Arsenal bowed out of the title race with a meek defeat at Forest, whose win secured their own survival. Their goal was a lucky ricochet, but it’s not like we deserved anything, scraping together little more than a few snatched shots.
I don’t know how you felt, but as spring approached and we powered through those seven wins on the bounce, this fixture looked no less daunting than the other big ones in a season back-loaded with difficult matches.
And so it proved, in a fusty, drab game of football played almost entirely on a sliver of pitch midway into the Forest half. Even in defeat, we’ve had our moments this season. Everton away, remembered as a low-point, we circulated the ball with a breeziness that would surprise you if you watched it back.
Last week, for heaven’s sake, we worked it into interesting positions in the first half but didn’t keep our cool.
No hint of solace at the City Ground. Not so much as a flash of inspiration. Maybe it’s fitting that we produced, for my money, our worst performance of the season on the day when our title charge crashed and burned.
We came in with a new, untested lineup, with No. 5 in the Zinchenko role. Fair enough, this is completely new territory for him, but it was a pallid imitation. I hope we don’t repeat it.
Then again a playmaking full-back feeding pass after pass between the lines is a ludicrous notion. Maybe if Zinchenko is unavailable, which isn’t that uncommon, we should rethink things. Or perhaps we should be on the lookout for a similar profile in the summer, if it even exists.
What didn’t help was that, come the 20th minute, Forest had no reason to venture into our half beyond the occasional furtive counter.
Their goal was a bit cruel if we’re honest. High up the pitch, Odegaard misplaced a pass pretty drastically, creating an instant overload, similar to the Walcott for Southampton.
Gibbs-White advanced and played it through to Awoniyi, but Gabriel read it all the way and got his challenge in, only to see it rebound off the striker’s shin and past Ramsdale who had already committed. Bad as we were, that goal was unlucky.
We spent the rest of the match wading into and floundering in an extremely congested space about ten yards outside their box. When Jesus, Saka or Odegaard did get on the ball their options were limited to the point where you couldn’t really criticise them as individuals for not advancing the attack any further.
With supply lines throttled, Xhaka, whose game has hinged on receiving the ball far up the pitch, was completely redundant.
This was a collective capitulation, so it doesn’t feel right to single anyone out. What was noticeable was an absence of dynamism across the pitch. You can partly put it down to absentees, including Nelson with illness, as well as a pervasive jadedness that has infected the team in the last couple of fixtures. Maybe the Newcastle win drained the team’s last reserves of moxy.
Whatever, there’s very little to say about a match with almost no clear-cut openings, in which we went long periods without mustering a shot, dominating the ball with the most sterile, the most barren possession.
Forest expended a lot of energy to close those gaps, and as they tired, they saw out the second half with a series of “injuries”, each one killing any suggestion of momentum on our part.
In one annoying passage, Jesus was yanked back by a Forest defender and got booked by Taylor for complaining about it. There’s not much else to say.
I hope, with the title an impossibility, we’ll produce a little more zest against Wolves next weekend. It would be a nice way to bring the curtain down on what we’ll agree has been a positive season, once the smoke of the last few weeks clears.
Birdkamp.
Positively Arsenal 
Well played Birdkamp, it was hard enough to watch the game, let alone write about. Horrible game.
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Thanks PG! That was brutal.
Wanted to mention Niakhaté, casually lobbing it 40 yards with his trebuchet throws. Never seen anything like it.
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Careless whispers of Arsenal as title favourites would lead to crumbling whimpers. Always the underdog in this fight.
If Newcastle was one of the better performances I think many will agree again with BK that this was the worst and there are a a fair few reasons easy to understand to help explain.
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Players have dropped heads after City’s win at Everton (such games should kick off at the same time if the concept of Fair Play still existed in the League). Momentum took a big blow against Liverpool but surely everyone knew the team needed a result at City and couldn’t afford to lose both league games against this doped up City squad.
Balogon’s height offers something in these heavily tilted Away fixtures against teams Stoking it up and putting an army of orcs in their own penalty box. Too many players sent on loan again.
The winter transfers in were brilliant and credit is due even if some were underused in those three drawn fixtures.
Still a great season if not as successful as 14/15 (totally airbrushed out of the Arsenal hole Narrative)
Given the displays seen in Away games especially in the NW it is fair to be repeat; Even the invincibles could not win a game of football on a tilted pitch.
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Thank you BK, some mitigating circumstances not a performance that was pleasing to document.
The level has certainly dropped, as have some heads. Other players just seem exhausted. Our usual injury problems to key players.
I know his form dipped a little after the World Cup, but if anyone wants reasons, many statistics point to the loss of Saliba and Tomi as significant. We have let in a lot more goals since then. And not only that, these losses have had tactical implications, Ben White has not been the same player since Salibas loss, looks to me that is is detailed to spend more time helping CD , this has resulted in a reduction of supply to a possibly already exhausted Saka. Zinchenko , a big influence in attack has not been the best defensively . Jesus isn’t the sort of striker who can do it all on his own either. Then , Parteys form falling off a cliff, to me , he was another who looked a lot better when Saliba was around. That is not to blame those replacing Saliba, I just believe his loss has really affected the balance of this team, one could argue they have long had time to come up with a solution, against Newcastle , looks as they had, but not in certain other games I can mention.
But still, losing Saliba, Tomi, Zinchenko, Martinelli, and not forgetting the talent and experience of Elneny for the run in has not helped. Don’t have the stats, so will go on perception, but seems it’s been a long time since I have seen * Manchester City experience an injury list like that. And even if they did, they have a far deeper squad than we have to cope with such things.
But ultimately, over the season, this team have exceeded the pre season expectations of anyone I’m aware of in finishing 2nd. We were never going to beat City to the title, for so many reasons, their “ financing” their squad, Haaland, then, just take a look at a map of where most of the PGMOL are from. The Manc pundits stirring up the haters The table is tilted in their favour ,as it was a while back for Manchesters other team. I cannot see anyone making a meaningful challenge to City over a season for some time unless Pep leaves, or the powers that be rein them in.
Work to be done, improvements to be made and lessons learned.
But well done to the team over this season for providing many moments of excitement, quality, winning fixtures we haven’t won for a long time, improving the atmosphere in the ground this season.
And, London is red.
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Unfortunately due to a raft of dismal displays I’m not sure if this is the worst performance of the season.
I don’t think there are mitigating circumstances we have been lucky with injuries all season and the proof is in the fact that we can go to Liverpool and Newcastle and get very good results after very good performances, the two most difficult games in the run in bar city, then the there is no reason we couldn’t of pulled out decent performances in other games.
If Saliba and Zinchenko were so important why did we not train other players to fill in or get the team ready to play a different way.
In truth Mikel was very ridged in the team he picked and most of his subs were one for one earlier in the season.
The Zinchenko thing is a myth, while we all know his importance going forward he has been poor defensively and has been regularly subbed during the run in.
After all the injuries Arsene’s teams suffered and generally coped with (we are talking ten and Eleven not three or four)
We should be looking at this with reality not with ARSENAL eyes.
I have consistently said I didn’t think we would win the league I always dreamed we might or at least lose to the best squad in the world in a valiant effort breaking records in the best loss ever like Liverpool did the year before their league triumph.
So far the run in has put us in the bottom half of the table form wise which again asks serious questions for next season.
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beIN SPORTS USA
@beINSPORTSUSA
·
4h
🤩 New USMNT striker Folarin Balogun becomes the first American player ever to score 20+ goals in Europe’s top leagues! 🇺🇸
He’s also the first U21 player in Europe’s top five divisions to reach this number this season. 🔥
#Ligue1
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george i’ve tried to post a comment twice and it has not come up, can you check it out
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without checking stats would anyone like to guess how many starts Emile Smith-Rowe made in all competitions for us this season
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by the way Kieran Tierney started only 6 EPL games for us this season
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Ed, I think if you put up the stats of all our squad players it would emphasize the lack of confidence Mikel had outside his main team. KT only made six because of injuries not rotation or being trusted to come through.
If we go into minutes it would look even worse. Take away Eddie’s replacement games for Jesus then his PL starts are zero. His minutes are very small as well with Mikel only putting him on when it was absolutely necessary.
We know Mikel doesn’t like academy players so are the club going to have to continually go on spending sprees under his tenure just to stay still let alone improve.
I really don’t understand how after our best season for ages we still have a million unanswered questions.
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Nelson and ESR both started no EPL games for us this season and each came on as subs in 10 games.
If anyone wants to know why Nelson has so far refused 3 contract offers from Arsenal, or why there are reports ESR wants to leave due to lack of game time only has to look at those stats, they combined have had less game time than Vieira, but then neither of them cost us £35M or were signe by Arteta
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fuck it looks like everton will not get relegated, leicester and leeds just so bad they will keep everton up, the toffees play at home to bournemouth in their last game and a win or match leicester(west ham) and leeds(spurs) results and they stay up, all 3 have home games
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it would not surprise me if Arsenal’s summer incomings are mainly players who have EPL experience, lots of English players
RB – Kyle Walker-Peters
CB – Marc Guéhi
CM – Declan Rice, Mason Mount, Moisés Caicedo
W – Wilfried Zaha
S- Tammy Abrahams
and I’d expect party, xhaka, esr, nelson, vieira, holding all to leave
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Newcastle’s draw with leicester tonight means they are in the CL next season, they finished 11th last season, they were 20pts behind Arsenal, they like ourselves have one game left to play and are currently 11pts behind us, so despite all the PR about how improved Arsenal are this season and the genius Arteta is, it seems Eddie Howe has done an even better job at Newcastle in regards improvements, but whisper it, or you will be accused of being an Arteta hater
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to simplify it, Newcastle have so far won 21pts more than they did last season, by contrast Arsenal have won 12pts more than last season
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Ed, as much as admire Eddie Howe the nearer you are to the top the smaller your improvement is going to be.
The other thing of course is he has been able to sign players that in other circumstances would never have gone to a club who just avoided relegation.
With the new owners being amongst the richest in the world the future pay rises and players coming in were obviously going to be of CL quality.
They might not have thought they would get CL football this season but if Eddie had not achieved it at the end of next season his job would of been under serious threat.
Like us Newcastle have benefited hugely by the amount of big clubs all going through changes at once.
I can’t remember a season when the sort of clubs like manure, chelusa, pool and to a lesser extent the spuds all had such bad seasons together.
Next season the top four could look completely different something else which is unusual.
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Well nearly another season over and the last round of fixtures are something of a damp squib.
With only eight of the twenty teams playing for anything at all what looked a few weeks ago like a brilliant ending to the season now has a lot less meaning to the majority of clubs.
Ist and second are sorted, man and New Uniteds are playing for third and fourth. Fifth and sixth are fixed.
Then come villa,spuds and Brentford going for seventh, eighth and ninth with Fulham guaranteed tenth.
Between eleventh and 16th you have a six clubs that could go up or down a maximum of two places all of which means very little and then you possibly have the only exciting games of the day.
Three teams battling it out for 17th place and the right to struggle for another season.
Southampton have gone already of course so no one’s interested in them.
Out of the relegation teams I think I would prefer Leicester to stay up purely because I really don’t like fat Sam and his protestations he is a fantastic manager and because Everton were involved in money changing hands when Sheffield Utd went down a few years ago and have been in the top division the longest.
I really hope we can put on a fantastic end of season display for our home fans but unfortunately I don’t expect it.
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Luton or Cov next season?
Quite an impressive rising from the flames for either.
Always liked a couple of bands from the latter, maybe they should do it for Terry, though dont know whether or not the great man had any interest in football
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Already liked Coventry from their time of the kit with the stripe all the way up with the diagonal bit at either end.
Never liked Luton since 88 and their association with the racist Steven Christopher Yaxley-Lennon.
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Main distant memories of Cov, a strange brown kit, and supporting them in their FA Cup final triumph.
Yes, Luton does have some unfortunate associations, the aforementioned , and Andrew Tate. And of course Robbie Lyle prob not fair to mention him with those two.
Just get a strange feeling it could be Luton’s year , as it was in 88, still don’t know how we lost that game.
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Arsenal launch next seasons new home kit tomorrow, and will wear it on Sunday v wolves, our womens team wear it on saturday v aston villa
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The gold certainly adds a touch of class although I’m sure we’re going to be accused of pretending to be champions.
Most other fans won’t get the tribute to the invincibles as they try and forget it anyway.
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A dilemma of loyalty for Robbie when we meet Luton next season
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He is a diehard Luton so I don’t think he will have much dilemma. ARSENAL was only a surrogate team because his one have been in the wilderness for 31 years.
An absolute epitome of plastic !
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I was really impressed with Brooke Norton-Cuffley yesterday, he didn’t look fazed by the occasion, was good in possession, passed well and took people on with ease.
He also matched Luton’s physicality which some of his teammates couldn’t do.
I was surprised he came off although maybe they thought uhe would tire because of his age.
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The line up might be interesting today because if all the 50/50’s don’t make it both Vieira and ESR will play giving the front line a completely different look.
Unless Mikel decides to go with both Eddie and Jesus.
If it is to be Xhaka’s last game he should be given a proper send off by a crowd that has only just started to appreciate him
We need a glorious end to the season so we can all go into the worst part of the football calender with a smile on our faces COYG.
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Ramsdale, Partey, White, Gabriel, Kiwior, Jorginho, Odegaard, Xhaka, Saka, Trossard, Jesus.
Subs: Turner, Tierney, Smith-Rowe, Nketiah, Holding, Vieira, Nelson, Bandeira, Walters.
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looks like today is Xhaka’s last game for Arsenal, I hope he is taken off with a minute or two to go, and that when he is getting the standing ovation he deserves he cups his ear and gestures like he did in that infamous incident when the idiots where booing him
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today Granit Xhaka plays his 225th EPL game and his 297th Arsenal game in total
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leeds 1-0 behind already
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Xhakaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa scores
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first time xhaka has scored 2 goals in a game for arsenal
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Saka makes it 3-0 to the Arsenal
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saka goal being checked for offside
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goal is given, 3-0, xhaka, xhaka, saka
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leicester city take the lead so as things stand they would stay up and everton would go down
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jesus made it 4-0
saka been kicked out of the game, nelson on
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relegated southampton have come from 2-0 down at home to liverpool to lead 4-2
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now 4-4 at southampton
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xhaka subbed off, gets a great reception
odegaard off too
ESR and Vieira come on
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goalkeeping howler sees kiwior score his first arsenal goal, 5-0 and it also means the most goals for afc in an EpL season
kiwior off tierney on
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nketiah on for trossard
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Brentford do the double over man city
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FT: Arsenal 5-0 Wolves
Xhaka x2, Saka, Jesus and Kiwior with our goals
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leeds and leicester city join southampton in being relegated this season, won’t miss any of them, would have preferred everton go down, but not to be
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A great win to finish the season although city have rested players in a few games the final table shows only five points difference and a win in either of the games against them would have landed us the title.
To have got that close this season is an excellent result.
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There was a lot of love for Xhaka in the stadium today. What an Arsenal journey he has had. Lot of respect for the guy and two goals today, perfect journeys end.
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Glad Xhaka got a great reception, the least he deserves. On the few games I have attended this season, could see he is a very popular player with the crowd, and the true leader on the pitch.massive credit to him for his conduct and playing ability, this team will miss him
I really wish we weren’t letting him go, but guess a long contract in a country it sounds like he and his family will be happy in , can’t blame him for moving on.
If, as I strongly suspect there is a manger/ coach in him, well, who knows one day.
Good luck to GX and his family.
And good to see a finish like that, a sunny day, an excellent performance , a big win, and a happy crowd.
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Arteta when asked about Granit Xhaka leaving the club…
You know that? That’s news for me.
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