The Arsenal Thread XIX

If you finish outside the top 2, that will be a joke with your squad, Jose should be fired for anything less than 2nd. I know underplaying your odds is the thing with Chelsea these days but that's a title winning squad, and with the players you have flexibility in how to play.

Liverpool to finish 5th.

I think we'll do much better next season, this is the friendliest fixture list we've had in a while.

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If you finish outside the top 2, that will be a joke with your squad, Jose should be fired for anything less than 2nd. I know underplaying your odds is the thing with Chelsea these days but that's a title winning squad, and with the players you have flexibility in how to play.


I'd rate Liverpool as good for 3rd. Still haven't address their main issue which is the fact they concede too many goals, until that happens they are dependant upon keeping the scoring up. In the cases of both strikers, both have very difficult seasons to replicate. If they finish higher than that its a failure of a season from either Chelsea or City, unacceptable for either of them with the squads and managers.

couldn't agree more with the entirity of this post.

chelsea should be embarrased about finishing 3rd last season.
them and city are so far ahead of everybody else, it's ridiculous when you look at their squad depth.

i agree; 3rd is the highest i'm expecting (would be nice to trump arsenal again), but i'm very happy with 4th.
as you said, the only way we would finish higher is if chelsea/city have a big, big mess up.

people shouldn't expect too much from us next season (i'm talking to you jam). we just happened to have a team that gelled really well last season, and we weren't hindered by europe; is will be very different in the season to come.

however, it would be dangerous to underestimate us again.
we surprised everybody last season with a somewhat mediocre side if i'm honest.
now we have the money to improve both the quality and depth of our team, so anything could happen.

Why should Chelsea be embarrassed to finish 3rd?

It's not good enough, but City clearly had the strongest team, while Chelsea were lacking in key positions, our striker and a creative CM. On top of this actually making a challenge for the CL rather than the other teams pitiful attempts at a CL campaign affected our league form predictably.

If we decided to just let ourselves get knocked out by Galatasaray like Demichelis and Szcechny did we'd have won the league but since we actually bother with europe and don't want to be whipping boys like the rest of the lot and increase the coefficients we actually had to do well. It's affected our league challenges the past 3 years and we play the most games in a season compared to the other teams.

When a team works overtime and another team has half days and inset days it's unfair to compare their performances.

Why should Chelsea be embarrassed to finish 3rd?

It wasn't good enough, but City clearly had the strongest team, while Chelsea were lacking in key positions, our striker and a creative CM. Liverpool also have the best setup in the league by a distance. On top of this actually making a challenge for the CL rather than the other teams pitiful attempts at a CL campaign affected our league form predictably.

If we decided to just let ourselves get knocked out by Galatasaray like Demichelis and Szcechny did we'd have won the league but since we actually bother with europe and don't want to be whipping boys like the rest of the lot and increase the coefficients we actually had to do well. It's affected our league challenges the past 3 years and we play the most games in a season compared to the other teams.

When a team works overtime and another team has half days and inset days it's unfair to compare their performances. Especially when you consider the high intensity and work rate needed for Chelsea's philosophy.

Well the PL is way behind atm and Chelsea are the only team prepared to play uber-negative football from the last 16 onwards to compensate. Dont see how getting to the Semis that way is better than giving it a go against Bayern/Barca in the last 16 like the other English sides did.

You might argue that the other English clubs fly the flag for a brand of football which wont inspire ridicule from the continentals.

it isn't the placing they should be embarrassed of; 3rd in the PL is a great acheivement.
but when you compare them to the rest of the league, only city are on their level.
it should be chelsea/city top 2 for the forseeable future.

yes, i agree we had the best setup.
we worked the most efficiently with what we had, placing second only a few points behind a team stronger than us in 9/11 first team positions.

it is hard to compare, however there are a few things that evens out ny distortion of comparison.
chelsea/city have been in the CL consecutively for a long time, therefore have been receiving CL money for a long time.
as a result, they can afford to have larger squads with a great deal of quality and depth, making it easier to cope with more games

liverpool on the other hand of course played less games, but due to being up and down in recent years, they couldn't realistically afford to have a squad as large or with as much quality as city/chelsea.
so even though chelsea played more games, the players and the resources they hold does help to even out the comparison a little.

it obviously isn't a perfect comparison since we can play our first team for most/all games, but then you look at chelsea/city bench and you see all the players that would walk in to our team.

am i making any sense or was that all utter rubbish?

We had a pretty terrible strike force so couldn't score goals and had no creative midfielder from deep. We struggle against the fodder who make up most of the league.

We were lacking strength and depth in key positions last season.

Liverpool. Well like I said, compare your first 11 to United's when they won the title. The only difference in quality was the setup, an attacking outfit works best as you can outscore the opposition, who aren't as good attacking against you.

Even when playing a defensive style of football, you need around 2 clear consistent source of goals, Chelsea in 05-07 had 2 of Lampard, Drogba, Crespo having high scoring or decent goal tallied seasons.

Atlético had Raul Garcia, Villa and Costa getting good tallies. Chelsea had one player who had a decent season goal wise last season. How are they going to win the title like that?

United had Rooney and RVP 2 seasons ago, you have Sturridge and Suarez. City Aguero and Toure.

So while I get you. I disagree. There's more to making a team than money. Which is why I think that Liverpool will get top 2, City will get it too probably.

As if Italy are going to have a chance of getting their 4th CL spot back for years. While France have one team getting beyond the group stages.

To be fair, the Europa is worth a lot in this respect, so Chelsea did a good job getting knocked out of their group in 2012-13.

yeah i do get your point, but no team is ever perfect.
you can win a league without a perfect team; united were winning it with a "good" team for ages!

i agree; we are very similar to united under SAF.
the biggest differnce is that we don't have the greatest manager of all time, we have a good manager who is still improving at the higher levels.

united weren't as bad defensively as you make out though
vidic and ferdinand were stupidly solid, and with that lanky dutchman in goal, their defence wasn't half bad
we have a better attack, but our defence is stupidly weak right now.

in most matches we can outscore, but when we come up against a solid defence (i.e: chelsea/city or a lesser team at their home fortress), we very much struggle.

you underestimate your team.
i do think you could've done better than costa
i would've tried to get benzema, even at the cost of trading a decent midfielder of yours.
however i seriously think you will win the league.

pellegrini is good, but city's biggest problem is not having a world class manager like mourinho or SAF that can get the best out of a team.
if they had that, they would win the title literally every year.

Liverpool imo I think will get between 85-90 points this season. I still think they have the best setup in terms of the league, similar to United's setup under Fergie. They've added some midfielders and have depth in the striker position now. I would say that anything under 85 points for City is a failure and Chelsea. But I think City can get somewhere close to the record if they click, Liverpool could potentially get 90 points too.

United conceded an average of 43 goals the past 2 seasons, if that isn't defensively fragile, I don't know what is.

There were many games they were 2-0 down or always had to come back to win. The newcastle game e.g. they were always a goal down until it got to 3-2 newcastle, then United scored 2 goals.

Think about that for a second. United are not good defensively. Probably due to the poor midfield in front of them.

Liverpool of last season reminded me a little bit of the United side that had Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney with RVN on his way out (08 I think) although that side could defencd better than Liverpool currently.

In your opinion who's further away:

Arsenal now from the 2004 team
United now from the 2008 team

Both are a long way from their greatest in the PL era, whereas Chelsea are probably not far off the 05 squad in terms of ability now.


Also, don't see anyone (especially liverpool) getting over 86 points next season.

In your opinion who's further away:

Arsenal now from the 2004 team
United now from the 2008 team

United conceded an average of 43 goals the past 2 seasons, if that isn't defensively fragile, I don't know what is.

There were many games they were 2-0 down or always had to come back to win. The newcastle game e.g. they were always a goal down until it got to 3-2 newcastle, then United scored 2 goals.

Think about that for a second. United are not good defensively. Probably due to the poor midfield in front of them.