Hello all.
Today we discuss The Villa game and how it makes us favourites for the top 4, we disagree on how heavy favourites we are. I think we have 2 hands on the trophy holding it chest high, just waiting to lift it over our heads.
Pedantic George
25 comments on “Top Four Trophy Immanent”
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Positively Arsenal 
Hi Positvistas. Long time. As I’ve explained in the podcasts, outside of football I have had some challenges and deadlines with monetary implications which made me unable to dedicate more time to this and my own blog. But George and I always aim to have a Friday podcast but last week we had a major snafu with my service provider. Anyway please enjoy today’s post-game review of our win over Villa. As I said on my Uncensored blog, we should enjoy this surprising reversal in fortunes and treasure our one or two-handed grip on the top-4 trophy which we on this blog never took for granted despite the fake narratives and lies we endured during Wenger’s last 10 years. As for Xhaka….it is the same old bullshit all over again.
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Spuds win now means their games against us and Liverpool are the only ones against teams in the top eight from their remaining fixtures as apposed to us playing chelski, manure, spuds and west ham.
Anyone thinking we are favourites are very much mistaken.
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I expect certain referees, cards a plenty and difficult fixture times to be coming our way until the end of season. If we make the top four, it will be done the hard way , in contrast, favoured others will get help in their quest
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we have 10 games left, 30pts to play for, we are 3pts ahead of spurs with a game in hand, with them to play too, if spurs were to win all their 9 remaining games they can get to 78pts, meaning for us to finish above them we need a maximum of 25pts from our 10 games, that goes to 23 if we draw with spurs, and 22pts if we beat them.
We also play man utd in our run in, and they are 4pts behind us, so similar stats needed there,
25pts, more would mean we finish no lower than 4th. that works out as 8 wins and a draw from our final 10 games
Crystal Palace – away
Brighton – home
Southampton – away
Chelsea – away
Man Utd – home
West Ham – away
Leeds – home
Newcastle – away
Everton – home
spurs – away
the spurs game still has to be arranged, sky probably trying to hold it for a top 4 winner takes all game
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Tottenham Hotspur’s final 9…
H – Newcastle United (14th)
A – Aston Villa (9th)
H – Brighton & Hove Albion (13th)
A – Brentford (15th)
H – Leicester City (10th)
A – Liverpool (2nd)
H – Burnley (19th)
A – Norwich City (20th)
H – Arsenal (4th)
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Not seen anything to think Spurs and United can go on aa winning run.
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The spuds have a very good manager and some very good players. West Ham are a good side and they won comfortably.
If you think how some of our runs started winning badly and then look at their remaining fixtures there is no reason to suggest they won’t win all of them apart from Liverpool as they are all sides in the lower part of the table.
The game against us historically is most likely to be a draw.
Now look at our fixtures so many difficult ones especially when you consider our fragile squad and the hard games running together.
During the run you can make up ten points on teams around you and the run in has only just started.
I think it would be strange of anyone to start chicken counting now.
I don’t often disagree with George but the finish line is a long long way off yet.
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Please do not forget as Eddie notes above that like Serie A at the night height of caliciopoli this league has been run by broadcasters for a time now.
recently paying billions for their rights. And officials who like to humiliate themselves in front of their peers from FUFA.
Let no one person be in any doubt. For the Arsenal to come 4th in this league against the odds on the pitch and off of it as highlighted by Ian and Eds respectively: this will be a significant and fantastic achievement.
Same as it always was. Heh.
Given the undeniable Yorkshire Handicap.
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William Saliba called up to the France senior squad
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Saliba is not good enough to play for Arteta, but seemingly good enough to play for the French international team.
Auba is not good enough for Arteta, but good enough to score, how many is it, 8 goals in his first 5 games for Barca?
Will the luck last long enough to get 4th?
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What luck, jjgsol?
By pretty much every conceivable metric, we deserve to be where we are at the moment.
This is a fascinating time to be an AFC fan. No idea what comes next, but there are tons of things to say…about the tiny squad, the superstar at RW, the curious style of play (is it exhilarating or too rehearsed), the lop-sided formation, the CF living in midfield, the ostensible DM running box-to-box, the consistency of our youngsters, the bizarre situation of having two of the purest ball-playing talents in the team playing at RCB and RB (though currently injured)…
This team could poop the bed and finish 7th or whatever. But as of now, this very moment, there’s all sorts of weird things going on.
Even our worst detractors are giving us mealy mouthed praise rather than talking about players who aren’t even here.
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OK, hyperbole on Tomiyasu. But the sight of an RB beating the press by pinging the ball cross-field with his weaker foot stays with you. This is all freaky stuff.
And it tallies with the notion that anything seems possible at the moment. Good or not so good.
You see flashes of brilliance like this, or in Odegaard/Partey thriving in the tightest of spaces, or Martinelli (marauding) or Saka (sashaying) past defenders, but it’s all precarious. When the team’s under the cosh, and it happens for a spell every game, all of that joy departs, it gets ugly and we suffer.
If Arteta stays long-term, are we going to become a team that, like Atletico Madrid, wins routinely when we gain a lead and hand over the ball? Or is there no hope of lasting progress until we can exert control for longer? It’s been touched on here, and this is obviously something to be resolved down the line.
Also excuse the self-indulgence, I’m in a weird mood and should take myself to bed!
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According to sky Deans retirement is big news and there was me thinking refs didn’t want to be celebrities
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well Ian its only a rretirement from reffing, he will still be influencing results as he is going full time VAR
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Wøz
@89theafc
·
Mar 21
In his last 13 premier league appearances Granit Xhaka has made just 11 fouls. In 10 of these appearances he’s committed 1 foul or less.
In that time he’s been shown 6 yellow cards. Therefore 54% of his fouls have resulted in a yellow card.
Disproportionate
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“ will the luck last long enough to get 4th”
I just don’t see this team as lucky, they have something else.
Liverpool are good, but lucky, and protected. City were incredibly lucky in the last game against us, Mane is lucky to finish a game and protected, Kane is just lucky and protected, in contrast , Saka , perhaps you can say he is lucky as he still has use of his lower limbs.
If Arsenal were lucky, Xhaka wouldn’t be booked for his first foul virtually every game, those targeting Saka would see red in the way our players would for similar, players stamping on our players faces would get red cards, as would slabhead for holding our players back in the area right in front of the ref, if lucky , we would get penalties when our players are bought down in the box like Liverpool strikers do when they pretend they have been hit by Exocet missiles without being touched. If lucky, refs wouldn’t be applying a clear policy of death by yellow against our players, don’t believe me, look at out fouls per card vs other teams, including the dirtiest teams in this league. Why do we get more red cards in a season than , erm, Burnley have had in 5?
Let’s see how lucky they are when we get the likes of strictly come dancing Dean for his grand finale at Spurs.
As for Saliba might well play for Arteta next season. Auba, decent player in his preferred environment, but the team have done better since he left. Good luck to him at Barca.
Of course all are entitled to their views, you may not rate Arteta , but surely there is something positive you can say about Arsenal at the moment?
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We have no doubt improved and this is the best we’ve been since Arsene’s departure but if you look over the season we have had more luck than we normally do.
Even Mikel himself may have been dispensed with during different times.
Even the fan base are more accepting of defeats and things going wrong than they were under Arsene.
None of this detracts from the positive elements of our situation but in reality you have to accept it none the less.
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Interesting news in the race for the Womens title as chelskis game against the spuds has been postponed due to Covid outbreak in the spuds camp.
Firstly let’s hope the fixture congestion helps our team in both league and cup, secondly maybe it will spread to the men’s team and fucks them up as well.
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4th is between us and Spuds….Spuds are now out of all cup competitions so they now will reap the benefits of what we have had all season….1 game per week so there key players will be rested. I expect Spuds to finish strong. Manure will not, Their manager is a lameduck manager so only the real motivated players are giving their all. Players like Pogba are already thinking of next year and where he wants to play.
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Saka has had to withdraw from the England squad after testing positive for Covid.
Let’s pray 1 he test negative by the palace game and 2 he’s kissed Harry Kane
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William Saliba made his debut for France this evening, coming on early in the second half against the ivory cost, who Pepe scored for, France drew level through a Giroud goal and Guendouzi set up an injury time winner
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Giroud is now only 4 goals off Henry’s all time scoring record of 51 goals for France
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New post is up
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