Can we actually sustain a title challenge?: Page 2 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Can we actually sustain a title challenge?

Claudius

flobaba wrote:
And it easily could've been better...

That’s just being unrealistic

flobaba

I think we could and should’ve won against Man U.

I think we could and should’ve won against Southampton.

banduan

fwiw I feel we lost fairly to the Mancs despite the VAR stuff. But Soton riles me up how that was reffed.

Anyway, let's just fucking win the league.

Clrnc

goon wrote:
Sicario wrote:

Mad how good our start to the season has been, you don't realise until you see stuff like this.

Been mentioned alot in the PL thread. Basically statistically it's almost impossible to finish below 2nd now, never happened before in any major European leagues.

I think the fact is that teams that are capable of such a run with a good sample size of more than 12 games will never be so shit to drop enough points and fall off the radar completely

Burnwinter

Voted "No chance", bearing in mind there's no way City can be more than 4 points ahead of us by Christmas, and so we're very likely to "sustain" a challenge into the new year.

That's a bit more vehement than I feel, but at this point watching us, and taking into account any injuries to key players, I think we're going to put together some more losses this season, and I don't get the feeling City are as vulnerable.

Claudius

flobaba wrote:
I think we could and should’ve won against Man U.

I think we could and should’ve won against Southampton.

We lost the United game on stupid transition moments. That was a learning moment for Sambi and our central defenders that allowed us to be better prepared for both Spurs and Liverpool who are better transition teams than United. Maybe it saved us points in those games.

On Southampton - I refer you to the invincible season and the numerous games like Charlton or Bolton where we came very close to defeat or were otherwise just listless. It is almost impossible to maintain perfection every match day

Burnwinter

You're gonna lose matches like those ones unless you're so dominant you might as well be in a different league altogether.

Steady as we've become, we aren't at that point, so we will drop points here and there due to refereeing, bad luck, flashes of brilliance from the opposition, cursed stadia, etc.

Each bad result will seem avoidable and disappointing, but across a season they're a near certainty statistically.

Pepe LeFrits

Sicario wrote:

Oh no, and I've gone and Kevin Keeganed the Chelsea match thread

arsedocmd

@burns and flob Tell that to the athletic article writer. Guess we could’ve and should’ve dropped points against Leeds.

Burnwinter

Well we've had a couple of points we've been lucky to get to go with the few we've been unlucky to drop.

Pepe LeFrits wrote:
Oh no, and I've gone and Kevin Keeganed the Chelsea match thread

Dunno what to tell you blokes, but I categorically refuse to get my hopes up about winning the title at this point. It's an act of self harm.

flobaba

Actually, yes. That game just slipped my mind. We were definitely the worse team on the day. That's the only game for me where a loss would have been acceptable/deserved.

flobaba

Burns the hedgemaster. 🙂

Burnwinter

Reckon I was right to be a midtable realist and predict it'd take us a couple of seasons to get ourselves sorted. It's been a nice soothing ride watching us climb up with our performances always just a margin ahead of my expectations … 😃

Claudius

I’m in that space of just enjoying things. I expected us to make incremental improvements this season. I knew Jesus for Lacazette would be an unlock, but didn’t envisage that it would help put us on a 90 goal pace. I haven’t enjoyed an Arsenal season for a decade. Ask Biggus. So I just want to lap up the moment.

RocktheCasbah

IF we get through January relatively unscathed, then I might believe. But to go from 5th (albeit it should have been 4th) last season to 1st when you're up against this City side? No way.

But it's great to be having this conversation. I just hope we're all realistic about it if and when the wheels do come off.

Gazza M

if haaland and kdb miss a chunk of the season, we have an outsiders chance

Qwiss

Yeah I think people need to answer the question itself, "can we mount a challenge?", that doesn't ask "will we win it". I think we'll challenge and I think if we had a bit of luck with injuries while City have some bad luck we could even win it but I'd still have City as strong favourites right now.

On the topic of points we've dropped I think they're inevitable. Has anyone ever gotten to 12 games with a 100% record? Did we get some bad ref calls in them maybe but I also think we've had a lot of favourable decisions this season so its hard to complain too much.

Claudius

Qwiss! wrote:
Yeah I think people need to answer the question itself, "can we mount a challenge?", that doesn't ask "will we win it". I think we'll challenge and I think if we had a bit of luck with injuries while City have some bad luck we could even win it but I'd still have City as strong favourites right now.

On the topic of points we've dropped I think they're inevitable. Has anyone ever gotten to 12 games with a 100% record? Did we get some bad ref calls in them maybe but I also think we've had a lot of favourable decisions this season so its hard to complain too much.

I think we can finish 2nd. But I think it is also reasonable to forecast that we finish about 10 points behind City. Does that count as mounting a challenge?

Burnwinter

As far as I am concerned, we'll be mounting a challenge when I believe we are. If you get me. At the moment I certainly don't trust it.

RocktheCasbah

Yeah, that's basically how I feel. At the moment, we look very good, but we've got a brutal January ahead of us and we've all seen Arsenal teams that have looked great August - March only to end up forgetting how to win for the last 8 weeks of the season. So, yes, we can challenge, but I'm not 100% convinced we're ready to, just yet.

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