Easter Saturday's football

Difficult to see how Arsenal turn this around got so much dead wood and no assets to sell.

We genuinely have no excuses for not beating Arsenal (finally, THIS TIME) if we get them in the Europa.

Originally Posted by Sparky***

Exactly this.

£#%&!ing Rodgers and Arteta's teams there today complete and utter no-shows.

Said it the other week, buts its amazing how gutless other managers are when facing City. Shows the balls on Ole as well, while in the pomp of a ridiculous winning run he takes us to their gaff, goes one nil up in the first minute and still takes the game right to them and plays with a back line that was pretty much pushing up to the halfway line at every opportunity. Rewarded by going two up, and should've been three up.

Every other manager who is apparently a much better manager than Ole faces City home or away and shits the bed. Plays deep and just invites them to smother them with boredom.

Originally Posted by red in cumbria

We genuinely have no excuses for not beating Arsenal (finally, THIS TIME) if we get them in the Europa.

I rate Ole but I just wouldn't fancy him in a final or 2 legs (I know we can't play them until the final) I thought the game at their place was shocking from Ole tbh.

Just be aggressive and go at them. We would score goals.

We’re on course to finish higher than any of the teams that aren’t city, yet eh the plaudits and excuses for other teams, compared to the constant nitpicking on us is ridiculous.

Over the last year we’ve had to listen to nauseating dross about the likes of Arteta ‘playing football the right way’, Bielsa and his ‘brave’ Leeds team. Jose being a born winner (again). Liverpool’s pathetic title defence excused away by one injury and now Tuchel ‘masterclasses’ and the like.

The praise for Ole extends to pundits admitting through gritted teeth that he is perhaps doing a decent job.

I get that Manchester United drama sells and all that, but you think some of the pundits somewhere would be able to apply a degree of sense.

They just keep doing it with these highly paid mercenaries. It’s such a small team mentality. With Ozil and Sanchez it was clear they wanted to stay at their previous clubs, and you didn’t have to be Columbo to deduce they would see Arsenal as an enforced step down; attitude is always the first to go once they get settled in. For him to get exiled like that, Ozil’s attitude must have been horrendous behind the scenes.

Similarly it wasn’t hard to see problems down the road with Aubameyang. His end days at Dortmund had red flags all over the shop and a leopard rarely changes it’s spots, but they just couldn’t resist giving it the ‘we’re shit, you’re good, please condescend to play for us’ routine, again. And they gave him the armband.. He’s been a disgrace recently. All these big clubs talk about no individual being bigger, but I’m starting to suspect they don’t really mean it.

After Bruno, Ole’s best transfer decision was probably ducking Dybala.

Originally Posted by red in cumbria

We genuinely have no excuses for not beating Arsenal (finally, THIS TIME) if we get them in the Europa.

Overall, we are better than any team left in the competition. My issue is that we’re susceptible to one-off unpredictably awful days at the office where we could lose to any of them.

Originally Posted by Dr Stranger

We’re on course to finish higher than any of the teams that aren’t city, yet eh the plaudits and excuses for other teams, compared to the constant nitpicking on us is ridiculous.

Over the last year we’ve had to listen to nauseating dross about the likes of Arteta ‘playing football the right way’, Bielsa and his ‘brave’ Leeds team. Jose being a born winner (again). Liverpool’s pathetic title defence excused away by one injury and now Tuchel ‘masterclasses’ and the like.

The praise for Ole extends to pundits admitting through gritted teeth that he is perhaps doing a decent job.

I get that Manchester United drama sells and all that, but you think some of the pundits somewhere would be able to apply a degree of sense.

The thing is it totally kills their narrative if they start acknowledging that Arteta appears hapless, or if they’d turned around and said “Lampard actually seems to be a bit shit”, because it totally exposes the PL for what it is if they do that.

They kept bringing up the ‘big 6’ before we spanked City, conveniently ignoring that half of those teams have been shocking this season and, barring City, were all placed below us. Worse yet, Arsenal are languishing in mid table and Liverpool have only just managed to get themselves back in contention for top 4. And Spurs have quite obviously been Mourinho’d and (still) aren’t back in the top 6 yet.

It’s a joke of a league, but they can’t admit that because their jobs revolve around the PL being the biggest, bestest, toughest league in the whole wide world. Its pure doublethink though - “how amazing is Arteta doing in mid-table mediocrity” vs “Ole doesn’t know what he’s doing, how are they second place?”

We’re 2 signings off competing properly for the title. I think we have more grit about us than City overall and that attitude will only get better. Next year it’s on.

Perhaps Fergie's greatest attribute was creating a team with spirit and ethos that placed the collective above the individual. Yet the team was strong enough to allow mavericks to survive and prosper and incorporate and raise the game of less talented players.

Looking at Arsenal, Chelsea and to some extent Spurs they just appear a collection of individuals. No fight or cohesion when the chips are down.

The best thing Ole has done is to reinvigorate the team mentality - we had no fighters or backbone - which we have now.

Players like Fred and James give everything and players coming up like Williams show the same fight and desire.

Captain of the second biggest club in England, currently struggling for a top half finish, publicly punished and being shown up by a pair of academy graduates, and all he seems to care about is his hair.

£#%&!ed.

We should make a move for Ings.