West Ham vs Arsenal | Sunday, 2pm: Page 29 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

West Ham vs Arsenal | Sunday, 2pm

QuincyAbeyie

James But whether it was incredibly poor from Partey and Gabriel (which it was) has no bearing on whether it was handball, so I don't get that as a reason to be fine with the decision.

James

QuincyAbeyie I'm fine with it because i'm still not 100% it was deliberate handball. One angles suggests it's handball, the other doesn't, before even going into whether it's delberate or not. And VAR should be overturning clear and obvious errors, which I don't think either are.

Clrnc

James He intentionally uses it to control the ball and bring it away from Partey, otherwise Partey incepts it easily. Partey seen the obvious handball and stopped playing, because that handball was fecking obvious right beneath him.

James

Clrnc If Partey continues, and plays to the whistle, he quite possibly cuts out the square ball to Paqueta. There's zero excuse for him to stop playing.

Don Pacifico

Sicario2 - Tier 1 I think you're ignoring the fundamental point I'm making - if we were to finish with 90 points or similar, we'd win the league in most seasons based on what we've seen historically. There's no way I'd consider us failures/bottlers for that reason.

The idea that if you drop points to a 'lesser' team, you're a bottler is farcical in my opinion. For example, City drew away at Forest in a match that on paper should have been no contest. Dropping points there didn't make them bottlers, it just happens when your levels drop for whatever reason (or if you're opposition have an uncharacteristically strong performance).

Sicario2 - Tier 1

Don Pacifico

90 points being consumed overall in the season is masking the failure of what we are doing now.

For me the title race started properly before Liverpool away, call it the final stretch or whatever. That is when everyone knew what was clearly on the line.

Yes we have done amazing to put ourselves in this position but you can’t take away blame if we shoot ourselves (like yesterday ) in the foot in the most critical part of the season.

Titles are not won in August/September when there is no pressure.

We also play once a week and have sacrificed all our cup competitions and may have nothing to show for it.

If we lose to City that is failing to win 3/4 (assuming we beat Southampton) in the most crucial part. So what we did in August/September/October/November is immaterial for me.

I think you should be able to separate the two.

What you are saying is that we shouldn’t aspire to win the title because Man City have made it a monopoly?

QuincyAbeyie

Don Pacifico Every team lose some points to weak opposition, that's just how it is.

However, bottling isn't about the end result, but how it happens - fair or not. If we'd been worse in the the beginning of the season and then almost caught City at the end, we wouldn't have been bottling it. But gaining a solid lead, then losing points in two consecutive games with 2-0 leads, that's a different matter. Similarly, if we were 2-0 under against Liverpool and managed 2-2 at the end it wouldn't have been bottling it, but what happened was.

Arguing how many points we're going to have is irrelevant in that discussion, because even if we finished at 75-80 points it wouldn't have been 'bottling it' if that was our trajectory for the entire season.

Tl;dr: The expression is literally about what you're doing after you've managed to put yourself in a good position - not what you've done to get yourself there.

Clrnc

Don Pacifico If they lost the league to us, their fans will remember the forest match as the match they lost it.

James

Sicario2 - Tier 1 For me the title race started properly before Liverpool away, call it the final stretch or whatever. That is when everyone knew what was clearly on the line.

For me it started after the City game, just before the 7 straight wins.

Clrnc

QuincyAbeyie Tl;dr: The expression is literally about what you're doing after you've managed to put yourself in a good position - not what you've done to get yourself there.

Yep. We bottled it against Liverpool and WHU. If we lose the title we will look back at those matches. 2-0 is a good lead to build on, doing it consecutively twice is something else. The opponents literally had no answer to us in the first half an hour.

Don't know what is so difficult to accept that we fucked it up twice there and we need to do better in future.

Don Pacifico

I get where people are coming from but there have been other instances this season where we've shown tremendous resolve that goes against the narrative of us being bottlers (thinking United and Bournemouth at home as well as Villa away). Whilst I understand the context may feel different because we're later on in the season with a lead to defend, I don't think we can simply discount what we've done so far and make such a binary assessment of the players' character.

That's not to say that they should be immune from criticism but I disagree with the assessment.

Clrnc

Don Pacifico I think people are saying we bottled it in these 2 matches, not that we as a team are bottlers previously.

We bottled it in 02/03 after being in a great position, but that very same team + Lehmann became invincibles. It's a specific situation.

Don Pacifico

Fair do - I read it as a bit of a blanket assessment of our squad (which I obviously disagree with) but agree that we haven't performed the last two matches.

Gurgen

Define 'bottling'. We are competing against an oil state with 25-30 top class players. It takes a ridiculous number of points to win the league these days. Before the season no-one gave us a hope of finishing top 4. In proper context, we're going great.

QuincyAbeyie

Gurgen I've literally done what you asked and explain and why how many points is needed doesn't come into question.

awooga83

I think the issue I have, which I've seen elsewhere, is I thought that If we struggled we would not be able to play our game and struggle. What was crazy is that we showed up at Liverpool and West ham and blew them both away getting 2 goal leads and it feel a bit like wow I can't believe we've got into that position. As a fan or felt like that.

The difference was the team seemed to adopt a relaxed this is easy vibe at 2-0 which is just very crazy especially as you've not won anything before. But we allowed our level to drop and get into a mindset that the work we did before that was easy. That's what is gutting. Neither team we played were particularly doing well but we let our level drop and have them a route back in. That's not city's quality, that's just us not being professional enough to see that type of game out.

goon

I don’t think it’s complacency to be fair, I think it’s a misguided idea of playing it safe. Some players decided not to take risks and instead just keep the ball. But all that really achieved is to make us worse and make it easy for West Ham.

lorddulaarsenal

We look a bit leggy and mentally fatigued. We can still win it, but it’s a big ask up against a relentless City.

No matter where we finish - I’m excited with where the club is going. We now play some very technical and eye catching football. We have a great vibe at the club, Champions League to look forward to and an excellent platform on which to build upon. There are some obvious areas for improvement. Address those and we could be seeing the highest quality Arsenal squad we’ve seen in our lifetime

Sicario2 - Tier 1

lorddulaarsenal

The problem for next season will be expectation. Anything other than not going for the title will be seen as failure. That will bring its own pressure especially from the fans. Arteta will have moments he is under huge pressure, call victim of success or whatever.

Also, this season we have gone under the radar but next season we will have a target on our backs as a serious team. So if we don’t win it this year it will be a lot harder to win it next year.

That’s why as a club it is so imperative we win it this season.

It’s similar to Paris in 06. Had we won the CL the early Emirates era would have been so much better.

If we won the league this season we go into next with such momentum and a spring in our steps and no mental pressure.

We can tackle the CL properly (we would be in pot 1). If we don’t win the league we will be in pot 3.

Basically it’s a huge moment in the history of this club and manager what happens in the next 6 weeks.

Mirth

In Liverpool vs Leeds today, Trent handles the ball and within two passes sets up Liverpool's first goal. Not deemed to be worthy for VAR to get involved because it 'didn't influence the goal'. Crazy.

James

Mirth This is the point I was making. I don’t think it will have been called back regardless, even if deemed a deliberate handball.

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