Oh you would love my work in the NFL threads re: Cousins (though I don't quite say he's elite!)
Because as I said earlier in this thread they'd get throttled by City/Chelsea regardless of the team they'd put out

Our only loss is to United this season. Rest are anomalies. Wrap your tiny brains around it already and move on.

I would be very fine saying that any team, in any sport that has a COVID outbreak gets some leeway in the games surrounding an outbreak of a pandemic. I don't care if its the WNBA or high school volleyball. To do otherwise would just not be in touch with the reality of our last 2 years of lives. The point wasn't me saying that they should count the same, its that...there was a gigantic covid outbreak in the team! A literal deathly disease that has had terrible effects on plenty of healthy, athletic people! I felt tired for ~1 month after having Covid, and even if my Sunday league performances were fine in Summer I wouldn't wish it on many people.

Arsenal have only beaten the worst teams in the league - and teams in the middle of such bad patches of form that they sacked their manager shortly thereafter.

And Leicester, who absolutely should not have lost that game.

Having said that, consistently beating the worst teams can get you pretty far.

After the top 3, no one is good. West Ham are "solid," but good might be a stretch. Arsenal can compete with the rest, easily. They could end up like 8th or something still, but they'll be in a fight with ~5 other teams for 4-8.
I'm not super optimistic Arsenal can finish above West Ham/United without getting some reliable FW play. Auba just hasn't been at it, Antonio and Ronaldo have been.

Leicester obviously should have lost the Arsenal game. They were down 2-0 after half an hour, they tested Ramsdale once, then Evans got away with the same red card that City, Newcastle and a few others have got since. It was absurd a rugby tackle as a last man wasn't given as a red and then they don't make the garbage time stats look "even."

Yeah, if they continue to do this then it's probably good enough for a European place which will be considered a success.

Think we have been surprisingly solid against weaker teams. If that consistency continues we can get to even 4th especially when the fixtures will ramp up for other teams.

I hope we forget the buspark from the minute we lead approach. Fine against teams we cant do much against, but lets not put United into that category.

Also Tavares is ok, shiny new toy, but lets not drop our best LB who was our sole source of crearivity for a while. He gave one away vs Plop, now against United as well. Need KT back tyvm. Give Tavares rotation games, but the KT should be clear number 1.

Leicester didn't show up for 20 minutes and paid the price, but I mean when Evans made his "tackle", the xG was 1.59 - 0.42. Leicester utterly dominated that game for 70 minutes and only an unbelievable performance by Ramsdale saved Arsenal from dropping points. Saying they only tested him once is quite the understatement, he made at least 4 great saves, one of them which Peter Schmeichel called the best save he'd seen in years, and Leicester had huge misses inside the box, too.

If the Man of the Match is the goalkeeper, you're not playing well.

We're not *trying* to park the bus with a lead, we're just inexperienced, young and lack great performances in the middle of the pitch. When you rely on 19-22 year olds for all the creativity but can't win the middle of the pitch, it gets ugly for periods.

It's comparable to Chelsea of a few years ago, but they had a much more experienced spine of their team. Everyone, including me wants Xhaka to go, but we no one has ever been able to just take his spot.

bro, only the first 20mins of that game count

Dalot was quite good last night, out of absolutely nowhere. I had written him off a long time ago but it would be nice if he could kick on a bit now and not have to play AWB all the time.

Counterpoint: our most senior players were the shittiest. Gabriel being 23 shocked me some time ago - he looks like a complete defender.

Elneny is Elneny - he did what Elneny does. Partey should be slapped back to his old form as being our 3rd best midfielder amongst Lokonga, Xhaka, Elneny (debatable) is not a good look. At least AFCON will not hit us with Auba/Partey - arguably with their current forms it will be an improvement.

Dalot was solid. Maguire still a dumpsterfire and we must be kicking ourselves for not putting him under more pressure yesterday. We should have especially pushed your lot in the first 20mins when FredTominay was giving away ball after ball and we were always slowing down. Inexperience and all that.

That said I think both teams can look excited for the immediate future - Arse for a return to Europe (potentially CL? - I think we need a striker in January for that but only my 2 cents). ManU with a more balanced CL push. Arguably United should be taking the next step already with the amount spent and finishing 2nd last year and brining in megasuperstad Ronaldo. Let's see if Ralf is the man for that next step.

Even if we are only good vs the bad teams that is a major step up from the past few seasons.

Any idea what the High Court injunction is all about?

I was gonna say CL would be a step too far for arse this season but then I remember their competition is spuds, wham and a (currently at least) broken United.

As long as we don't slip up too bad over the christmas period I think we have to be favs for 4th. I'm hoping we can grind out some results during the first few weeks under Ralf while these fairweather ****s get used to executing an actual gameplan after 3 years of being told to run and kick and have fun. The fixtures are definitely good for it but I'm sure there will be some lol results in there.

if rangnick buys a #6 and a CB united should be nailed on for 4th.

Google Alan Pardew Carl Fletcher wife.

And specifically, a quick/mobile CB. It doesn’t need to be a splash down singing (both don’t tbh), it just needs to be a guy that can come in and do a good job when asked.

It also includes the 2/3 of a pen chance that Aubameyang missed that would have been disallowed by VAR for offside had it gone in, but that's by the by.

What nailed on peno are you talking about exactly? It was nailed on and got missed by VAR? Can't have been *that* nailed on, I can't even think of which incident you're talking about lol.

I assume it was the one where slab wrestled someone to the floor in a "if you give those you give five pens every game" spot. Which I'd be fine with, if you can't defend a corner without doing the sorts of shenanigans that would result in a free kick 100% of the time on half way, then learn to defend better

Oh right, then yeah could have been given, but I don't think it's "absolute nailed on one" by any stretch under current rules/interpretation of rules.

bailey injured for a few weeks again. zzzzz. this isnt what i was expecting with our signings.

Wasn't bailey hurt at Leverkusen often?

I seemed to remember the same, but according to transfermarkt, he only missed like 15 games over five seasons. Only two significant breaks of ~three weeks each

Don't think they can buy a CB after giving Varane 300k a week or whatever, still having Maguire on high wages, then bailly, lindelof etc.

Seems like a lack of 6s available too.