
Oldyella said:
Definitely. You can't even say they were in a real title race as justification for their season. As soon as it became an actual race they wilted.

We had deep cup runs, domestic trophy and CL qualification coming off an absolute disaster of a season.
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I can understand Arsenal fans seeing it differently, of course. Arteta had some pressure to produce and i think they'd have just taken top 4 at the start of the season, having narrowly missed out to Spurs last season, but also taking Newcastle's newfound wealth into account and potentially a united side who could only improve on last years comedy. But yeah, we competed on more fronts, with a less settled squad/manager and suffered key injuries (not saying Arsenal didn't but they were backed to strengthen in January as well - where we had to make due with 2 loan signings) - after all the Ronaldo drama to begin with.

At the end, we won a cup as well. Yes, the league cup is seen as the lowest priority at the start of each season but with the relative strength of the EPL these days (top 6/7 teams now trying to complete for the UCL spots with others knocking on the door), any sort of trophy will be celebrated.

Are they in a better position to kick on next season? You'd have to think so but football is a funny game. I'd leave it at that - their fans would prefer their season, most of ours should/would prefer ours. It's both relative, i guess, as both has exceeded expectations to a degree.
 
matherto said:
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.
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We finished 3rd, 8 points clear of 5th and 4 clear of 4th. You may have missed that.
 
Arsenal had a better season. They had no excuses if they didn’t. They had a significant headstart.
 
Arsenal because they played much better football, scored a lot of goals and finished higher in the league.
 
I'd say it was evens, Arsenal in general looked better than us, and Arteta has clearly improved them this year, but I do think a little bit of that also comes down to the same thing we benefited from.

1) Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea were all horrendously dog shit when anyone would have expected them to be so much better. I expect Liverpool to make something of a comeback next year.
2) Newcastle have looked immense and with another season under their belts they will only get better, this year was a year early for their project. They actually however have the benefit of a stable base, with signings this summer I can see them pushing that second spot out.
3) Arsenal had a pretty clear schedule all year long, and their lead came down to them not playing as many games.

I think we will see Arsenal drop to fifth again, they have a good side, with young exciting players, and of course we will likely see them buy some new players. However I think this may end up being a flash in the pan, I am not entirely convinced they can have that start to the season again, or that they will be more consistent next year when they are in the CL. This year was their chance to capitalise on some of the other teams having a poor year, them having fewer games to play, and some excellent team performances. I think we will see a City, Liverpool, United and Newcastle top four next year, and I still don't think we will win it.
 
You could argue for either. But does anyone actually care?
 
Just look at the outlook of the two respective clubs. Our fans think our managers done a miracle and now needs 2 strikers, a goalkeeper, 2 CMs, a back up CB and a RB to compete again next season.

Arsenal just need to keep improving the players they already have with about 1/3 of the additions to get better.
 
This is an easy question to answer, you just have to ask it slightly differently.

at the start of the season, which option would you choose between only these two

A) finish 2nd in the league, get knocked out last 16 of europa by sporting Lisbon, the 4th round of the FA cup by man city, the 3rd round of the Caraboa cup by Brighton

B) finish 3rd in the league, knocked out in last 8 of Europa league by Sevilla, lose the FA cup final to City, win the Caraboa cup against Newcastle

99.99% would choose B.
 
Another thing to note - the 2nd half of the season, the table is this:
  1. City - 47
  2. Liverpool - 38
  3. Villa - 36
  4. United - 36
  5. Arsenal - 34
  6. Newcastle - 33
  7. Brighton - 31
Add to this fixture congestion in the 2nd half, where only United and city had to deal with it, where United actually won a trophy during that run and reached another final. Villa flukey as this is basically new manager bounce, though Emery did really well.

So congrats Arsenal on a great first half of the season where you had 0 distractions, before proceeding to have a 2nd half on pace for 68 points through a year, where again you had 0 distractions. Real good signs for next season.
 
Skills said:
Just look at the outlook of the two respective clubs. Our fans think our managers done a miracle and now needs 2 strikers, a goalkeeper, 2 CMs, a back up CB and a RB to compete again next season.

Arsenal just need to keep improving the players they already have with about 1/3 of the additions to get better.
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If Arsenal keep playing like they did for the last 19 games they wont even finish top 4 next season. If they had played like that the whole season then Arteta would have been sacked by now.

Next season the pressure is on them to prove that the first half wasn't just an anomaly.
 
We won a trophy and almost won another. They won nothing. We both qualified for the Champions League, and neither of us are winning the league next year.

No contest really.
 
Skills said:
Just look at the outlook of the two respective clubs. Our fans think our managers done a miracle and now needs 2 strikers, a goalkeeper, 2 CMs, a back up CB and a RB to compete again next season.

Arsenal just need to keep improving the players they already have with about 1/3 of the additions to get better.
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I'm not sure about the miracle but he did one hell of a job with all the circumstances. Not that you'll say it.
We'll see how Arsenal will fare next season. Do you think they'll be in another title fight?
 
Skills said:
Just look at the outlook of the two respective clubs. Our fans think our managers done a miracle and now needs 2 strikers, a goalkeeper, 2 CMs, a back up CB and a RB to compete again next season.

Arsenal just need to keep improving the players they already have with about 1/3 of the additions to get better.
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Another way to look at it is they maxed out their potential with a complete side and 0 distractions and were 5th in the 2nd half of the season, while we had more points than them in the last 19 games while also playing like 10 games more during that time, winning a cup, despite having 2 massive holes in our starting 11, and it being ten hags first season. You tell me who has a greater scope and earlier path to improvement. For me it's MUCH easier to improve when it's a managers 2nd season, when it's unlikely you have as much fixture congestion again, and when you just have to "do better than wout weghorst" up top. And given we had more actual points than them in the 2nd half of the season anyway despite this? Yeah easy one for me. This was the year where the stars all aligned for them, with distractions for others, world cup in the middle where they weren't affected as much in terms of congestion, where they had by far the fewest amount of lineup changes over the season... And they still lost all hope for the title with about 5-6 games to spare.
 
By the simple metrics of football and winning. We had a better season as we won a trophy and they didn’t. We’ve also both qualified for the Champions League.
But if you asked me who’s position I’d rather be in as a club right now and it would 100% be Arsenal.

They’re a lot further along their development and their football is sustainable long term for success. Ours is still well off where it needs to be.
 
Equal. Both have come roaring back from the wilderness. Arsenal fans probably have a bit more to be excited about next season as it stands - their highest level is outstanding, United's is a little patchier.
 
Arsenal performed at a higher level and before a ball has been kicked or a transfer has been made I would rather be them going into the new season as they're the better team at this moment but Utd 100% had the better season.

The whole point of each season is to win things and see who is the best, we both managed to qualify for the champions league so that's a wash and we were actually the best in another competition which trumps Arsenal as they weren't the best in any.
 
Both teams entered 4 competitions.

One team won one of them. The other, none of them.

Where’s the debate?
 
moodyred said:
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.
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THIS.
 
Arsenal are a better team, Utd have had a better season........ Close the thread
 
Who played better football? Arsenal

Who has more to show for the season? United
 
I’d say we did. With finished the season with the league cup, finalist in the FA cup and a champions league spot. Arsenal have a champions league spot.
 
I'd much rather take fighting for the biggest trophies than winning Micky Mouse ones...
 
Real Name said:
I'm not sure about the miracle but he did one hell of a job with all the circumstances. Not that you'll say it.
We'll see how Arsenal will fare next season. Do you think they'll be in another title fight?
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Probably not but that's because I don't rate Arteta. But I can't deny, what they've done with their squad is pretty much close to ideal in terms of making sure they'll be competitive for years to come.

Saka (21)
Martinelli (21)
Ødegaard (24)
Saliba (22)

Is a great crop of young players. Then they've got another set of very good players who are maybe upgradeable but they aren't in a desperate need to change - so they can wait in the market for the right players to be available at the right time or back them to improve.

Ramsdale (25)
White (25)
Gabriel (25)
Zinchenko (26)
Jesus (26)

Party at 29 is the oldest part of their code group of players. They're in desperate need to replace him, but if they're clever they'll be open to having a transition plan for him too.
 
Skills said:
Probably not but that's because I don't rate Arteta. But I can't deny, what they've done with their squad is pretty much close to ideal in terms of making sure they'll be competitive for years to come.

Saka (21)
Martinelli (21)
Ødegaard (24)
Saliba (22)

Is a great crop of young players. Then they've got another set of very good players who are maybe upgradeable but they aren't in a desperate need to change - so they can wait in the market for the right players to be available at the right time or back them to improve.

Ramsdale (25)
White (25)
Gabriel (25)
Zinchenko (26)
Jesus (26)

Party at 29 is the oldest part of their code group of players. They're in desperate need to replace him, but if they're clever they'll be open to having a transition plan for him too.
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You're right about that part, age of the core. But we'll see what will happen next year with CL football in the mix.
 
When years go by history will team how one team won a trophy (the smallest of the trophies) and the other won nothing.

It's a better season for arsenal regarding improvement and potential for coming seasons. I think that's better than winning the EFL Cup. But trophies are trophies if arsenal don't build on that it'll be worth nothing.
 
Arsenal. If we had won the FA cup it would have been us. Arsenal have taken a massive leap forward with how they play this season and if not for a collapse would have won the league.

Both teams have had a great season all things considered but Arsenals has been better IMO.
 
They achieved the same as us in the league and we won a cup. We had the better season.
 
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