Arsenal criticism ‘hilarious’ when Liverpool ‘have blown a five-point lead’

Pointing fingers at Arsenal ‘is as hilarious as it is transparent’ after they were able to respond to that Liverpool defeat to ‘muscle’ past the champions.

We also have bits on set-pieces, referees and F365 trying to get everyone sacked.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

Liverpool thoughts from an Arsenal fan

I hope this doesn’t come across as harsh…I completely understand that someone who was not just a teammate but a true friend’s passing will have a quite detrimental effect on a collective. One of my best friends took his own life during COVID and it affected all of us around him. Still does to this day. And I don’t disagree – at all – that that angle should be discussed with regards to Liverpool’s current form. And the last thing I would ever disagree with is the overall message that Matt was trying to convey. Ironically, you share the same name as me and the above-mentioned friend.

As you alluded to in your last sentence – I’ll always remember the last conversation I had with him in which he pretty much straight up told me that his mental health was suffering, wondering if I should delve into the details as to what he was going through and encourage him like I always did. But then – that one, singular time – not doing so because I was in a horrible place myself and didn’t want extra stress as I’m constantly worried about other people around me and sometimes it just doesn’t help your own self. And then 6 days later it happened. I will never, ever, ever get over the fact that I could have just taken 20, 30 – however many minutes it would have taken honestly – to hear him out regardless of what I was going through myself. Will repeat Matt’s message here – ask your friends if they are OK. Even if you’re going through a lot yourself – will probably help the both of you to just talk it out and use each other as a springboard.

I do think, though, Liverpool’s biggest problems are on the pitch itself. Daniel Sturridge mentioned that Liverpool don’t currently have a forward that is the main press trigger and I saw an analysis on Sky that outlined how important TAA’s distribution was to Salah. Konate has only really had one season where he was truly consistent IMO – and that was last year when they won the title and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Also, Liverpool conceded 41 goals last season – that’s a lot (4th highest ever) for a PL title-winning team. This isn’t really a new issue. There’s probably more on-pitch angles to discuss, as well. I wouldn’t at all disagree though that the form of Konate, Macallister, Salah, VVD, etc who are clearly affected by Jota’s untimely passing is exacerbating these issues.

Also, Lee, while many studies have discussed that players perform better when in a contract year, it has not been remotely close to being empirically proven that this is just how it is in the manner in which you try to convey. That’s still a very generalized assumption. “Literally backed by data science and not even an opinion” you say? A conclusion produced by data science is still an opinion – just an extremely informed one. Or misinformed one – it depends what you feed / what techniques you use to build the model. Even if the contract year phenomenon was empirically supported by data science – which it isn’t – that doesn’t make it anything close to a fact. It remains a theory. And it’s even less true that there’s any correlation between when athletes have their best/worst individual seasons.
MAW, LA Gooner (RIP Diogo Jota – was always a big fan going back to his Wolves days – and my boy Matt Davis)

Interesting take from Andy H in Swansea who thinks we should be more than a point ahead of Liverpool despite losing at Anfield already. I am choosing to see it the opposite; they beat us at home and we’ve still managed to muscle above them. For now.

While that loss still stings a little, to have been to Old Trafford and St James’ as well, as well as already playing City at home and being top heading into this international break is really pleasing.

As Andy helpfully points out, we spent a lot of money (not as much as his team, but a lot nonetheless) in the summer, so there were lots of players to integrate and tactical switches to make and things to iron out. But we’ve come through it well, also winning both our Champions League games and conceding a single open play goal in that time. I’m actually really pleased at how we bounced back from the Liverpool loss, considering that’s how we went into the last international break.

Net spend is a funny one. Don’t get me wrong, the money we hauled in this summer was laughable, but I’m not sure it’s the metric to ‘beat us’ with if we don’t win the Premier League. I’m not convinced tricking someone to pay tens of millions for Lokonga or Tavares or even Zinchenko is proof of much, other than the squad needed strengthening and we had to spend money to do that. The difference since the summer has been the tying down of actual good players who we might end up selling for real money, sadly.

So yes, shockingly on October 6th, the “title race is very much on” because this isn’t actually Germany and that’s what happens when anyone can lose on their day (as proved by everyone having lost at least once).

Oh and Badwolf – I agreed on the Timber penalty, thought it would be chalked off and then was reminded that was the rule and we’d been done by it at Everton last year. I also had less sympathy for the giving of it considering the incident in the first half where two West Ham players jumped together, with no Arsenal player around them and one batted it away with his wrist for no real reason, under no pressure (other than from his teammate) whatsoever. As I said last week, you get some and you don’t get others.

But “all the cards are stacked in our favour”, so roll on May.
Joe, AFC, East Sussex

Sorry Andy H, but Liverpool have blown a five point lead at the top. Trying to deflect and shift the criticism to Arsenal because they’re not further ahead of Liverpool is as hilarious as it is transparent. To be fair to you, if I were a Liverpool fan I’d probably try to deflect too because the cracks are starting to show and we all know how well Liverpool cope when the pressure is on!
SPT (who cares about net spend?)

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Death of football

​I think all fans of the EPL (except Liverpool fans no doubt) will be encouraged by the weekend’s results in the hopes that the season does not become a “Reds” coronation procession. Having said that I am slightly more concerned about what appears to be an increasing trend in games, namely reliance on set pieces.

After watching the movie “Moneyball” all those years ago, I was certain that the “Quants” would sooner or later get their grubby little slide rules fixed on Football. We’ve already seen terms like pass completion, xG, etc seep into the game, but of more concern to me is that some boffin is setting up teams to exploit the fact that nearly 90% of all goals are scored in the penalty box and over a third are scored in the six yard box. Arsenal are now loaded up with big men for corners, Brentford are hurling missiles into the box. MUFC even managed to score a goal this way!

Bearing in mind that you cannot be offside from a throw-in or corner, these set pieces are more “Route One” than free kicks, where you can still be offside. Just surround the keeper and fire the ball in with that flat trajectory. I’m sure the boffin logic is, why risk giving the ball away in the rest of the field and leave yourself vulnerable?

Call me “Chicken Little” if you want but I guarantee you that by the end of the season every team will be employing this tactic. Remember the beautiful football played by Arsenal under Wenger? Now they are just the new Stoke. Over time teams will be basketball-sized with arms like Quarterbacks. And those little magician like Mata and Silva will be distant memories.
Adidasmufc (At least we have finally found a use for Dalot)

The best league deserves the best referees

I was kinda surprised to see Badwolf’s comment about Arsenal never complaining about refereeing again. Firstly, that was the 3rd penalty Arsenal could have been awarded in that match alone. The referees had overlooked some absolute clangers they shouldn’t have.

However, it does speak to a bigger issue. Wanting consistent, competent refereeing should be the bare minimum that we should all want. This isn’t some partisan issue, we should all want our game to be fair.  Game after game we see inconsistencies and incompetence by PGMOL, and there is no recourse. Their mistakes cost millions of pounds in lost revenue and still no accountability.

My solution for this is, bring in foreign refs. We have brilliant foreign managers, we have brilliant foreign players. We have excellent foreign pundits and we have excellent foreign match journalists. Why shouldn’t we have excellent foreign refs? You’re telling me the biggest league in the world would not be a draw? They would have no local biases, and could merely do their job. In a league where Ref’s seem to want to be the centre of the spotlight, it would be nice to have some that weren’t. Pretty sure we all see far better officiating in the various European competition.
John Matrix AFC 

Ange ‘talking nonsense’?

I’ve sent a similar letter in. Not published. I’ll try again.

Ange wasn’t “talking nonsense”.

Ange was saying “sometimes in life things get hard. You need to work harder, show some determination, resilience. People these days want instant results, and if not change everything. Then change it again if the results aren’t immediate “.

365 have been pushing the Sack Ange narrative from the second he turned up at Forest. I suppose you’ve got to try and generate some clicks for your latest “sack ladder”. Where is the decent writing gone from this site? Will Ford out! Let’s start a “sack table ” for 365 contributors.

Ange had been at Forest less than 2 weeks and this site was already trying to create unrest. You must all be very disappointed that Chelsea have won a couple of big games as you were pushing hard to get Maresca sacked. Ditto at Villa. Emery had a couple of great seasons, started slowly and “Emery under pressure” headlines started.

Alex Ferguson wouldn’t have made it until Xmas in his first season at United in these times.

F**king ridiculous, and really poor “journalism”.

How about a “top 10 knee-jerk knee-jerk list”. Lists aren’t “writing” by the way.

I remember the good old days of 365. This isn’t them.
Adam Whitemore 

ACL

The injury suffered by Rodri, and subsequent ones, are worrying. Not just for him and City but also for players in general. The need to bring players back, and the sheer volume of matches, means this will almost surely become a more consistent theme.

Players, certainly younger ones who’ve been overplayed before fully developed – Walcott, Wilshire and Owen spring to mind here – have often succumbed to career defining injuries but those can almost always be attributed to luck or mis-management, however the scale of matches and travel now means that players are almost duty bound to appear in tournaments like, oh I don’t know, the Club World Cup, only to have them fall to injury soon into the season.

Cole Palmer’s injury, I’m in no doubt, was hardly helped by travelling to the US for a summer tournament meaning he has had exactly no break for two years.

FIFA, Uefa and others want their pound of flesh but at what cost? A 42 team WC next summer in conditions such as the summer just passed in north America certainly doesn’t bode well for the 2026/27 season.
Dan