184 Comments

For me, Arsenal didn't plan to win the EPL this season, they didn't. And so, Arsenal do not deserve to win the league this season, they don't.

Arsenal didn't strength in the area of topmost priority - centre forward. Before the injuries, Arsenal would have been up there given the chances they're missing. One more thing is that the approach or style of play hasn't been encouraging this season - Arsenal tend to fear or over respect teams. They fall back easily after going ahead. Against Brighton, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea...Arsenal have suddenly built a reputation for themselves to surrender everything once in front, regardless of redcard.

Against Inter and Chelsea Arsenal tried but failed to win. You may accuse mother luck and injury, but I think there's more to it than that.

Can Arsenal get it right this season and chase for the title? I don't think so. Liverpool will get to a point they'll drop many points. City's problems aren't getting away any time soon. United may not find their blend this season. As usual, you don't bet on Spurs - eternal pretenders. UCL football is taking its toll on Villa and Newcastle won't recover this season to pose any kind of threat to whoever wants to win the league.

Opportunity to win it this season will still come begging Arsenal, but the Gunners aren't ready for it yet.

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The David Coote thing doesn’t work well for the Arsenal agenda does it. We have been harping about there being a northwest bias amongst the referees and here comes one who seems to be clearly biased against Pool. Now that one of their fraternity has been caught with their pants down, the others will probably overcompensate in favour of Pool. Arsenal and the south’s agenda of refs being overwhelmingly from the north and thus being biased in their favour will be diluted.

This season has Pool written all over it.

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We should have got rid of that man a long time ago. Most people knew he was an age cheat which speaks volumes about his character.

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Hope that Daily Mail story isn't about one of our players, our season could be about to get even worse.

Daily Mail -

"A Premier League footballer was last week questioned by police following multiple allegations of sex offences. The man, in his 30s, is under investigation for alleged rapes of two women and a sexual offence relating to a third woman.

Police first arrested him at an address in West London in July 2022 on suspicion of rape and he has continued to play for his club since. He attended a station last Thursday and was interviewed under caution."

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I am not as hopeful for glory this season but indeed it is too early to call. This post has given me the hopium I needed. We didn't win but we also didn't lose!

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author

yessssss

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What is wrong with people here? Why are some so thick? Have we ever had this many injuries so early in the season?

Have we ever played so many top teams on the road this early?

Have we ever had this many red cards so early in the season?

People chill the hell out and see some context and nuance … this is why people in football mock the noisy empty barrels online and in the stands.

You can’t just look at results but look at the circumstances behind them … Jeez

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Apart from Ode, we haven’t generally been missing lots of our best players so far this season

We’ve gone through LBs for fun but we have loads and none of us even know who is officially our first choice. That hasn’t been particularly pivotal

Saka missed a couple of games. Sorry not sure who the troves of injured players are derailing our start to the season. Half the time when a top player has been missing it’s because they got sent off.

The Saliba red was justifiable. The trossard one was soft but could be argued either way. The rice one was soft.

I agree we’ve played lots of tough teams but more important than that, we haven’t played particularly well against most of them.

The city game aside, it’s not like we’ve been playing barn storming games slugging it out in elite quality matches left and right. That’s hasn’t happened.

Liverpool we played great in the first half and were miles off it in the second half.

Newcastle was a bore

Chelsea was ok, nothing special

Spurs we were good

Bournemouth did us

And every time we take the lead we give it up these days

If you can’t see that we’re simply not playing particularly well and that both our attack and defense looks and is demonstrably worse than the second half of last season, then who is thick here?

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Dude what are you on about?

We’ve played the toughest schedule out of any team in the league. We finished up our last home game against the league leaders with

Skelly

White

Partey

Kiwior

as our starting defensive line.

We’ve played short handed in three bloody games including two on the road.

We’ve played without our captain and primary play maker since August.

I could go on and on and yet you still don’t get why we are not at our best? Cmon men.

Pep hasn’t faced nearly the competition we have and he’s already dropped four in a row.

Anyway you’re entitled to your opinion but I readily disagree

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That was the city game - which I also credit us for playing well. It’s not particularly indicative of our season so far tho. Meanwhile of that back line you listed, only Skelly is a striking name. White is class at CB. Partey has played well at RB this season (perhaps surprisingly), Kiwior is not the car crash player people like to make out even if he’s not as good as our regular starters

Ode has been the single major regular omission from our season and we’ve missed him. Aside from him, we’ve rolled into virtually every game with a strong starting 11. I don’t sympathize

Re the start to the season being tough, yeah but the performances haven’t been good. *thats* the problem. How many tough games did we play in the second half of last season? Loads. Aside from the CL which we labored in, we played well in almost every tough game second half of last season and won almost all of them to boot.

Did we not play Liverpool spurs city Utd Chelsea Newcastle Brighton Villa in the second half of last season? Did we not win all but 2 (a draw and a defeat)?

Let’s spare the constant excuses when we just aren’t playing well enough to expect to win these games this season

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OMFG!

This is the last I’m commenting on this …

When was the last time Ben White played Centre back for us? Kiwior is a trash center back for the levels we are aspiring for … and you are glossing over the fact of Partey at right back versus Diaz? Are you ok? How can you judge a team or a coach stuck with that line up against the current league leaders and not understand or appreciate the difficulties Arteta has been faced with so far? You just wanna be obstinate … go on and embrace your obtuse point of view if that makes you happy. Just remember LeGrove doesn’t forget

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Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice have withdrawn from England duty.

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That’s what you call in the trade:

“Excellent News”…

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Thanks rapt

Those two games are meaningless under a caretaker manager at the end of his tenure.

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We are more likely to lose more points than Liverpool. It will be foolish for anyone to still keep talking up the league as winnable a this point. We have 3 cups to focus on. That should be our goal.

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What do you have to lose by waiting for another 8 premier league games, to say 'I told you so'?

Midway point, when all the teams have played one another, is the best barometer.

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We may be out of both league cup and fa cup by then. So 2 cups is what I have to lose. It's already mathematically imposible to win the league, why do I have to wait 8 more games to confirm it?

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Give up and focus on the cups after 11 games. Fucking hell. The table bangers in this thread sure have weak knees

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You will glorify another 2nd place finish with no cups as progess and "competing" and I won't be surprised. If at year 5 of a project that has won nothing, you are still this enthusiastic, you must have an agenda

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You have weak knees. That's absolutely fine. A lot of people are the same.

I'd rather enjoy the season than glorify giving up like it's something to be proud of.

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I'd rather focus on winning than actually "enjoying" the season. A lot of fans were "enjoying" the season under Wenger when you had "weak knees"

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Nov 11Liked by Pedro

Can tell those who've never been through the actual grinder of a sporting campaign...

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You definitely don't know what sport is. Lying to yourself about impossible eventualities to feel better ain't it.

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

Stop here bitch.

I've played at the highest level of a sport for over a dozen years-- and competed in two world championship events.

Kiss my (once) athletic ass.

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Then you should know better

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Man, that take? Is so wrong if you've ever been a serious competitor.

Never give up. Never give in.

Make your opponent hate playing against you.

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Pedro. I am usually positive about Arsenal. However, I do think that Arsenal have gone backwards this season.

Our football lacks attacking flair and we have in my opinion been over dependent on defence.

If we are honest I have not seen a dominant performance all season even in our victories.

Okay we can blame our injury record and some poor referee decisions for loss of points in certain games, but that does not tell the complete story.

Arsenal are now 9 points behind Liverpool and also 4 points behind Man City. I don't expect both

these teams to collapse this season as I expressed earlier today.

Arteta performed well in the last 2 seasons, but we have now reached the point where he needs

to win a major trophy. That had to be either EPL or Champions League.

Frankly I don't see us winning either of those competitions this season.

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Nov 11Liked by Pedro

You forget that we were top last Xmas, and by the time we’d been eliminated by Liverpool on the 3rd round of the FA Cup

There was the usual meltdown from the bedwetters.

We didn’t play well in the first half of last season either, but we took 49/54 from our last 18 games.

Meaning we took 40 points from our first 20 games.

7 wins from our next 9 league games, would put us on the same 40 points from 20 games.

Obviously we need to pick it up.

Forest Home, West Ham Away

United Home, Fulham Away

Everton Home, Palace Away

Ipswich Home, Brentford Away

Brighton Away.

4 home, and 5 away in our next 9.

But we’d have then played 20, with 11 away, and only 9 at home.

With successive home games to Spurs + Villa up next.

7 wins from our next 9 isn’t that far fetched, particularly if we get a bit more luck with injuries.

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Rich what you say looks lovely and doable on paper but until we actually start playing better I don’t see where so many good results is coming from

If we were playing really well and somehow just missing that tiny final bit, sure, but we haven’t even got started playing really well yet so I don’t see where the confidence comes from. We are as likely to draw one of our next two games as we are to win the next 3 imo

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author

Mad how quickly people forget:

First half of last season

Being totally confident Klopp would win the league

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There is a fundamental difference between our performance last season and this.

We managed 24 points after 11 games. This season we have managed just 19.

Also we were not 9 points behind Liverpool at this stage last season. We have

managed fewer than 2 points per game whereas last season we averaged over 2

points per game at the same stage.

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Performance and points are entirely different.

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What's your point?

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I assume that by "I think the manager knows the problems...", you primarily meant bringing in a proper striker in the winter window. I really hope that the stubborn Arteta after three seasons has realized that, and won't wait until next summer. Gabi Jesus certainly has to go, so there will be room for Sesko or someone else.

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It's not just an Arteta decision. It's ownership and a braintrust of people that assess the market, the finances, and plan accordingly

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Yes, but surely among them there is at least someone who is serious and who is in favor of bringing in a striker. Havertz is very useful, but he is too busy returning and spends the game on duels and clearing the ball. Arteta's ego convinced himself that Nketiah could do something (which was shown at Palace).

Gabi should be sold to the Brazilians and Trossard to the Arabs. They should open up the bag for Gyokeres, otherwise he will go to United in the summer. While they were thinking how to save 20ish millions, the lucky ones from Manchester got a boost because of Amorim.

There is no way that Arteta has already given up and helplessly waiting for the summer to finally complete the optimum squad. They have to react now, this winter. He saw in the previous two seasons how close he was and that they wasn't going to win the PL title that way. So, I really hope, the third one must be a charm.

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Serious people make strategic decisions for the longterm. Plenty of serious people at Arsenal these days. Arteta's ego had nothing to do with anything. He'd spend £500m if he was given it.

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Well, the point is that he/they should know which reinforcements to prioritize within the budget. Let's see.

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

It's always jam tomorrow with Pedro. For the last five years, and probably the next too. Putting dropped points down to 'luck' is feeble sauce. There are plenty of reasons we are all too well aware of, and clinging on to a straw called luck is just ignoring them. As is your misleading stats about who is leading the race in November, because you miss out the crucial point that none of those early leaders who then folded led by five points. In fact of the few who have led by five points this early they all went to win it. So it's Liverpool's to lose, and just assuming they will fold at some point is wishful thinking. Sure, they might, but I wouldn't bank on it. We will recover of course, but the league, even for the top four is far more competitive than the last two years when Arsenal were able to mount a clear challenge. What we do know is that we have a thin squad which struggles when a key player is absent, despite the £800m spent or whatever it was. We don't score enough, we haven't got a plan B and Arteta is a one system man. We'll see, but no doubt there are plenty of twists and turns to come. But sticking to the 'project' script is a mug's game. There is no script. That, in a way, is the beauty of the game.

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Giving up in November is weak sauce my friend. My stats are absolutely relevant and even more so because Liverpool had a 13 points swing with Arsenal from February.

Put a bet on Liverpool winning if you're that confident in the future and can't see they've had a grand start that won't sustain.

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

Who's giving up? I didn't say that. All I said was you can't predict the future or rely on folk tales like Liverpool collapsing, or 'bad luck', or misleading stats. Whatever happens, it won't be what you, or I, can predict. That is a good thing. I wish you would actually read what I wrote, instead of jumping into excuses and false assumptions to save your flimsy reasoning.

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'Jam tomorrow' is you giving up

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Pedro why they wont sustain it? what is your reasoning? Easy schedule? anything else?

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author

2200 words above explaining my position.

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The past performance of Arsenal is no guarantee of future results...

and expecting another team to drop points isn't a sound strategy...

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1. Expecting Liverpool to drop points was my opinion last season and their fundamentals are worse this year.

2. My opinion is not and never has been an Arsenal strategy

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And now that Saka and Rice are out injured how does Arteta plan to cover for them?

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interesting

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Much ado about nothing with this David Coote "breaking news"

Referees are allowed to have strong opinion about issues, , including personalities in the game, especially when they are inebriated.

Unless you can prove his opinion of Klopp affected his decision making, this is just a storm in a teacup.

Who's the idiot leaking private conversations, by the way. He needs to find better friends.

Don't we all hate Liverpool?

Their hooligan fans got English football banned from European football at a time when we had a good team that would have won major European honors, then they act like they are the perennial victims.

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Man you can’t be serious.

That man should not be allowed to officiate in this league again

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Showing extremely poor judgement-- when your literal job is judging.

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Would you be saying the same thing if what was said applied to Arteta?

I wouldn't be surprised if some had very strong opinions about The Arsenal and Arteta.

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So what, If Arteta acted like a jacked up Jerk in the sidelines and was so condescending then he can call Arteta a Basque Spanish cunt..

You can clearly see the dude was wasted

Klopp was a fantastic manager but who can deny that he sometimes acted like a cunt on the sidelines, like running unto a field during play.

I'm not one of the conspiracy police by the way.

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Diss, they aren't his friends. It looks like he's at an afterparty with strangers.

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is anyone actually surprised by that? I don‘t see conspiracies in refs - they are just unbelievable bad and one if the main reason why they are as bad as they are is down to their arrogance. This is just a prime example what is wrong with PGMOL. The whole structure, recruitment, accountability needs to be adressed otherwise nothing will change

just to add: I still think we tend to be more often on the wrong side if 50:50 decisions but I think that is more based on structural issues (e.g. locational bias due to too many refs from northwest) and sheer incompetence combined with arrogance to believe they are better than anyone else

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'Premier League ref David Coote suspended over Jürgen Klopp outburst'

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/42327274/premier-league-ref-david-coote-suspended-jurgen-klopp-outburst

Yikes. See how PGMOL circles the wagons on this one.

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Rich

Rich

26 mins ago

Sid

Fuck off you cunt.

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Hardly the crime of the century.

Warrant no more than a slap on the wrist really, if that.

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Still, a black eye for an org whose impartiality seems in doubt most weekends.

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"David Coote has been suspended with immediate effect pending a full investigation. PGMOL will be making no further comment until that process is complete."

PGMOL are investigating a video circulating on social media that seems to show referee David Coote describing Jurgen Klopp in what might generously be called less than flattering terms.

https://x.com/Josh97LFC/status/1855968991119872392

Dude called Klopp a cunt several times and how they hate Liverpool. All refs should be really careful.

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It’s such a damning indictment on the unprofessionalism and the inability to be impartial by this body. Pathetic Organization

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This is great. Let them not be careful. Have them show their biases

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I thought they'd be saying how they love Liverpool and hate Arsenal.

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

What a post, some fine writing.

Was down after last batch of games, but looking at AFC's schedule, the injuries, and the ludicrous cards, think we might be in the game.

This quote has been thrown around lately, "no team in Premier League history has gone on to win the title after being nine points off the leaders following the first 11 games."

This- Leicester win league with odds like 5000-1. Saw it with my own eyes.

Last night I watched the Detroit Lions, American Football, come back from a 23-7 deficit at halftime, the #1 qb in the NFL throw 5 picks, 5 interceptions, 5 f'n int's, and the Lions defense then goes on to shut out the Texans in the second half, and the Lions kicked the game winning field goal at death, with a walk on kicker.

No team has ever come back from a 5 interception game since 1970...

If AFC finish the year like they did last year it is doable, pool ain't getting 92 points.

Last word on internationals or whatever the fuck they call them, do NOT let Ode, Saka, Rice, Saliba and Timber go, period, end of story. AFC pay their damn salaries, and if they want to get paid, play for AFC! This is not a world cup year, Euros or whatever other tripe they hold up as competition. I called it when Jesus went to the cup, and he will never be the same. The brainless fuck at Norway played Ode even though he was nursing an injury for weeks, Timber is just coming back from an ACL reconstruction, and Saliba broke his back for goodness sakes, they all have not had a REST!

The best example I can give is Rodri, he even complained about no rest weeks before he got injured.

Who is paying for his salary, the loss of their best player? Sure as hell ain't uefalona, fifalona or some other $h*te run, money sucking organization.

AFC's management needs to put on their big boy pants and lay down the law to our players, I know they want to play, even against their better judgement, but mates, got news, your millions do not come from anywhere but sponsors and AFC!

Let's get this ship righted.

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