Arsenal no ‘bottlers’ as Eddie Howe lauded as ‘generational talent’
Arsenal are absolutely in the title race again but are Newcastle also worthy of their place? Is all the sh*thousing making contenders?
Send your views on the weekend’s football to theeditor@football365.com
This Arsenal are no bottlers
As a season ticket holder for 33 years I have witnessed many different incarnations of the Arsenal. For the 12 years prior to Arteta arriving under Wenger & Emery we on many occasions deserved the famed title of ”bottlers”. Too often the nearly men and sadly it was because we were a soft touch, hence we became a good cup side, capable of moments of brilliance but never enough to really sustain a title challenge.
Under Arteta (Will Ford touched on this yesterday) that feeling of inevitability when going away to the top 6 or any team north of Watford has subsided. Halfway through last season we needed something truly exceptional, a run of victories and points that not even the invicibles achieved and we almost reached that goal. Along with being unbeaten away in 2024 and facing many of the top sides in that run. Our one blemish was the home defeat against Aston Villa, 49 out of 54 points was achieved. In the end it wasn’t quite enough rage against the machine to win it.
This team may still fall short this season but it will simply be because our players are not as good as Man City, nothing else. Therefore if rival fans really want to keep labelling us as ”bottlers” you really need to find a new record. As I remember when we certainly were and this version feels very different.
Matt Coplestone
MORE ON THE NORTH LONDON DERBY FROM F365:
👉 16 Conclusions as wide-eyed Spurs throw themselves into Arsenal’s well-constructed but entirely obvious NLD trap
👉 Arsenal rubbish but Arteta brilliant in pre-ordained NLD that raises Postecoglou doubts
👉 Arsenal goal ‘a foul’ as Tottenham star ‘good at kicking people’ slammed for role in Gabriel winner
Stop picking on Man Utd, please
Like any fan, it pains me greatly to see a once great club like Man United stumble through years of mediocrity. But it saddens me almost as much to see how a once fiercely independent site like F365 has become a parasitic shadow of itself. It seems like you’re addicted to the drug that is Manchester United, feeding off its decline even as you contribute to the negativity that surrounds the club.
Barely a day passes when two or three of your headline stories don’t mention Man United.
You contrive to shoehorn the United name into tangentially relevant pieces.
Your recent story on the season’s best transfers anointed Mamardashvilli as the best transfer of the window – a second goalkeeper bought for £25m who won’t actually play till next season. And your list somehow managed to miss Mazraoui – a competent centre back who has slotted capably into the first team at right back for £12m. And conveniently, your story title included Man United because Leni Yoro was somewhere on the list.
You even bizarrely wedged Man United into Sancho’s debut for Chelsea against Bournemouth! This is the slippery slope to becoming clickbait365. You heard it here first.
Your match reports recently all seem to follow a theme – when United lose or concede through errors – it’s because the manager is unworthy and a pretender, and clearly not coaching them, and the club is a mess. When United win or score goals, it’s invariably reported as the manager’s an idiot, the club is a mess, and somehow the players’ individual brilliance is carrying them through.
I now skim through the pieces and only read the mailbox with intent. Here, people are transparent about their allegiances. At this rate, it won’t be long before you collapse under the weight of your own bias like a supernova, and get swallowed up into a giant Mediawatch black hole instance, where no logic can escape the gravitational pull of your tinted views.
It’s not too late to change.
Ved Sen – MUFC (Tell me again the story about how amazing the Klopp-Slot transition has been?)
READ: Man Utd escape deserved ‘bullying’ as Ten Hag given sack reprieve by magic moments
Eddie Howe is a generational talent
Paul Mitchell has worked about 12 years at 6 different clubs. He was put on notice to leave Spurs after just 18 months. He’s only ever signed one truly world class player (Son). Basically he turns up, talks a load of BS and then is out the door within 2 years. This summer he said he would bring in 2 elite players. He brought in 0.
At the very least Eddie Howe is a generational talent. He’s signed 2 world class players in 3 years (Isak, Guimaraes) plus an amazing list of other transfer successes (Burn, Botman, Pope, Livramento, Hall, Gordon, Barnes and most likely Tonali) he also makes players play as if they are world class even when theyre not. As of this summer Howe has taken Newcastle (currently 3rd) from the relegation zone to the champions league without breaching FFP/PSR. He has put together the 4th best 1st 11 in the PL on an FFP/PSR budget.
Who would u rather have: Some disruptive gobshite who never lasts in a job more than a couple of years or Eddie Fucking Howe?
Ben Teacher
Big ups Newcastle
If the hallmark of champions is that they can win games even when not playing particularly well, then Newcastle are going to win the bloomin’ lot.
For the fourth time in the first five games we’ve played, we’ve been somewhat lucky to get a result against a side outside last season’s top 10. The only game so far we actually carried out a plan effectively was versus Spurs. (Lads, it was Tottenham). Crossing my fingers and toes that we will remember that we’re actually allowed to play Barnes and Tonali from the start at some point in the next couple of games.
On another note, really great to have matches between the title contenders right in the first 6 games or so. With City-Arsenal next week and then Newcastle-City the week after, the top 3 is shaking up nicely…
Congrats also to Forest and Brighton for crashing the European places so far, we love to see it.
Roger, (Schar must be the best £3m defender in modern history), Newcastle in London
…Everyone loves their club for many different reasons.
We love the camaraderie between the fans, the players and many associated with the club.
We enjoy the highs and rant and rave about the lows. We wallow with each other in our mutual hatred of managers/ownership/lazy player.
But we mutually love it when the above get things right. My club (Newcastle) are in third and are starting to truly put me back in the ‘love’ category.
We are shithousing wins and are winding rival fans up.
We have a press trying to rip us apart and just creating a siege mentality.
We have players of true quality playing with freedom.
Now all this could go wrong, Howe might want England, Mitchell might just blow a gasket, Gordon might get an injury….. but if none of that happens and we get to January (when signings have been told are a priority) then it’s going to be an exciting season.
Rob G (A rare happy fan)
The insanity of Everton
What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
Well, that’s what Sean Dyche is doing. Rolling out the same back four, the same four that have given up 13 goals in 4 matches, and expecting that this time, they’ll get it right. Well, no they won’t. It’s clear to everyone but to the one person that matters, that Keane and Young aren’t Premier League caliber defenders. How Keane got absolutely done by Watkins on that goal is simply incredible. He literally ducked so that Watkins could get over him to head it home. The less said about Young the better.
Only Everton can get a two-goal lead and make it’s supporters feel worse, not better.
Our only hope at this point is that we can get a back four of Coleman, Branthwaite, Tarkowski, and Mykolenko healthy and that should help in the “shipping goals” department. But until Dyche stops with Keane and Young and goes with new signing Jake O’Brien and young Roman Dixon (neither of whom can possibly do worse than Keane and Young,) we will continue to lose matches in the most basic of ways.
He won’t be sacked though. Why? Because there’s no one in charge at the club to sack him. So Evertonians will continue to suffer with this diabolical brand of football while the rest of the league watches on with glee…can you blame them? Like I said before, I think there’s enough of a backbone of a team to climb out of the cellar, but we need to have the right manager at the helm to do it.
Dyche isn’t it. Also, we’d certainly be relegated if we sold Branthwaite. That’s something that we cannot do.
TX Bill (it’s like a car crash, you don’t want to watch but you can’t turn away) EFC
READ: Sean Dyche is the clear favourite in the Premier League sack race
Some commentary on commentary
Back in the early nineties, when they began their Premier League coverage, Sky had a period where they would broadcast games with an option to have no commentary. You would select an alternative audio channel on your clunky Amstrad satellite receiver and the dynamic duo of Martin Tyler and Andy Gray would be struck mute, although the sounds of the game itself were still present.
Unfortunately, it did nothing to silence Richard Keys’ witless contributions at half-time etc, but you can’t have everything.
Watching the North London derby, it struck me how redundant the modern TV football commentator is. Growing up in the 70s, football on TV was pretty much restricted to Match of the Day and a commentator was a useful thing. He could tell you who had the ball when the fuzzy picture was indistinct, or when the mud from a mid-January quagmire pitch had obscured the shirt numbers.
Many of the commentators were of the straight-forward ‘say-what-you-see’ variety, simply listing surnames as the ball passed from player to player in a given move or describing in simple terms what was going on. It helped with the low-quality pictures on offer.
In 2024, with coverage rendered from every conceivable angle in super-sharp HD/UHD, and high-speed cameras conveying even the slowest of slow-motion replays in perfect clarity, this type of commentary is completely unnecessary, but seems to live on. I know Maddison has the ball, there is no way I could possibly mistake that with the pin-clear image of his name on the back of his shirt being beamed into my living room. I know it’s a corner, we’ve just been shown an instant close-up of the Assistant Referee flagging for it.
If I needed a commentator when I watch a game, it would only be to tell the me the things I can’t see for myself, and there is precious little of that with the blanket coverage. A former pro doing co-commentary is also unnecessary if all they are going to say is “..that was wonderful play…” or “..he picked the wrong option…”. I can see that for myself, and my football experience is limited to clogging it round a public playing field for a few Sundays in 1987.
The best part is when they offer their insight into the mind of the professional footballer when someone messes up, “He’ll be thinking that he should have done better there…” – Well, thanks. For. That.
Much of the same applies to the seemingly limitless warm bodies that are employed to fill out airtime to ‘analyse’ the game. Genuine insight is rare, limited to gems like “..they’ve done that really well throughout the game…”. I’ve literally just watched the same game as them, at the same time as they did. I don’t need them to tell me what to think of it. At least I have the option of turning these segments off at half-time and after the game. Why can’t I have a similar option during play?
Steve Gillon
Ooh la la
I’d hoped to write in about something particular at the weekend, but events Saturday compelled me to offer a measly two cents on Liverpool’s lethargic setback at Anfield instead. Sleepwalking to an abysmal home loss can shift one’s mailbox priorities I suppose.
What I’d hoped to share was that last week we had some family visiting from London. One particular day we had eaten our lunch and were strolling the attached shopping mall aimlessly (as some are prone to do having just had massive amounts of pasta) and somehow ended up in a Zara.
I don’t shop Zara much personally, and as I loitered about waiting for family to peruse and what not, in walks Olivier Giroud. Now I won’t lie, I definitely noticed the WAG first; she was very tall, well heeled, floating by my periphery like a long-haired siren in a sea of mostly mid- to low-quality, pseudo-fashionable clothing. Giroud followed behind her, even taller, dressed much more casually, but equally resplendent… or dare I say, perhaps more so.
Of course I asked for a photo and had considered attaching it here, but then I don’t want any of you lot judging how handsome I am (or am not), and certainly not stood against someone objectively, empirically, almost scientifically handsome. Anyway we took a few photos and I was so very near to asking this inarguably handsome man how he thought his team’s chances were against us the Tuesday upcoming at San Siro, but I’m incredibly glad I did not. Turns out he plays here with LAFC now, but I live in a prem bubble… and the prem is to Rodeo Drive as the MLS is to… Zara ?
Eric, Los Angeles CA (Incidentally we leave the store and the missus says: who would’ve thought Olivier Giroud shops at a place like Zara ?)