What must Declan Rice be thinking, he just looks genuinely happy to be playing in this team and at this level, he’s been totally vindicated in making the move and believing in his ability to perform at the highest level. It’s rare for a player to come in to a new team and immediately settle as he has and more than that almost instantly become a leader in the team. He’s been better than I thought he would be.

Also great to see White’s agent or whatever coming out into the media with a polite statement to the effect of “you have no idea what’s going on in the guys life so *%^@ off”.

Is it just Klopp or is it the new thing to compare misfortune with other teams fortune? Klopp moaning about his central pairing and decides to mention Saliba and Gabriel as if that’s the only reason why we’re currently ahead of Liverpool. Fans have always done it but now opposition managers too.

Need Brighton to do us a favour tonight, I can’t see city dropping points from their other fixtures. Spurs doing us a favour 2nd to last game of the season ? No chance they’ll throw it.

This season has been mental.

Yes these were men who were unbelievably brave. My grandfather was a light horse man in WWI. He never spoke of the war and nor did 2 uncles who were in New Guinea in WW2. There is a great cricket story relating to Keith Miller who was a pilot in WW2. At a cricket function , I believe around the time of Steve Waugh, one of the then current players said to him of course you played at a time where you wouldn’t have known pressure. Keith turned to him and said words to the effect: when your flying a mission over Europe and you’ve got a meschersmit up your arse that’s f… pressure.

Not if CL qualification is still on the line.

Am I right that CL qualification will still be top 4 only?

Yes. I think the english clubs losing in the semi smashed any chance of 5.

Thing is if we beat them Sunday it utterly torches their top 4 hopes. It’ll be over by the city game

That is a worry. Their run in is horrible.
We'll have to hope Villa comes unstuck.

Letter in mailbox for footy 365

Shall we just let full-backs be full-backs?
With Trent and zinchenko consistently being both incapable and disinterested in defending in equal measure – I think the inverted fullback will be the way of the dodo by August.

Inside forwards. Sweepers. Inverted fullbacks. All positions for the history books.
Johnno


https://www.football365.com/news/klopp- ... he-mailbox

The common thinking is we need a holding center mid, a left back and a striker in the summer.
Do we really need a striker? Sounds a bit crazy to say maybe but I've heard it said we don't need a traditional number 9. Or its the last piece and a center midfielder and full back are the priority.

No problem. I've deleted all the double posts.

No problem. I've deleted all the double posts.

I've never quite understood some players like Michael Owen, Carragher who hate Arsenal so much. You'd think Everton or Man Utd. Surprised he went to Man Utd. There are other northern players as well who seemed to have a grudge against us. Can't recall fully but Shearer doesn't like us either right? Does he hate Man Utd?

It's a north vs south (London) thing and/or a British vs foreigner thing. That's my best guess. A team of foreigners giving it to them large. And London to boot.

I hope fans have forgiven Cesc. My favorite Arsenal player (along with 2 others)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6JnMV3I ... NkeWRuenU1

It's funny, considering how crap he is, how we always score loads of goals when Havertz plays up front. I just can't figure it out.

On the other hand, when those planks really need to step up and do the business, they usually crumble so a low stakes game where they have no pressure might be the thing. It's clutching at straws to expect anything from them either way.

Thanks

Thanks again.

Comfy I bet!

Think our GD advantage is going to have a big bite taken out of it tonight. Brighton look utterly hopeless against City. Somehow coming third in everything.

You always have a bit of hope, no matter how slim. However, I think it's over. These cheats are going to win all of their remaining games unless they have it won before the last day.

Hard to disagree. Much as I try. I wish all them that they deserve and more.

Brighton were a do or die team to play City. With their style of football if they get it right they can beat the best, but if they get it wrong and they have tonight and generally recently then they are horrible and far too open and a gift of 3 points. Plenty of bad injuries for Brighton this year and I’m not sure who the player is that they’ll sell for millions this summer…..
To think Chelsea took Cucurella and Caicedo from them for £170m and we took White and Trossard for £71m

Brighton not given an obvious pen there. Good one ref and Var

Last time I looked we were top of the league. There's more than hope

Hi Rich, not sure they need to, as you say the obscene money they’ve got from Chelsea must have them set for years. They don’t spend big on transfers or wages.

Adingra looks to be the most likely candidate to be next to one to be worth 50m+ but they have Enciso too and Even Ferguson of course who was being touted at 100m+. If they come back from injury and build, their play style means these players in theory slot into ball dominant top 6 teams, ie the ones with the money, it’s very clever.

Ironically their best sales, Caicedo and Cucarella - stinking out Stamford bridge like a pair of 170 million pound polished turds - probably mean teams will be a lot more wary with Brighton players who start tearing it up from this point onwards.

I'd swap it for my bed

This may sound silly but looking at both schedules, I worry a wee bit of the goal differential being reduced significantly.

They are a point behind with a game in hand and an easier run of fixtures. They have done this several times before. We are hoping for an upset which looks very unlikely.

https://x.com/scrapytweets/status/17835 ... -j6VVZXEoA

This was the free kick City got for the 2nd goal

Realistically the only way GD becomes a factor is if City draw 1 game and then we match each others results in the 4 remaining games. So they’d have to beat us by 2 goals per game in 4 matches to overhaul the + 8 we have on them. Doable but unlikely in just 4 games I’d have thought.

We added +1 to the GD between us this midweek

https://x.com/officialvizeh/status/1783 ... -j6VVZXEoA

This wolves goal was given on the pitch but var ruled it out. It wasn’t offside, and without going to the comments which explain why it was ruled out is there anything anyone can see which deserves the var ‘clear and obvious error’ intervention?

It was for a foul in the build up, think there was a perceived arm to the face on the touchline before the pass to the winger who crosses it in. Haven’t seen it and that video is a bit grainy so can’t really tell. Might be B.S. but that was the reason given. Heard one journalist agree with the decision, whatever that’s worth.

You're right it was for an arm in the face in the build up. I'd argue that it was accidental and certainly not worthy of a VAR overturn. There is just zero inconsistency. We're told there is a deliberate very high bar for overturns because PGMOL don't want to re-referee games - which leads to penalty decisions like the one Joao Pedro should have had last night not being given (they were 4-0 down already I'm not complaining about the result), and also ones like Szobaslai was given for Liverpool earlier this season allowed to stand.

Our referee team for the NLD is Michael Oliver as ref (regularly been criticised for giving Man City favourable decisions this year after his jaunt to UAE to ref games for the City owners) and Liverpool fan Jared Gillet on VAR who has a history of awful decisions against us.

I do find it odd still that in however many years of the Premier league and professional refs that to my knowledge not a single ref when having to declare their club support has ever told the authorities they supported Man U, Man City, Arsenal, Spurs or Chelsea. The last 3 can be somewhat explained by not a single ref in the past 20 odd years coming from London - the odds of that are ridiculous. But for so many refs to be born and bred in the north-west and the only ref who claims allegiance to any of the big teams there is the Australian guy.

https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/which-f ... 7933177b98

Howard Webb is Rotherham fan and the guy I think is the best ref in the country Anthony Taylor, born and bred in greater Manchester would die wearing an Altrincham Town shirt

Sorry Danny it’s over. It went at Villa. All those people bombing out the ground after the first goal knew what had happened. We needed them to drop points last night.

It’s theirs and I’ll go one further and say they will end up topping our goal difference by the time the season ends with the fixtures they have coming up so we will need a defeat rather than a draw anyway.

It’s gutting because we made such a noble effort and there will be nothing more ironic than us bravely beating spurs on Sunday then still losing the title anyway.

Great effort but this is virtually impossible for Arsenal given the current state of our squad. It’s a 90-100 point season required to win the premier league now. Utterly mental

Yup. We need to just keep winning our game and try to ignore what City do. Even if City do win all their games (which is likely), and if we keep them under pressure to the end, it will be an amazing feat.

Yes, even if we win our games by 1 goal, they'd have to win by an average of clear 3 goals in the 4 games (excluding the one they draw). I wouldn't put it past them but it would be some going!