Man City ‘won’t beat’ Arsenal twice in the league as ‘depressingly lazy b*llocks’ surfaces…

Editor F365
Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka holds off two players

An Arsenal fan is now convinced that title rivals Manchester City “won’t beat” the Gunners twice in the Premier League this season. Plus, some “depressingly lazy b*llocks”, Sean Dyche, bias and responses to Lee…

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com

 

Manchester City vs Arsenal
City fan here and if that’d finished 0-1 or 1-1 then I’m not sure I would’ve had massive grounds to complain.  And, whilst I’m sure they’ll be lots of guff about ‘Master and Apprentice’, the fact is that City have a bigger squad and Guardiola has been at this managerial malarkey a lot longer than Arteta.  Which makes Arsenal’s success so far all the more impressive in my respectful opinion.

I’m also already hearing the depressingly lazy b*llocks as to how this game will impact the PL fixtures between these two teams to come.  It won’t.

For a start, whilst Ortega played a blinder tonight, had Ederson been playing, he would’ve put balls on a 70+ yard plate behind that Arsenal back four for Haaland/Alvarez to run on to.

Still, a really good example of football chess between Guardiola and Arteta and more to come soon.
Mark (Oh, and I don’t mind Arteta in the slightest).  MCFC.

 

I didn’t see any reason to be worried after this game. City won’t beat us in both legs and the game itself was a testament to how far we’ve come from the days of a 5-1 battering at Manchester. If there was any concern at all exiting the cup, it’s only the fringe players who don’t get to play much. Would have loved to see Kiwior for example and Sambi obviously needs game time. No concerns here though! As you were lads.

On Watson’s Caicedo article, I agree he is great and we should get him but not because of squad depth. The only reason we should try and get him now is because there will other suitors in July and it’s clear Arsenal may not be able to compete with Boehly’s bank account. Also, I personally prefer him to Rice. But Brighton have made it clear that January is not ideal for them. Besides he won’t bench Partey, he won’t bench Xhaka (now) and frankly 75-80mill on the bench in the name of squad depth is a no no for me. The only reason we can afford to go for him in the first place is because we refused to pay over the odds for Mudryk. The strategy is clear. If we have to bend over for Brighton, we might as well have bent over for Shakhter.
Damola, Bremen

 

Singing and dancing…
“Save the dancing for when you come home with a trophy” – sorry Lee, can’t agree with you there.

On a occasion I used to go the Arsenal during the Wenger years with a former friend who would sit in stony silence during the entire 90
minutes while I would sit there chanting and singing my heart out for the whole game. I also distinctly remember being in the North Bank where just me and a complete stranger sang Arsene Wenger’s red and white army back and forth to the amusement of our bemused fellow fans.

For the first time in decades, the Arsenal has an atmosphere and that atmosphere runs through fans, coaches and players. It’s a togetherness that means our fans celebrate every goal and every victory.

And while I appreciate this may get on rival fans’ nerves, I really don’t want to go back to the bad old days of the Highbury library. Celebrate every goal, every victory like it’s your last, you never know where the next one’s coming from.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

Lee, sorry but your mail was nonsense from start to finish. First of all, you can absolutely be jealous of someone who hasn’t won something. I was jealous of Liverpool and Klopp during the astonishing 2018-19 season. They played incredible football, had some of the best players in the world and were regular favourites for the Champions League despite not winning the thing every time. Of course, I wanted what they had.

As for your second point, it really is getting tiring now having to tell people that Arsenal fans aren’t getting carried away and celebrating yet. I read the mailbox more or less every day and anytime Arsenal’s title challenge is brought up, it always includes the caveat of expecting it to go wrong. Some Arsenal fans are starting to believe, but the overall mood is that we’re happy with where we are and taking it game by game. This has actually become one of this seasons talking points if you ask me. I don’t think a single Arsenal fan will believe its going to happen until its actually happened. Even now I am going to clarify that I am still not saying it definitely will.

For what it’s worth I saw Ford’s article for what it was, a cynical attempt to fill the mailbox for the next few days, mission accomplished.
Andrew (We’re definitely going to win the league obviously, then the Champions League next year and then somehow the Euros)

 

In response to Lee in this mornings mailbox…

Arteta’s Arsenal has won something: FA cup in 2020. The ‘ the team hasn’t won anything’ criticism isn’t really valid
Zahid, Brixton

 

Sean Dyche
Poor old Sean Dyche. Reminds me of my former self at the sixth-form disco. Stumbling around in my Farah jeans, making eyes at various nubile beauties only to discover myself snogging gawky, knock-kneed Sarah Hogg as the lights flickered on and the dying strains of Hi Ho Silver floated away into the Suffolk night . . .
Matt Pitt

 

Bias…
Hello! Happy Fucking Friday!!

Thanks for trying to float some football based coverage of my club this week. I enjoy much of the site still, and the comments always make me laugh.

However, if you’re getting a lot of push back on this weeks Arsenal coverage, it may be worth baring in mind that for the last thirty years or so, every time Manchester United suffer disappointment on or off the pitch, the following days press coverage guarantees often unhinged attacks on Arsenal and or Liverpool regardless of the situation or results for those clubs.

This is a process that has been running long enough to entirely alienate customers from those clubs. Sales/clicks become reliant on the sort of football fans who need to immerse themselves in the failure of others when it’s not going so well for them, whether that failure is true or not. Or the sort of fans who are involved not for the enjoyment of the sport, at all, but instead the social clout of not being known to be disappointed after the weekends results, come work Monday morning.

Tabloid media by definition recognises the selling power of bitterness. It’s weird being constantly framed to as the “them” to market shares “us” – reporting on what we feel, think or see – made by third party, revenue generating messaging only intended for the largest market share, and that would prefer if we just went away, or were npcs.

This process also creates echo chambers, resulting in knowledge being sketchy – as a contender for the internets didn’t happen awards, I was once ‘gotcha’d’ by a United supporter who didn’t realise the invincibles had won the league, due to the amount of draws. It didn’t end so well for him, while I said nothing as he was my mate and it was a genuine error, the whole table laughed unkindly enough that he didn’t join us very often for after work beers after that, sadly.

Taking a joke is one thing, feeling intellectually humiliated perhaps a bit harder. People leave community discussions for the safety of the like minded, unaware that the rest of football support is reacting not to them as people, but the endless chasing of market by the sports promoters and hangers on. Division that is perfect for marketing profits, but not so great for daily lives.

So you may be copping flack from exhausted fans of other clubs who fear that another football forum has moved from covering the current events of the sport to managing the positive mental health of their targeted, largest customer base, at the expense of the rest of us. At times of economic stress this happens more, as everyone’s chasing what is sold as the safe financial bet.

It’s just a game, and I believe United fans can take it far better than their crawling media coverage suggests. They’re being let down too.

Must be a bloody nightmare navigating the “main character” era, and must be nerve wracking to run the gamut of spoiled, insular keyboard warriors trained by the tabloids to attack with clicks against anything that jeopardises advertising revenue, so chin up and keep it coming please.

Much love!
Al (exiled Gooner on his way back to Mexico)