Three reasons why everyone hates ‘threatening’ Arsenal

Three words help explain why everyone hates Arsenal, who should easy retain the Premier League title ahead of Michael Carrick in second.

It is a busy old Mailbox which starts with some kickback against West Ham.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

Living long enough to see themselves become the Villans

Hi.

Massive Villa fan here. I think to blame Villa for West Ham going down is the disgrace here. I have nothing against the Hammers, actually have a few friends that are Hammer fans and to say you were gutted when we won the Europa league, well everyone is entitled to their opinion. Sour grapes spring to mind.

You got relegated because you were not good enough over 38 games. Villa went through this not so long ago. As a Villa fan we have had a fantastic season under the restraints we have competing against the so called big 6. I actually do wish you a speedy return, but like I said its not down to Villa.

Kind regards,
Les

To whom it my concern,

I’ve just read your piece and I’m sorry but you and every other West Ham fan have no one but yourselves to blame!

Sh*tty management decisions, sh*tty owners, sh*tty players that should have been sold years ago, new signings being poor, tactics being boring with no in-game changes contributing to positive results and by far so many other reasons why they ultimately failed.

Now as a Aston Villa fan myself reading that tripe you wrote blaming Villa for your relegation is quite frankly laughable and stinks of old fashioned jealousy!

Perhaps if your corrupt porn king owners had made the right decision on a winning manager you wouldn’t have finished in the position you did.

It’s a shame as I actually have a soft spot for West Ham and have a few friends that follow them, I guarantee you’re not the majority voice that believes what you preach and post!

Perhaps if you had pulled your finger out against Newcastle and not played like a bunch of flops you would have got the result you needed.

And lastly if you were the Villa manager ask yourself this…. ‘Rest my players before an important European cup match or be more concerned with teams fighting relegation?” Hmm tough one.

Anyway you carry on hating on Villa for 1 game in the whole season and I’ll just carry on enjoying Hammers having a winning season in the Championship and giving the fans what they have truly deserved for many years, a positive and enjoyable season with a return back to the corruption that is the Premier League.
Dan Rose 

In response to all the disappointed rubbernecking arseholes on these pages the last few weeks;

Villa changed 5 players when they played Spurs a few weeks back. Spurs on the other hand had 7 first teamers absent through injury, a situation that has been the same for most of the season. A fitting response to this, Id have thought would be, bloody hell, take that much out of any team in the league and they play like sh*t, but no apparently Villa should be in the high court for destruction of football.

You take that much attacking talent out of any team in the league bar City and the goons and they get relegated. Guaranteed. Woolich sure as sh*t don’t win the title with 7 first teamers out all season.

Don’t get me wrong I think the injury situation is an entirely self inflicted one, a direct and messy result of Ange’s insane(but very fun) way of playing. One that has knackered an already thin squad and left not one or two players injury prone but the entire bloody squad.

No mention whatsoever of the fact Leeds absolutely rolled over and had their tummies tickled for what one can only assume was ‘the bants’ after battling to a point against Spurs 2 weeks before.

Equally no mention last season that Spurs themselves were handing out points all f**king season like they were sweeties in a kindergarten, changed teamsheets like it was going out of fashion and all but abandoned the sporting integrity of the PL for the sake of lifting a pot in Europe. No, it only matters apparently when the livelihoods of everyone involved with Spurs is on the line.

In the end you can only beat what’s put in front of you, Villa had other distractions and Everton…is anyone actually surprised they were sh*t on the last day of the season with nothing riding on it? When was the last time a Moyes team turned up on the last day of the season?

Not our fault, so sorry to disappoint.
TGWolf(not even needling with the Hammers today, genuinely feel bad for em, shit situation all round)THFC

Armchair psychology and why everyone hates Arsenal

When it comes to football I have a very obvious, and conscious bias. Yet I believe I am still able to discuss the beautiful game in a rational way, putting aside my allegiances for the sake of fair conversation.

But the rhetoric towards my beloved Arsenal has been genuinely irrational. How can people honestly prefer City to triumph? It has blown my mind. I’ve been thinking and I don’t believe it is about us at all. It’s about identity, status, and threat.

Football clubs become part of people’s social identity. When a rival club succeeds, supporters don’t experience it as a neutral event; they experience it as a loss of status for their own tribe. We derive self-esteem from the groups we belong to, and we often enhance our self-esteem by trashing rival groups.

We’re one of the world’s biggest clubs, so we have lots of rivals. We have a large, vocal fan base, so we experience lots of backlash. We are historically successful enough to be threatening, but haven’t been dominant recently such that people simply accept our superiority. We have spent twenty plus years being portrayed as “nearly men”, which creates a narrative that some people have become emotionally invested in maintaining.

City’s success feels emotionally irrelevant. Many fans dislike City, but they don’t feel threatened by them because they are perceived as an artificial project rather than a traditional rival. Their victories can feel detached from ordinary football tribalism. Arsenal winning, on the other hand, feels more “real” and therefore more threatening.

People by nature prefer a stable hierarchy. Arsenal returning to the top disrupts the football pecking order that has existed for much of the last two decades. People are attached to familiar narratives, even when they complain about them.

Our fan base has also become even more highly visible during our resurgence. We’re seen as entitled fairly or unfairly, because of our history, size, and – up until recently – playing “proper football”. It’s tall poppy syndrome; rival supporters derive pleasure from seeing us disappointed, just as I derive pleasure from seeing Sp*rs suck.

Many people also dislike City on principle, but don’t feel much when they win because it has become routine. Arsenal winning creates an emotional shift in the landscape. People are comfortable in the familiar, and we react much more strongly to change. You see it in the workplace every day. Sport is no different.

It boils down to this in my opinion – City’s success feels inevitable, while Arsenal’s feels consequential. We’re now seen as a genuine competitor, no longer an object of mockery, but instead an object of anxiety. Long may it continue.
Matt (loving every second of it) Wright, Gunner in Aus.

Next year

So with last season an entire few days ago, it seems perfectly reasonable to crystal ball next season- bits of it anyway.

Arsenal – have won the title now, good for them. In theory then this should alleviate the nerves around the club at Squeaky Bum time in the League. Arteta could and should release the handbrake and more free flowing football can emerge. Honestly I think that’s enough for them to retain, there’s too much transition in the other clubs. But if Arsenal pick up a genuine 25 per year striker, God help us all.

City. – Huge season with ‘ The Greatest Manager of all Time ‘ gone. Replacing him with the Temu Guardiola is not a choice I think is wise. People massively overrated what Maresca did at Chelsea, imo. Club World Cup, yes yes, ok, but they actually weren’t all that in the League at all before he left. I believe, with no actual evidence as such, that he won’t want to be seen as Arne Slot version 2.0 – a bald fraud winning with his predecessors team. So he’ll need to make enough changes to make the team demonstrably his. Not enough of these changes will be good enough to beat a never-more-confident Arteta. Champions League for them I fancy.

United- I actually think 2nd is genuinely their ceiling under Carrick. Which is most definitely not a criticism, especially considering he followed the Worst Man United Manager Ever. But as calm and undramatic as Carrick is, he doesn’t have the tactical acumen to win the title. After that though? They’d be my favourites for second.

Chelsea – absolutely no f*****g idea. I love Alonso, I wish we’d hired him – seriously, why didn’t we?!? – but Chelsea are a completely mad club now. Bonkers. It’s impossible to see which road of insanity they choose to follow. Champions League if they leave Alonso alone enough to manage – otherwise top half if they’re lucky.

Villa – Hold onto Emery and 2nd really is reasonably achievable. Quarters in the Champions League.

Finally, Liverpool- only God knows but I wish the Almighty would pop down and intervene a bit. Hold onto Slot and we’re dead in the water. It’d be like holding onto Ten Hag into a new season then firing him anyway. Our squad is now all over the place with age, retirements, total lack of form, no confidence, crap tactics and so on and so on. The well known definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same things and expecting different results. So let’s not hold onto Slot eh?

We missed out on Alonso – again, why why why??? – and Luis Enrique feels like some hopeful kind of fever dream. Leaving us with a bunch of mid table managers all quite capable of Thomas Frank -ing it all up. And mid table is where we will be if we don’t fire Arne.

What a difference 12 months make eh? The world was our oyster and we were going to start a new era of Liverpool dominance. And then…not so much.

This next hire is even more important than the one after Jurgen. So let’s not f** k it up then lads.
James, Liverpool 

Congrats to Coventry and Hull

It’s going to be one hell of a ride…almost certainly a brutal lesson, but also like a fever dream.

Your tactics and squad will be fundamentally different – you won’t score loads of goals and dominate possession…it’ll be low block, work hard, counter-attacks and set pieces (see both Leeds and Sunderland for this year’s blueprint).

It actually may be easier for Hull (who were already doing that) than Coventry, but it’s a given that neither team’s attackers will be good enough or the defence solid enough. Overall, it’s likely that neither team has more than 1-2 actual premier league quality players at this point, however much you squint.

As a result, you’ll spend like drunken sailors (at least £100m each) on at least 15 players, and then have to bed them down before the onslaught begins. Good luck!!

As for Ipswich, we’ve already done that first bit – spending £120m on 16 players which after sales of £80m and relegation and promotion has left us with maybe 3 players of premier league quality and, admittedly, a bucket load of cash.

So we’ll go again and spaff another £150m of our £200m windfall, hopefully a bit better than last time.

As I said, it’s gonna be one helluva ride!!
Matthew (ITFC)

Mo problems

“There are two other very important people leaving their clubs. Pep pushed us to completely new limits. We would have won more if it wasn’t for that man. I wish him all the best. And Seamus Coleman, a better bargain than me at 60 grand.”

And just like that, the last shreds of class, humility, and emotional intelligence left Liverpool’s first team. Spurs might be making an actual sensible transfer decision there.

So glad to see the back of Mo ‘Look at Meeee!’ Salah too, makes Cristiano Ronaldo look humble and mature. That said, removing this egomaniac and his current on-field ineptitude from their dressing room will give them an advantage next season. Ho-hum.
RHT/TS x (Bet The Met are buzzing about Millwall v West Ham next year)

Season recap

Thoughts on a crazy season from the Red side of Manchester and a huge fan of simple things done well!

Congrats to Pep. Now City fans will truly understand how impossible its is to replace genius. He will be missed. You most likely do have Maresca and Mansour’s magic wand to wave away those little charges but believe me, you just don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

Congrats to Arteta and the return of 1-0 to the Arsenal and a bit of sh*thousery to win you vital matches. The reason most of us hate that team is that there’s too much focus on shady decisions winning matches, by finest of margins. Clever, admittedly but it takes away from some really good football played. Hope Rice has a great World Cup too.

Congrats to Carrick. He has simply united the team. He got the best break imaginable. Could not get any worse, after Amorim. One game a week. he inherited the mess, sorted it on the training ground. Gave it a better balance. Rewarded. Now let the hard work begin. Champions League nights are real again, and in the nicest way possible, make it about a team, the next youth breaking through, not just Bruno. He has been rightfully awarded by the plaudits too, but the sum of the team is the Utd way. I’m too old to remember when assists simply weren’t a thing.

Congrats to Unai and the incredible knack he has with any team with villla in their name. Truly brilliant to see a great team back with a really sensible ownership too!

Congrats to all the Premier League for giving us an extremely well matched platform from top to bottom, and finally we reached a zenith.. There wasn’t one match where league position 1-20 played and you could predict the outcome.

Look back at the games in which even Wolves and Burnley took major points off others at the higher end. Never has a league had such a good spread of evenly matched squads, and there’s never been a better example when you see Villa and Palace into European finals because they are better than anything on the continent.

In all my years I have never seen a league produce such strong and capable squads and this will only continue.

Who predicted that top 8!?

Brentford were still being tipped for relegation only 8 months ago. You missed out on Europe by Goal difference only! Commiserations indeed.

Congrats to Sunderland, Bournemouth and Brighton.

Imagine being in the play off and one year later you’re heading into Europe, ahead of your most hated rival. Brilliant stuff for the English game, with some truly talented international young managers, albeit some changes at Bournemouth to follow.

Congrats to Liverpool. I mean this sincerely. It has been funny to see the money you’ve wasted and the total mess of some very poor man management.

Far more entertaining has been hearing your Jamie succumb to bit of schadenfreude, ( can anyone say that without spitting? ) and the publicly tainted ending of the Mo Salah story…but..

When one of the most talented and loved team mates dies, it’s no longer about a game, or a sport. You can’t replace them. Life is incredibly short. Keep his memory alive with that wonderful chant.

Let’s not talk about VAR. I don’t need to see strange glowing graphics on Phil Fodens arse to tell me what my eyes can. That really needs to go.

And finally, after all that was submitted to the mailbox in the the past 12 months and on the likes of Talk Sport, at the start of the season,  from 2 Huge London clubs, you could not have written what was to come from Chelsea and Spurs.

Hilarity, and the biggest example of pride before a fall.

One gave us the most anonymous manager performance in Premier League history, the other the greatest meme of the modern era.

Thomas Frank was a bad fit, that got worse and should have been removed so much earlier.

Spurs were simply awful, in front of goal and in the boardroom, regardless of injury. Enough said.

Your only achievement was to avoid the shockwave which should have been your relegation.

As for Chelsea, you must have been as baffled as the rest of us. Who knew you could destroy a young man so fast, and allow him to self destruct on a global stage?

In an age of Ageing Men, you only needed to look at Moyes, Emery, Marco Silva, Nuno and a few more, to show you what you needed to invest in and you’ve no doubt got a far better chance with Alonso and some senior players amongst the younger.

Never was there such a better fit for the ambition, arrogance and deserved recognition of Chelsea “player49”.

What a season, and if I left your team out I apologise, and as the “2nd best Manager of all time” (according to “Our Jamie” ) once eloquently put it:

Football. bloody hell
Chris

Bournemouth are champions

good morning,

Congratulations to Arsenal on winning the league. I cannot understand all the negativeness thrown their way. Whoever finishes top after 38 games deserves it.

Now moving on to the league champions that really matter. The current champions of the Premier League at the end of 2025/26 are Bournemouth. WTF you say. Well Leeds were champions on day one back in 1992 until they lost to MIddlesbrough who therefore took over as champions until they lost to Southampton etc etc.

So all these years later Bournemouth went top following their victory over Arsenal in April.

Don’t think anyone would be throwing abuse at Bournemouth had they actually won the league where you get a trophy given to you.

cheers
Ged Biglin