tazmania The way we are looking, and playing, absolutely all of those teams bar Burnley are capable of upsetting us. I agree with Coombs, they'd like nothing more than to deliver a blow that affects the title race. The talk and potential glee over Arsenal bottling it again isn't just confined to our rivals, it seems universal. We seem to rub everyone up the wrong way - fans, pundits, teams and their staff. It's weird.
Our attack is crap and our defense, which looked rock-steady initially, now looks all over the place. And what if we do take the lead in those games? We seize the moment and go on to kill those games off? I'm expected to believe this team is gonna pull that one out of the big, a trick they've been almost exclusively unable to pull even when there wasn't an atmosphere of complete nerves? No, I think it's most likely if we do go ahead in those games, that given the pressure we are now under, the pattern we've seen too often of us suddenly turning extremely weird and looking like we don't know what to do with the ball, unable to string more than 3 passes together, will continue and we'll get sucker punched.
Whilst I do like that we have those on the forum that have the 'everything is fine, we will win the league' view (because it's needed to offset those that are shitting themselves, myself included), I do think it's a little naive. I think Man City will beat Chelsea this weekend, they will win their game in hand and I also think they will beat us at the Etihad. I've got no faith in Arteta taking us there and delivering anything else, I'm sorry. I do also now think that Man City are cable of winning their all remaining games (hoping to God this opinion is squashed asap)..
But don't get it wrong - I will be absolutely delighted to be proven wrong on this, I want to be; of course. I accept there may be some panic here. There is no question of whether the last 3 seasons have traumatised me. Unquestionably they have.
I think something fairly big has to happen to get us over the line. I'm thinking Gyokores going on a scoring run (the signs are good that this is a possibility) or Odegaard staying fit and gaining some form. Something like that. Right now the limp is real and I don't know if it's gonna be enough to get us over the line. I just want to get Bournemouth and 3pts out the way. That game is unbelievably huge. The atmosphere if we aren't ahead and/or playing well by half time will be something else.
