Spurs ‘pathetic’ and ‘inept’ as ‘sh*t’ six evisceration leads to sympathy for ‘poor old’ Mathys Tel

Ange Postecoglou ‘has managed to take the worst elements of two different systems’ and guide Tottenham to a ‘pathetic’ semi-final defeat at Liverpool.

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LiVARpool
Liverpool not winning so awarded a penalty. Feel like I’ve seen this script a thousand times before. The Egyptian plumber is a stat padder. Does nothing gets a penalty and an assist off his arse and the media claim he’s the second coming. Give me a break.

Only think more predictable than spurs being spursy is Liverpool getting a leg up
Anthony, Dublin. 

READ MORE: Carragher blasts Spurs for ‘never winning big games’ as Accrington ‘gave Liverpool more trouble’

Insult to injuries
The commentator on the Liverpool v Tottenham game has just said “Tottenham are without 11 first team players tonight…I think Kukisevski, Son, Sarr, Bissoima may have something to say about that.That’s not to say their choices aren’t limited, their injury tally is definitely a factor in their recent results. But if you lose your whole first team to injuries (according to ITV) maybe the club should be looking at their training methods.

Anyway, there’s 20 minutes to go, Tottenham reserves aren’t out of this yet.

Regards
Mark Jones, LFC, Liverpool

Show and Tel
I hate to be that guy but I did say it’d be cricket score. Some will argue that a loss is a loss, however, how you lose does matter. What a totally and utterly limp display. If you can’t be up for a semi final of a cup game when you’re already 1 nil up from the first leg, wtf are you even doing?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but that midfield 3 immediately looked a problem. Bissouma is just not very good. Rodrigo is far from reaching the pre-injury form from multiple injuries. Sarr just doesn’t have the experience (or mentality?) to run a midfield.

We all like to give Archie Gray credit. And rightly so. A young, inexperienced lad playing 28 different positions, in this game alone, trying his best. But – sorry, there is a but – he’s not a centre back. Or a left back. He’s barely a bleeding right back. We’ve then got Ben ‘reliable’ Davies, getting credit for being….well….reliable. Is he? Again, tbf, the fella is not a classic CB. Yes, in a 3 for Wales, but not in our system. He’s not good enough. Kevin, who’s been with us 4 seconds, didn’t do anything terrible but we can’t expect him to be our hero so quickly anyway. Maybe he’ll be decent. Probably not. This is Tottenham after all. Djed was the only who looked like he may do anything useful. He also kind of looked like he wanted to damage an opposing player in the last 10 minutes.

Son is not just a passenger now, he’s a complete liability. What a brilliant player he was. I still love him but the drop off is crazy. He had 2 seconds where he forgot to be sh*t and nearly looked liked the old Son, going to his left and smashing it toward goal only to hit the bar. A sad reminder that those moments are so fleeting and don’t have the quality we were once so acquainted with.

I don’t want to be horrible about Richy. A relatively young man with horrendous injury issues and was brave enough to express his mental struggles. Unfortunately, even when he’s fit, he’s sh*t. Kulu. Gawd. He’s either the best thing since sliced bread or he’s a piece of bread you kinda forgot about. Anonymous tonight. Offered zilch.

So a front 3 who were dog sh*t. A midfield who were dog sh*t. And a patched up defence made up of oddballs. Fair enough. Lose the game. But losing the game being completely inept? Where the fight? Where’s the spirit? No courage. No bravery.

Ange? He’s managed to take the worst elements of 2 different systems and combine it to make…..I don’t even know what! Too attacking is it? Too many players missing is it? Okay so you’ll be more conservative, more pragmatic. So you take away the excitement of attacking intent, passing the ball and taking some shots on target to make us more solid, harder to play against. But no. You managed to take away any flair, any verve whilst also simultaneously making us easier to go through than an extremely hot knife through extremely soft butter.

Poor old Tel coming on trying to press, looking behind him to see his teammates are confused as to what he’s doing. The kid was waving his arms, encouraging his mates to join him. He’s 19. Brand new to us. A new country. New culture. Just a boy. But in that moment, of waving his arms, he showed more heart than the majority of the team combined. Pathetic.
Glen, Stratford Spur 

Everybody’s talking about Jamie
Had to pick my jaw up off the floor when Jamie Redknapp accused the Spurs squad last night of not having fight. Jamie Redknapp. He of the never playing if he had a mild niggle; He of the disappearing in vital games, or just if it was cold. The spice boy. the ghost for England.

The only time I’ve ever seen Redknapp display any fight whatsoever are his emotional meltdowns when cousin Fwank didn’t get 47 thousand penalties against Barca, and when he and Tim Sherwood conducted a hatchet job against AVB after a loss at home to a Liverpool side who would go on to be title challengers. A hatchet job that reeked of duplicity at the time and ultimately become so, after Sherwood had whipped up enough fan unrest to get the job himself and Redknapp just repeatedly went on about ‘another mans team’ without declaring who that other man was, or also adding that AWB had got a higher points total out of them than ‘the other man’ managed.

Unbelievable how he still has a TV job.
Tom G

Schrodinger’s cup
Much like Schrodinger’s cat being both alive and dead inside the box the Carabou Cup is both an important process-confirming piece of silverware and a worthless trinket. For Arsenal fans it’s important if they (ever) win it and a trivial trinket if (when) they lose in the semi-final. For fans of opposing teams the converse is true.

Newcastle really seem to have Arsenal’s number. Kind of like Tottenham and Man City. Fair play to them.

By the logic of the trophy counting Ten Haag apologists if Tottenham go on to win anything while finishing 16th Spurs will have had the more successful season and Ange will be a better manager than Arteta. One man’s logic is another mans impressive mental gymnastics.

Stewie is the Gary Neville of the mailbox. Started off as a contrarian who could be charitably described as a controversial straight talker. In a bizarre effort to remain relevant (no offence but it’s the 365 mailbox not a high paying job on SKY) he’s had to get ever more controversial and extreme to the point where he’s now an (even more) annoying parody of his former self.
Conor Malone, Donegal.

Quoting the great Postecoglou
I am unhappy that we went out of the League Cup. We lost to the better side over two legs, and good luck to Newcastle in the final—a lovely club with passionate fans who deserve a trophy.

However, just to double down on what I wrote earlier in the week, I am genuinely happy that Arsenal did not panic-buy just any striker. If we had spent an overinflated £60m on a second-tier striker like Ollie Watkins, he wouldn’t have even started—he’s injured. I’d happily bet that, over his career, Ethan Nwaneri will have a better one than Watkins, who, let’s not forget, had to wait until he was 24 to make his Premier League debut after scoring 45 goals in 132 Championship games for Brentford. He has still never managed to score 20 goals in a Premier League season (in fact, he’s only surpassed 15 once) and only made his European debut last season. He’s more at the level of Callum Wilson or Danny Ings than a top-rate number nine like Isak, Osimhen, or Vlahovic—strikers we actually need.

Nwaneri needs to stay fit and keep developing, but his trajectory is more in the Saka, Owen, or Rooney mould (though they are all different players). I’m not saying there isn’t room in the squad for a second-tier striker like Watkins, but it’s good we didn’t overpay for him since I don’t think he would have made a massive impact compared to the level of striker we actually need.

As Man U has shown for a decade, being a cup side while being inconsistent in the league is worse than being consistent in the league and winning cups. That’s why Van Gaal, Mourinho, and Erik ten Hag all got sacked while Arteta still has a job.

I genuinely love Ange Postecoglou as a person, and he had it right last year when Spurs went out of the League Cup:

“Us winning a Carabao Cup and finishing 10th is not what I think this club is about.”
“It’s not about winning something for the sake of winning something; it’s about building something.”

Over the last decade, only Liverpool and Man City have managed to win trophies while remaining consistent in the league and building something sustainable.

Arteta’s league record to date has seen the club go from 8th to 5th to 2nd—I’d say that’s building something. Would I have loved to win some cups along the way? Sure. But would I swap our last three years for 6th, 3rd, and 8th with a League Cup and an FA Cup like Man U? Not sure. Maybe. It kind of depends on what happens in the next couple of years. If Arteta or the next manager wins the Premier League or the Champions League in the next 2–3 years while Man U finishes outside the top ten and maybe picks up another cup, then absolutely not.

Time will tell. For now, we are not yet at Liverpool or Man City’s level, but at least we are following their model—only signing the right player at the right price, not just any player for any price, like Man U and Chelsea.

Cheers,
Paul K, London

Stay humble
Well, well, well. Two (TWO!!) mailboxes before midday to honour the fact that Arsenal went out of the *checks notes* Carabao Cup when they went into the game already two goals down? When you’re big, you’re big.

Congratulations to Newcastle, they totally dominated the tie and I hope they win the cup.
John (“Banter” only embarrassing when Arsenal do it, is it? Gotcha) Foster, Brighton.

MORE ARSENAL MAILBOXES FROM F365
👉 Arsenal are ‘a joke that has been running for over two decades’
👉 Frankly, there’s a lot of laughing at ‘humble’ Arsenal and their ‘Win’ dog

Fake rivalries
More inane guff from the Arsenal fanbase courtesy of Rob A this afternoon.

Rob thinks clubs are trying to manufacture a rivalry with Arsenal because of how good they are. They simply must raise their game against Arsenal because of this rivalry.

Pull the other one mate.

Imagine, if you will, being back in primary school. You’re a rapidly growing lad and want to be seen to be the toughest kid in school. There’s two lads bigger than you. One is a right bruiser who bashes heads in. The other is a bedwetter.

If you have genuine intentions on becoming the top dog, you make the bruiser your rival. If you make the bedwetter your rival, you inadvertently relegate yourself to bedwetter status and will never reach the top.

No proper team would do this. Arsenal and their fanbase are recognised bedwetters.

I would hazard a guess that if Newcastle raised their game against Arsenal in a semi-final, it’s because they want silverware more. It’s not because they admire you and punch you in the arm in a shit attempt at flirting. If other teams ‘raise their game’, it’s because they recognise weaknesses in you that they can exploit, which may not be present in other teams.

The only reason you draw responses is because of the weird mixture of bafflement, humour and mild annoyance that we get reading all the self-pitying and conspiracy laced mails following every loss. It’s not because we admire you. It’s because you’re bedwetters and we’re all just big playground bullies.

On a side note, you do appear to be making a genuine rivalry with City. City have tried and failed to make rivalries with other top clubs, but they can’t, because their success is seen as fake by any reasonable fanbase, so they can’t be taken seriously.

But City fans will latch onto the Arsenal fans, and vice versa, because they are all that they have and both need a rivalry to try to validate themselves.

The real rivalries are the ones that were always there. Stop trying to manufacture fake ones and maybe think about graduating from potty training?
Seamus

As George Graham said many years ago “it’s fine that people hate us, it’s part of our history” and boy was he right.

The enthusiasm from supporters to jump feet first when Arsenal lose is quite mind boggling. Aman, I think you have enough to worry about at Man Utd before you write a small essay on Arsenal. Multiple Newcastle fans, great, you won, you deserved to, good luck. Would I swap the multiple trophies I have seen Arsenal win for a Carabao Cup final? No, but I have been lucky and I can appreciate that if Arsenal don’t win any more trophies in my lifetime I have seen far more than most.

And please, put this ‘ insufferable Arsenal fanbase’ nonsense to bed. I, a 47 year old from North London am very different to a 15 year old from Lusaka who is very different from a 65 year old from New York. We all have different opinions and we aren’t all the same person. This huge generalisation makes no sense at all and is ridiculous.

As an aside, did I really hear the Newcastle fans singing “same old Arsenal, always cheating” at a VAR offside call?
Steve Lynch

Why ‘we’ all hate Arsenal
Lots of talk about why everyone has it in for Arsenal.  The simple fact is Arteta has made them both a laughing stock and a sneering, cynical side.  As a Newcastle fan I obviously hate Sunderland and I hate Man U.  The latter was a mix of the mentality and self importance they and their fans placed on themselves during the glory years.  The Albert lob in the 5-0 win still one of the top 5 moments of my life….sad I know but don’t tell the missus!

However, there is a difference…Man U used to back this up in performances and results and won stuff.  They walked the walk, arrogance that can be backed up whilst still annoying can at least be understood.

Arteta has managed the arrogance bit perfectly and this has rubbed off on his players.  But they will never live up to this on the pitch.  The constant Isak rubbish sums up their lack of self awareness.  If or when he leaves Isak will go to a big club with a winning pedigree.  That is not Arsenal…their most successful period in recent memory came at the hands of Wenger and some phenomenal players…loads of arrogance, loads of petulance and loads of hatred towards them then but it was backed up by performances and they won stuff.  How did the fans and the club bring that period to an end….by hounding out the guy who made them relevant again.

Having more than one team win everything is vital in this league and it’s great to see others trying to break the cartel.  However, one of the lasting memories I will have of this season is the unifying mix of hilarity, banter and overall hatred of Arteta’s Arsenal.  When your manager is undermining the progress of your club things have to change.  To be fair to him though, the ball in the semi final was the issue.  They struggled to keep it out of their net!
Steve NUFC.