Hello and how are you? This game needs no introduction as its all everyone’s been talking about it for months, it’s hotter than a desert, or a Sydney Sweeney jeans advert, the Venice Biennale or the latest gossip on You Tube political pundit street! And the media aren’t much on our side…do we need them? For them its City, all the way.
To answer the preview title question; it all depends on which Arsenal turns up, it’s been a theme all season. This is a team that has beaten Bayern, Atlético and Inter, but who drew with a poor Wolves side and looked like boys against Bournemouth. Until the beans are spilt, I have no idea why we were so scared to go into that game. I hope we’ve mustered a bit more courage after reaching the CL Semis, again.
One thing worries me, that this is being dubbed the ‘title decider’. I preach a bit of caution here; there’s still a handful of games to go and either of these two teams could still fall foul from teams wanting to stay up or grab a Europa place. It’s over only when it is, he said clinging like a fool to the sinking life raft of hope…but who wouldn’t, hopes all we’ve got?
Merino’s out for the Gun, but everyone else might be or might not, looks like we will wait until an hour before KO to know.
City reckon that dangerman O’Reilly will be ready after a hamstring problem, Stones, Dias and Gvardiol are AWOL due to injury.
I went over to Statto HQ and amongst the pizza boxes, discarded Bric-a-Brac, the dirty linen, the holy Coca-Cola tins, the punctured footballs, they gave me the figures: Manchester City, 52% chance of winning, Arsenal FC, by far the greatest team the world has ever seen; 22.6% (its risen in the last 24hrs!)…it’s the lowest all season.
Next up like, it’s a visit from the Geordies at ours. So, please, please, please COYG!
Mills
I’ve been saying all season that eventually “performances will be reflected with results” , well guess what, they have. The problem with that statement is that statistics can be used to claim performances have been a lot better than my eyes lead me to believe. Well they can if you are selective with which stats you use. Relatively speaking we score lots of goals and concede few, but our open play xG against top teams is dire ( usually < 0.3 ). Anyway, I’m no expert on such things so I’ll leave stats there.
What I do know however is how I feel going into this game, and it’s not good my friends. Of course I want to be positive, but I’m just not. Nothing I’ve seen in recent weeks/months give me much hope. My only hope is that these lads get in the huddle and say ” F*ck it, let’s get stuck into this lot”, but seriously, what’s the chances of that?.
I apologise if you can taste my distain for Arteta, but I can’t supress it any longer, my disappointment has has crushed me.
So in the words of Charlie Kirk “Prove me wrong”. Please for once , let me be wrong.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
Great Preview lads, I normally prefer Mill’s long winding summer strolls through history but I think today called for a short speech and both of you got it spot on. Actually the stats from stato HQ that Mills gave us it is the one missing that is most interesting, 25.4% chance of a draw meaning we have a 48% chance of a favourable result.Mikel said before last week’s game there is no fear and he lied, he is saying this week he wouldn’t take the draw and he lied again.
There is massive talk about cities momentum and form and it appears that their vehicle is back to juggernaut and we are more of the rickshaw variety but actually over the last three game weeks we have gained a point on city as they have drawn two and won one and we have won two and lost one.
Opinion about form is based upon their demolition of us in the league cup, Liverpool in the F.A.cup and Chelsea in league.
Cities draws has hampered them this season and although people are quoting their unbeaten run their winning run in the league is just one.
Our views are based on our recent performances against city in the final and the disastrous game against bournemouth where we just didn’t show anything in what was supposed to be today’s warm up.
Personally I would play a five on the line, five on the six yard box and one on the penalty spot system. We know we’re not great at breakaways so we do need to get back to making the most of dead ball situations and being a miserly as we can be in defence.
If we do go ahead then waste time hug the corner flag and become really awkward bastard’s to play against. We don’t need a beautiful game performance today but we do need a professional performance to get the job done, protect the full backs, protect the space behind, protect the edge of the box and frustrate, frustrated, frustrate (city not us.
Being a true fan is never easy and like they say stupid people don’t get depressed only fans that love will feel the hurt. The game today will I’m sure be very difficult watch while it’s going on but this game has been a monkey on our backs for months and if we can feel relief and joy at the final whistle then a lot of the anxiety will disappear for the final games COYG.
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Great post Ian. COYG!
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Man city will go top of the EPL if they beat, sorry when they beat Burnley on Wednesday
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Arsenal have lost to the teams in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th in the table
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if we don’t win a trophy this season I really don’t see how Arteta continues as manager, as the fans are turning, and it would not take much for them to turn on him next season.
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if city win all their remaining 6 league games, Arsenal have to win their remaining 5 games and have a better goal difference than city, sounds doable when you say it quick, but out scoring city probably harder than actually winning our 5 games. The like for like subs Arteta so loves will just not cut it.
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Did you think we looked better with Eze on the pitch rather than Trossard..?
I think if we lose to Newcastle, and go out of the CL, then maybe Ed.
As Ian pointed out, Im glad its over. And we played better than I thought…
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Obviously gutted about the result today but at least we showed up unlike the cup final.
After ten minutes in the first half I thought they would cut us apart and we would be on the end of a hiding. However in the second half we looked more dangerous, yes so did city but the chances were there.
We obviously needed to go ahead first but our chances came and went and once city went ahead the hill became a mountain.
Kai should have scored and to head it over from that perfect cross from that range was criminal but overall he played well.
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on paper City probably have a slightly tougher run in that Arsenal, but as Brian Clough once said, football is not played on paper.
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Trossards cross was a beauty, Kai’s header looks like it going in but he cant get it down. Trouble is it was going straight for the keeper and not to the sides of him…
A lot of hubris around City, they think theyve won the league, Im not sure. I know it looks like they can cruise it but Brentford and Bournemoth want Europa spots.
They got the win, and thats fair enough, even the stats were on their side(LOL) but theres some interesting games to play out for both of us. Villa and Palace could be slippery banana skins. Who knows even Burnley might pull something of of the hat ( yeah right Mills).
Plus Southampton are still running well, up to fourth and they might pull of another shock?
The signing of Cherki was maybe the element that saved City?
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I think it was the January signings that rekindled city
The citizens of manchester play Everton, Brentford, and if they beat Southampton they will have rearranged fixtures against Bournemouth and Palace in midweek games. They finish the season against Villa. I would say all of those fixtures are difficult.
We play newcastle, fulham and burnley at home and west ham and palace away. If palace get to the conference final then our game is just three days before a they may be resting players against us.
The fixtures are massively in our favour unfortunately form and the likelihood of scoring lots of goals are not. Since demolishing the spuds at the end of February, March and April have seen us play five league games winning three losing two scoring seven goals and conceding five.
The most goals we have scored in a game is two and included in that seven was today’s goalkeeping error, Saka’s deflected effort against Brighton and a pen for handball against Bournemouth. Another goalkeeping error against Everton and the Dowman breakaway when their keeper was in our area. The two goals against Chelsea were both from corners.
Now how you score goals doesn’t matter if you just have to win games but to not have one good well worked goal in five of games doesn’t bode well for a goal difference shoot out.
So we are going to have to win this thing on points and we are going to have to win all five games and watch city stumble on their hard run in.
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well Ian i see a lot of Gooners hanging their hope on the
“city won’t win all their games”
but my counter to that is
“will Arsenal win all their games”
which is more likely, and as you say Ian, if we do end up level on points are we really going to out goal difference city when we haven’t seen any sort of football that would suggest we know how to create goals and give a team or two a real drubbing. We were 2-0 up against Wolves, relegated Wolves, one of the worst teams in the history of the EPL, and instead of giving them a 5-0 or more beating, it ended 2-2. All season long after we score, be that to take the lead, or to draw level in a game, we lower the tempo, we go safe, and encourage opposition to come at us, why I don’t know cos we haven’t a clue how to counter attack at speed.
Arteta after the game at his usual bullcrap about a game of fine margins, he is the cunt that has made every game be about small margins, he has given every opponent a punchers chance to take points off us, and you know what in our 33 games 12 teams have taken points off us.
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serious question Ian, both Arsenal and Man City play Burnley and Crystal Palace in our remaining fixtures, lets just assume that both Arsenal and City win both games, but one of the two title contenders will beat Burnley and Palace by 4 or 5 goals or more, while the other contender will only win by 1 or 2 goals, who would your money be on to get the big wins. I wouldn’t even put someone else’s money on Arsenal hitting any of our remaining opponents for 4 or 5 goals, I’m not saying it won’t happen, just that the odds on it happening is slim
we’ve managed 3 goals or more in the league in 8 games this season
3 v Bournemouth, Sunderland, Forest
4 v spurs x2, leeds, aston villa
5 v leeds
plus I’ll add that we conceded goals in 4 of those 8 wins scoring 3 or more goals, which again is not what we will need in a fight to improve goal difference if that is what it comes down to.
second question Ian on our need for extra goals, do you think that Arteta will take off the handbrake in our 5 remaining fixtures, I don’t, I really don’t think he is capable of doing it, just not going to abandon his tactics. As the above list of 8 games show, we can put teams to the sword but its not by design.
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I’m just about ready to tap out.
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As I said I don’t think we can outscore city, especially as they have the GD advantage of an extra game.
I think if we beat them it will be on points. As I outlined our fixtures are easier both in the points table and the form table.
The highest team we play in the form table is palace and if they do make it to the final, they won’t be able to put their strongest team out against us.
city have a run where they have lots of banana skins so I certainly don’t think it’s over yet, but yes we have to do our part and win our remaining games.
If city win all their remaining games and win on GD you have to take your hat off to them and say they deserve it.
To have the balls to rotate players and manage the squad to finish strongly is a great skill and all the best managers can do that.
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Chelsea have sacked Liam Rosenior following the club’s dismal run of form and appointed Calum McFarlane as caretaker manager for the rest of the season
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Hopes a werid thing: you end up watching Burnley v City, hoping that Burnley pull of a miracle, but intuitively knowing City will probably hit the for five. GRRR!
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Arsenal now 2nd in the table behind Man City on goals scored, both teams have a +37 goal difference, so its a shoot out for the title over the next 5 rounds of games
Arsenal play twice in the EPL before Man City play in it again. So over to Arsenal now, we will see what they are made of now
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Arsenal U18’s beat Reading U18’s 3-0 yesterday, and Mikel Arteta’s son Gabriel Arteta made his competitive debut as a sub, he played wide midfield
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George, sent the Newcastle preview over, like. COYG!
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