How Arsenal destroying Real Madrid is actually about Liverpool and Trent Alexander-Arnold

Arsenal were phenomenal against ‘grindball merchants’ Real Madrid but that refereeing display at the Emirates was worrying. It was all about Trent anyway.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

Arteta in?
Wow…just wow!

Rice and Saka will rightly get the attention, but the best player on the pitch tonight was Thomas Partey who was…actually I don’t have the words for how good he was.

Please let’s not get cocky, these bastards have got out of tighter spots than this before and to that end there are some thoughts to keep in mind

Even when they’re the away team in a loud stadium, I thought Real were getting the benefit of nearly all the fifty-fifty refereeing calls, that worries me for the second leg where they’ll really be pressuring the officials.

It wasn’t a penalty for that handball claim against Real in the first half. If an Arsenal player does that in the Bernebeu it shouldn’t be given either, but you can bet your life it will be

Jude Bellingham should have been booked for pulling back Odegaard and therefore suspended for the second leg. I’d say he was lucky, but with my everything gets fixed for Real Madrid tinfoil hat on, I don’t think luck was involved at all.

Anyway enough of the conspiracy crap, Arsenal were brilliant tonight especially given their injuries , but they’ll need to repeat the feat in the second leg to go through. It was hilarious to hear it sung but Real are definitely not Tottenham in disguise
Rob, Bristol Gooner (Arsenal DO have a world class striker at the club – she’s called Alessia Russo)

I think the thing we can all take from tonight is that Arteta can’t be that good a manager if he’s let anyone else other than Rice take a free kick this season.

Really impressive performance and the third goal puts Real in desperation territory for the second leg.

Looking forward to Stewie’s analysis.
Tom, Andover

Look, in consecutive rounds, Arteta has delivered the greatest away and home Arsenal performances in the Champions League, no, full stop, best results of the Emirates era (outside of FA Cup wins). With a team missing key players.

How should I feel misery merchants? Stewie, you grinch s**t?

Can I not enjoy magic nights I haven’t seen since I was a kid?

All of you Arsenal naysayers can get f**ked, I’m having a great time.
Tom (what a time to score our first 2 free kicks in 2 years) Leyton 

That was a fantastic performance from Arsenal, completely dominating RMFC.

A 3-0 lead going in to the second leg, surely AFC won’t blow that. Surely?

Hopefully we’ll have a corker of a return fixture with AFC progressing.
Branmasterflash

Another big night for the Arteta crowd.
Simon, London

Stewie Grifin, John Nicholson, all Arteta critics your anti Arteta agenda took one hell of a beating tonight!!!
Michael O, Chingford

Don’t cry Stewie, you can send it in next week when we lose 4-0 in Madrid
Andrew

Rice, Rice baby
I’m not even an Arsenal, but I can’t wait to see the mails into the inbox about how lucky they were – and then the salty comments.

That was exemplary. Not sure you can see two better free kicks in one game.

See you in the semis. 😉
Gary AVFC, Oxford

Oxford Dictionaries define a Thunderb*stard as Declan Rices second free kick against Real Madrid on the 8th of April.

Thunderb*stard is back baby.
Paul

Is this really your dream, Trent?
Is there anyone up for Madrid? As a Liverpool fan I’m certainly not.

Currently 1-0 to arsenal 69 minutes in and arsenal deserve to be winning. Madrid saved only by courtois (he’s a f**ker, did it to us as well).

These 1-0 grindball merchants are the ‘elite’ team that nobody can resist? Bellingham has done absolutely nothing all game. Mbappe is all power and pace and no finesse , every shot is hit with power right at the keeper. But a bigger issue for Madrid is all their pace is worthless if you sit deep. All three of their forwards have the same qualities and the same flaws. All fast, all good with the ball in their feet and all lack the clinical finishing of either Ronaldo , or even Michael Owen.

In addition they shouldn’t even be here since atletico genuinely were cheated in the last round, no reason Alvarez couldn’t have retaken the kick.

As im typing it’s 2-0 and as I’m typing that it’s 2-0 it’s now 3-0. Fully and totally deserved and I hope Madrid are knocked out.

I can see why madrid want Trent, they need someone to smash longballs for their speed merchants to sprint onto, I can’t see why Trent wants Madrid. This is a very average Madrid team, a far cry from the galacticos of bale and Ronaldo and light years away from the 00s galacticos. That’s not to belittle arsenal’s win, while everyone says Liverpool are only winning the league because the league is poor I’m not saying arsenal are winning because Madrid are poor. Arsenal deserve to win.

Arsenal fans can now relax for the return leg. No chance this Madrid team scores 4 without conceding even at home.
Lee

MORE ARSENAL COVERAGE ON F365
👉 Declan Rice reveals he ignored call from Arsenal coach to score ‘magic’ free-kick – ‘he told me’
👉 Thierry Henry lauds ‘possessed’ Arsenal star; Cesc Fabregas gives ‘special mention’ to different Gunner

Neville may care
Am I experiencing Déjà vu or has Johnny Nic written that ‘Man United should just get relegated’ article before? Feels awfully familiar. Anyway, I don’t disagree with the argument that our club has attracted a high number of plastic fans over the years, after all that’s what success does in sport.

However, I would also argue the last 10 years of persistent clownery and embarrassment has likely done the job of shedding such brittle transient fans. If you’re still supporting United in 2025 you must really want it and I don’t think it would be right or fair to label any of them as plastic.

Speaking of plastic though, Gary Neville has basically made his post playing career from the demise of his former club. While he still sometimes uses ‘we’ when offering analysis on United like fans often do he also revels in beating United fans over the head with a massive stick labelled ‘your team is actually proper shit and you should be ashamed, innit’.

It wasn’t then at all surprising that his main point during the Manchester derby was how system football is ruining the Premier League. Of course its entirely coincidental how this opinion blooms within Neville just as United look to be establishing a working system that just might stop the cycle of clownery. Its not like Gary has spent the last 6-7 years fawning over the astounding control of Pep’s system, right?

I suppose the derby being generally boring does give him a little leeway to fill the air with inane comments but equally its not hard to imagine the cogs turning in that business brain of his.

‘If United become not shit will Sky still put me on telly? As a United fan how can I frame United becoming not shit as a negative? Keane’s got the blowharding tied up so it has to appear profound. United have a system now, so maybe systems are bad for the league, thus United are bad for the league! Nailed it.’
Dave, Manchester

Slot must learn to trust
I realise the mailbox might get dominated by champions league but it does concern me that twice now Slot has failed the key test of being a top manager who challenges on multiple fronts; trusting your squad to deliver results.

Starting the same XI against Newcastle that laboured for 120 minutes against Paris was pretty silly to me. Newcastle was a game to give tired legs (and minds) at least some respite and to trust the squad to win the game.

It was a shame to lose that final and not surprisingly how thoroughly we were outplayed. I hoped Slot would learn but then he did the same thing for Fulham (bar Gakpo). We had a tough midweek against Everton and a hard fought win. What is the idea of starting all the same players on the Sunday? Salah has looked actively quite jaded for the past 3 games; maybe this weekend was a chance to rest him. Could Chiesa have finally started a PL match?

It was telling that our two best players were Elliott and Diaz on Sunday; two who have played a lot less football than most this season. Slot got away with minimal rotation early in the season but now it is showing with a lot of heavy legs out there.

He might get away with it since we only have one game a week for the next 2 months but either he needs to learn to trust the squad or he needs to build a squad he does trust. I’d feel sorry to see the likes of Elliott go as he is playing for his boyhood club and always works so hard when he gets his chances but there’s no point players of his quality sitting on the bench unused week in week out. It’s not doing him or the club any good.
Minty, LFC

Clown car?
After losing their [checks notes] first away league game of the season, but remaining [checks notes] top of the cut form table by a distance, and top of the league, by [checks notes] 11 points, they are likened to a clown car.

I’ve heard that the quality of the Premier League is poor this season, despite [checks notes] achieving a European coefficient that will give 5 places in the CL next season, but if Liverpool are a clown car, the whole league must be a ******* circus.
Rob

Boring season
It occurred to me whilst reading John Foster’s email, is a title race the only thing people consider is important to make an exciting season? If I’d been told at the start of the season that Man City are out of the five champions league places with 7 games left, Forest are almost nailed on for champions league and teams like Villa, Brighton, Bournemouth and Fulham are still in with a shout for European places I’d think that sounds pretty good.

If then told Spurs and Man Utd are in the bottom half I’d have been very excited for the season. Obviously if it were then Arsenal instead of Liverpool at the top my interest would drop considerably and ultimately the success of your own team is always going to be a huge factor.

However it brought up the comparison with FA Cup where everyone loves to see the big teams get knocked out, but then isn’t interested in the final when it’s two mid-table teams playing each other. Is reliable consistency in the best teams every year really want people want? That’s what we just had with City and it got quite boring when they were always the team coming out on top in the close title runs.

I appreciate the title being open with a few games left is exciting and I’m not even really disagreeing and saying it’s been an incredible season, but it seems the exciting things which have happened we just get used to so quickly that we get bored of it. Perhaps a symptom of modern attention spans.
Seb (LFC), E7

I read the (very long) mail about how robotic football is now from John in Brighton.

It echoed some of my own thoughts on the game when I’ve talked about why mavericks are vanishing from the game previously.

I think you can actually identify when this happened and who caused it.

The person is of course pep guardiola. And the when is his stint at Barca. If anyone has ever seen the documentary take the ball pass the ball you’ll prob know why I’ve chosen this as the beginning

During the doc there is an interview with Henry in which he says that he was given very strict instructions by pep not to move into goal scoring positions. Not to run with the ball. The reason is that pep wanted to use Henry as a decoy most of the time. Something which in the doc Henry both likes and dislikes. Likes because it wins him more trophies but dislikes because it takes away what he enjoyed about playing.

A little while later Ukrainian defender chygrynsky talks about how he was told never to play it long (despite it being one of his better attributes) and during a game he spotted a run by ibra, sent a long raking pass straight to ibra feet and he then scored. Rather than being pleased pep subbed him off at half time and he rarely featured again after that.

It’s not hard to imagine that’s also why grealish has become a shadow of his shadows former self. Mavericks need not apply in peps system. Messi being the sole exception on account of being Messi and also more powerful at Madrid than even pep.

Pep achieved massive success. And wherever he went, people copied him. This is where the exciting, inventive, individual football was killed. Since then it’s been everyone trying to emulate pep by making everyone just a cog in a system.

I’m moving to Brasil next month so I’m hoping I’ll get to see some of the old fashioned joga bonito because im not sure I’ll ever see it in Europe again. This way is definitely more successful, but ultimately far less fun.
Lee 

I keep seeing this false narrative that it’s the worst quality Premier League season ever. But could it mean the overall standard has improved?

The evidence suggests it has.

Teams coming up from championship having the lowest combined points ever would suggest it’s overall stronger and harder to pick up points. Other teams have spent hundreds of millions and are still struggling to get anything going, or instantly be competing. The latter stages of the cups have more unfashionable teams. A large percentage of the teams in the league would say they have their strongest side in a while, and are doing better than recent seasons.

At the very top there are also only about 6-7 teams ever to have more points after 31 games in the prem than Liverpool have now. They were sensational in periods earlier in the season and have lost only once at home and once away. Recent cup games make people forget those periods and how good they’ve been in a competitive league.

Liverpool also topped the Champions League table beating Madrid, Leverkusen, Milan and PSG then lost only on pens to the best PSG side in years. There are 2 English sides in competition and 2 English sides are favourites for Europa. English sides had 3 teams in the top 8 straight through and more teams in the knockout stages than any other country.

I think we’re just seeing a return to a more normal & competitive Premier League before City made it ‘normal’ to get 95+ points every season. United have won several prems with less than 80 points (treble winners only got 80) as have Arsenal. It’s become harder to pick up points.
James Johnson (Exeter fan)

I suspect we can all agree that, miracles aside, the relegation contest is over. For the second year in a row, the teams going down are the ones that came up the previous season.

Pundits have long remarked on the supposed gulf between Championship and Prem, but I used to think the point was overplayed. The last decade has seen plenty of promoted teams survive, consolidate and slowly turn themselves into solid mid-table or even upper table contenders. Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Newcastle and Notts Forest are all examples. But now, clearly, something has changed.

May I suggest that it’s to do with playing football “the right way”? Pragmatic managers like Pulis and Allardyce were always an easy target for sneery football journalists (F365 included) and their brand of hoofball was certainly rather painful on the eye, but maybe they were on to something?

By contrast, look at what a spectacular mess Vincent Kompany made of keeping Burnley up while passing out from the back. Which leads me on to a related point. You have to wonder whether managers like Russell Martin and Kieran McKenna knew perfectly well that imposing progressive football ideas on substandard players would result in relegation, but they did it anyway because they assumed they would fail upwards.
Matt Pitt

READ MORE: Ten reasons why this has been the worst Premier League season ever