The Arsenal Thread XXII

Carrow Road/Portman Road are both decent away days, so I'll be happy with either of them. Watford's very easy for me to get to, but it's a ****hole and Vicarage Road might be my least favourite English ground bar Kenilworth Road.

Oh yeah Watford is good for me, I live very close to it, and what's wrong with Vicarage Road?

Just don't like the ground itself. Not one of my favourite away days.

Brentford will be a great away day. Pub on each corner of the ground. I fancy Norwich to slip up, purely because they've been in better form and I can see some sort of sod's law situation causing Ipswich to win after they barely managed to scrap into sixth place.

The Premier League will never allow Brentford to play at Griffin Park with their terraces. They'd have to groundshare with Fulham or QPR.

lol this thread..

Football talk starts, and then it goes silent for 4 hours.

Where do you guys expect to finish next season?

We'll win the League next season or come very close.

Certainly much better placed than the rest to challenge Chelsea. Our squad depth is actually superior to Chelsea's, actually substantially so, but obviously they're ahead in the XI. Interesting to see how we do in the Summer but all that's needed is an injection of 1 more world class player, which is what Wenger has hinted that he's looking to add, to be right up there. Also got Gabriel coming in now as well and I think he looks like a top CB tbh.

Touch wood our appalling injury record seems to be a thing of the past now as well and that's worth a lot of points. Very hard to compete with Chelsea, who never have any injuries when we've had 3 or 4 key players out at least at any given time. Maybe next season they'll be without Terry or Hazard for 4 months and we'll see how good their squad is? Theyve been fortunate not to lose key players this season really.

We've got over the big game hoodoo thing to an extent but we still need to be cuter. At Stamford Bridge next season, we should just take the 0-0 draw and move on for instance since that's what CFC are going to do at the Emirates anyway. We absolutely crucify the dross in the PL so just need to work on results vs ''good not great'' sides like Swansea to keep improving.

People need to realise that Wenger is a very subtle team builder(unlike Mourinho he doesnt just whip the chequebook out or inherit world class players...). Over a 3 year cycle he'll get you to title quality. The 2011 side was the best in the League by a country mile but obviously was lacking character and bottled absolutely everything. But that side came together bit by bit and the players steadily improved and developed an understanding. Think we're coming towards fruition of Wenger's last cycle which is centred around top class performers like Koscielny, Ozil, Sanchez, Ramsey etc. Recent cup wins should help with the a bid too.

In all honesty think Chelsea will win the league again.

Our first team is fine as it is, it's just whether we have the quality to sustain a title win along with a CL run. I don't think we do which is why we change our style of play in the second half of the season to accommodate for the fact a lot of our rotations players(*cough* mikel Ramires Drogba *cough*) are not good enough.

We did the same last season.

you're definitely favourites but as you say I just think you're only an injury to Terry, Costa or Hazard away from a real slog for a few months.

Surprised you havent called it for liverpool actually

Liverpool will win the title the year after. Young team, best young manager in world football and WC players like Henderson, Coutinho(the best player in the PL in 2015), Sakho and Sterling.

Chelsea & Utd gunning for the league, Arsenal & City fill out the Top 4.

Leeds to finish 14th in the SkyBet Championship, having been knocked out of all competitions at the 3rd round. Yay, football.

Seriously can't work out if this is sarcastic or not..

Posted from TSR Mobile

It is sarcastic, and it is a shot at me. I'm not sure how it's relevant given that it was true, or (depending on your opinion) at least completely reasonable to say, at the time it was said. Just like if you'd said 'Madrid are the best team in the world' when they'd won 22 in a row, you'd have been entirely correct, but it's plain to see that Barcelona are now the best team in the world.

edit: at a point, Jam's whole big talk about Liverpool wasn't sarcastic at all. He defo believed it. At some stage where things have gone pearshaped for us, he's decided to pretend it was sarcasm all along (like with that post, and others).