Indeed I did.
People point to the Villa game at home - but that was the only slip in an otherwise flawless run in.
I reckon this run was more damaging:
Saturday 9th December Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 0
Sunday 17th December, Arsenal 2 Brighton and Hove Albion 0
Saturday 23rd December Liverpool 1 Arsenal 1
Thursday 28th December, Arsenal 0 West Ham United 2
Sunday 31st December, Fulham 2 Arsenal 1
P5 W1 D1 L3
Before that we were top, 2 points clear of Liverpool, 6 clear of City
After that we were 4th. Liverpool were 5 clear of us, we were level with City but they had a game in hand.
With City being the unstoppable juggernaut they are, we really needed a cushion over them and that's when that slipped.
Yeah after that poor December we were playing catch up and had to be flawless in the second part of the season to even have a chance. I don’t think anyone really expected the run we went on, not because we weren’t good enough but just because it’s unrealistic to expect to achieve that level of consistency. We pretty much had to win 17 out of 18 games and we fell just short with 16.
It’s annoying as fuck but you’ve got to look at the stodgy first half of the season for where we dropped the points that could have been avoided. It feels silly pointing to literally just a game or two but those are the margins now. I worry about how demoralising this could potentially be but I think we’ve got enough experience now to come back and maybe win it next year. That’s what Liverpool did after 2019, it was just a continuation of the form they were in. Although I certainly don’t expect to win 26 out of 27 games from the start of the season.
Last edited by Marc Overmars; 22-05-2024 at 10:42 AM.
Yeah what worries me about next season is that we get one bad result early on and throw in the towel. I don't think Arteta would let that happen, but it'll be hard to get out of the head of the players that once perfection is impossible to acheive, so is the title.
You used to be everything to me
Now you're tired of fighting
City have this ability to amble through the first half of a season, stay in touch and then go in to beast mode. The only way it seems to beat them is to do what Liverpool did and go absolutely mental at the start of the season until it’s all but won. Maybe we’ll do that next year.
It feels a bit like being a 100m runner in the Bolt era, there’s not much you can do when they’re in the mood. I was arguing that last season but we did hand it to them a bit. Not this year. We pushed them all the way and it still wasn’t enough. They’re just relentless. Whaddaya do?
See the interesting thing about the season Liverpool won the title is that City didn’t go into beast mode
They were doubled by United and Wolves, lost to Norwich and Southampton as well as Chelsea, Spurs and of course Liverpool
By the standards they’d set from the previous two seasons they were poor
They weren’t brilliant when they won the title back in 2021….lost at home to Leicester, United, Leeds and Chelsea. But they were much better away from home…but they still finished on fewer points than we managed this season.
The difference is the level of quality in that squad. Unfortunately I think they’ll continue to win at will until Guardiola leaves or the FA does what it should do (but probably won’t because the British government won’t want to fall out with the UAE)