Yes, its easy to miss. 10 point clear at the top and with 12 premier league wins in a row are clues that even Sherlock Holmes might have missed.

The Guardian described our start to the game as follows:

'Arsenal seemed intent on “playing dead” faced with a superior predator, refusing to engage with the game at all, like a splayed hedgehog who has, on this occasion, forgotten to curl himself up into a ball.'

We lost to City, a fate that would most probably befall any team that tackled them at the moment.
And we didn't put out our strongest team.
And we shot ourselves in the foot by giving them a one goal start.

So I'm not reading too much into that.

Looking at the table, Everton and Villa are the only sides, I have any semblance of confidence in catching. I think its not even 50/50 we could finish higher than the scum. Mourinho may be having a bad spell but I expect he'll at least manage to keep above us. I also worry about Wolves below us. They could turn the corner.

So, all in all, I think 8th is about as good as we're likely to do. I can't see us getting anywhere close to a Europa Cup unless the best clubs get knocked out first. This season will be a wash. What I want to see:

A good partner for Gabriel. Holding has punched above his perceived weight (although I've been a long time fan), but I don't see him getting that much better. Gabriel has done remarkably well for someone new to the league. His upside is very good. We have to make a decision about Saliba. Holding will make a great back up CB if/when we get a quality partner for Gabriel. Keown to Adams/Bould if you will.

Partey, when healthy and I watch his health closer than the VP of America watches the President's, is worrisome. But its his first season and the pace and physicality of the league, especially in his position, is tough at first. Maybe its Ødegaard, maybe its Smith Rowe but we need a proper central midfield partnership. I still say I'd love to see a Saka/Partey middle, Smith Rowe in there depending on the formation (4-3-3 or whatever)

Willian isn't long term so a proper winger on the right. Pépé...hmm...he seems to play according to the mood of the squad. I won't be looking to him to take any match we are struggling in by the scruff of the neck anytime soon. I also am encoiuraged he seems to be more of a team player than he was prior but still has some ways to go.

I hope Arteta can find a formation that plays Aubameyang and Martinelli at the same....effectively. If not, Martinelli the heir to Aubameyang in a few years. We are fine at LB. Bellerin needs replacing. He's grown in leadership qualities but has maxed out his effectiveness.

(PS: Bring back Fabregas for a swan song season or two to quarterback the team till we find a suitable player for that position )

I think a frustrating aspect of yesterday's game is that bar a 15 min period just before halftime we never really had a go at them. Which is all the more annoying because we actually looked fairly dangerous and opened them up a bit during that time, especially down the left.

I still feel that Arteta's substitutions are often too conservative and too late.

If we'd stuck with Wenger for the last 2.5 years I think we would have got more points than we have, but I also think results would have still regressed just at a slower rate than they have under Emery and Arteta. I also don't think we'd have seen any green shoots of recovery that we have seen under Arteta.
With Wenger it was 1 step back every season. By getting rid of him we probably took two steps back every season BUT we gave ourselves the opportunity in the longer term to take 2 steps forward every season after the slide was arrested, I didn't see any way Wenger was going to take us a step forward whilst he stayed with us.

We definitely seemed far too respectful and nervous of what they could do. But then who in the last 18 games City have played has found a decent formula to even get close to them? In their last 13 league games they have conceded 2 goals from open play and 1 penalty and they are averaging just under 3 goals a game in that time.

When I look at the two teams they are clearly better all over the pitch, but some of our players could be considered 'close' to theirs. The huge gaps in quality were:
Dias, an absolute colossus in defence, probably my player of the year along with Bruno at Man U. He dominates every situation
Cancelo at right back - I don't want to bash Bellerin too much but the difference in quality of the two is huge, Cancelo could (and did) play central mid, his technique, passing and all round game is wonderful
Mahrez/Sterling - two very different players but both so direct and both with end product 20 goals+assists per season. It is an area we've really struggled with.

I’m not sure mate. We were in free fall.

When Wenger resigned I said on here it would take years to undo the damage and decline that had set in and that the task would span more than 1 manager. I was proved right and really don’t see much changing from that. I think Ben summed it up right earlier when he said were into a 5 year project. It’s a complete rebuild and the club have made absolutely crazy decisions off the field. Sanelhi mslintat etc etc there’s no structure there and it must really hurt us.

Spot on

They've definitely stepped up defensively to a point where they're incredibly difficult to even create chances against. Liverpool have shown that you can compete with City even without huge investment from your owner, but the figures City have spent are really crazy. These are the centre backs they've bought in the last seven years (transfer fees from wikipedia, so they should at least be close to the real sum):

Dias 61m
Ake 41m
Laporte 57m
Stones 47m
Otamendi 32m
Mangala 42m

I mean, we talk about how Mustafi didn't live up to expectations and was an expensive flop - City sign a Mustafi pretty much every year. And more importantly, signing these expensive centre backs have no impact on their ability to strengthen other areas. During these years they've also spent huge amounts on the likes of De Bruyne, Sterling, Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Cancelo, Rodri, Walker etc. It's not just a different league, they're operating on a completely different planet.

You are right. Man United and Chelsea also have the luxury of making expensive mistakes in the transfer market.

I think throwing silly money at what we think our problems are would be a recipe for disaster. Careful building, with the occasional big money buy, is the way to go. Success is not impossible with that model, and if it does come (as it did for Liverpool) it is vastly more satisfying.

One of the most important lessons to learn from Liverpool is the importance of success in the transfer market. Since Klopp arrived, these are the players that have cost them more than 20m:

Thiago
Diogo Jota
Alisson
Keita
Fabinho
Van Dijk
Salah
Oxlade-Chamberlain
Mané
Wijnaldum

Out of those 10 signings, I would say only two (Keita and Ox) have been bad buys, while the others are somewhere in the range of good to incredible signings. Getting 8/10 big signings in a five year period right is incredible accuracy, and if we could emulate that I have no doubt we could challenge for trophies as well.

I agree with that and I'm not saying we should have kept Wenger - I definitely wanted him out and realised that we may have to go backwards before we go forwards, that was all acceptable to me rather than just drifting slowly backwards continuously.
I do think wenger would have got us more points because under him I think we slide slowly backwards rather than the giant leaps we've taken. What we're doing is better in the long run.

It is the way we have to go. Just like Liverpool we would need a perfect storm of events to get ahead of those with vast sums of money
1. incredible astuteness in the market. We can't afford big money failures at all
2. Improving players on the training pitch because ready made superstars are generally out of our reach
3. a genius manager who can cultivate that team to be greater than the sum of its parts
4. the likes of city not reaching their best level - because if City do all of points 1-3 as well as having 5 times the budget then you really are never going to beat them

I would add Thiago in as a failure currently. He's been very ordinary and has upset the balance of the team.
To sustain that level of hit rate on transfers is very difficult, Tsimikas and Minimino don't look anywhere near the level of those they're trying to replace. The two new CB Kabak and Davies - jury is well and truly out.
Now Liverpool have an aging team, lots of players at 29 or so who have formed the backbone of their side over the last 3 years of success and hardly any of them have a replacement lined up ready to take over. This is the unseen drift a team can have, marginal drop offs from key players but then a sudden drop as they leave, retire or lose form and half the team is wiped out. Liverpool have 12 players in their sqiad 28 or over, of those 12, 9 would/could be first 11 players - it is only the two full backs who are younger. The squad balance isn't right for them and I think they know it based on the age profile of player's they've been signing - but hardly any of them have been up to scratch

Has anyone seen the penalty that Rashford won for a foul by Willock yesterday? This is the sort of penalty Man U win every single time but no other team does. I've watched the replay a few times and can't see much contact - I've also seen countless Arsenal penalties waved away with far more contact. The one v Leeds, even one Saka had v Wolves.
In some sense I don't care which way the Arsenal decision goes as long as I don't then have to watch numerous examples of other teams being treated differently to us.

I can't agree about Thiago - he's looked pretty ordinary by his standards, but the balance of the team is more likely upset by not having central defenders available for most of the season and having to shuffle around their midfield from game to game. Play Thiago with Henderson or Wijnaldum with Fabinho in his role as the midfield pivot and I think we would see a much different player.

I do agree it's hard to sustain their level of transfer success though, but their big buys still seem good to me. The likes of Minamino, Tsimikas, Davies and Kabak are all cheap transfers or loans, you can always gamble a little bit more with those. Their next big task will be to replace Wijnaldum, who I think is very underrated and has been an important player for Klopps style of football.

A common theme when teams play and lose to Man City is to heap mountains of praise on City, players, managers and fans do it (I've probably done it before) - it is a self preservation method. Praise the obviously best team in the league and mask any shortfalls in your own team by effectively saying how difficult it is to beat them. Interestingly Pep was at it in the opposite way yesterday, lavishing praise on Arsenal saying how we make it really tough for them and therefore by beating us shows how brilliant Man City are.

We've been 5th and 8th since Wenger left. He had his worse finish (6th) his final season I think. It would be interesting to see where Wenger would have finished had he stayed.

I think we'd be on a slow decline. Slow death. He needed to go. The when (and the 'how') were the only questions.

We got to a Europa Cup final and won an FA Cup since he left so that's not too bad.

Thiago was brilliant for Bayern - but we can only judge his success at Liverpool by what we've seen of him there - and it has been average at best. I think there was a piece Wenger did on the balance of Liverpool's midfield being based on high tempo, few touches, break up and get it forward. That isn't what Thiago does, he's a deep lying conductor. I read someone say that when he signed there seemed to be a clear consensus that his signing was one of few foreign signings you could bet your house on was going to be a success - much like Veron!

Big signings have been very good - but their challenge is to keep that going with no mistakes - it will be very hard to do and given the age profile of the team and failure of those signed to replace those players so far means that a lot of these problems might come at once, so rather than gradually replacing 1-2 players each year they might find themselves having to turn over half the team. It was a big problem for the Invincibles as well who broke up very quickly for a variety of reasons.

Most weeks it seems there is another error by a high profile GK. I often see goals which aren't a clear gk error but could easily be avoided with a more aggressive GK rather than the pass-the-buck style that so many GK have by sticking religiously to their goal line. De Gea is the best at this. Stays on his line and then tries to pull of a wonder save, looks great when he does it but for my money anything in the 6 yard box and between the width of the goal posts has to be the GK ball every time.
Lloris was massively at fault for the first west ham goal for me, he came and panicked and ran back to his line, the ball bounced inside the 6 yard box - he should have been out and dominated the situation.
A GK who is incredibly consistent and flies under the radar is Schmeichel at Leicester. This season, Ederson, Schmeichel, Leno and Martinez have been the best GK in the league for me.

For the last couple months I stopped watching a lot of football. I barely got up the energy to watch us but even then I did so halfheartedly. Didn't pay too much attention of what was happening around the league, despite still posting a fair amount of posts on here.

I was so out of football, City's run went unnoticed. Now I'm worried. Had no idea of their run. Barely watched us and even skipped some Europa games of ours which I'd never have done before. This season, there isn't anyone to really stop City it seems. Liverpool is underwhelming, the rest of the top are decent enough but no where near City from what I'm seeing now. In fact, I'd say Leicester is probably the 2nd best team out there from the limited amount of football I've seen. But that's just from casual observation. City have West Ham, Wolves and Man Utd coming up, and any of them could nick a point off them and as we know anything could and does happen in football, a win by any of those opponents wouldn't be a complete shock to most.

That said, they could run the table I fear. This could be their year for the CL

Not sure what you're worried about AG, pretty certain we're not catching City even if they lose form

...finding out about City's run is depressing.

As for us, our 'project' is only as promising as Kroenke's mood. So, I'd temper any optimistic ambitions based on that fact. The Glazers take a dividend out of the club, which isn't a common thing but they can't be accused of not opening up their wallets. They may see Man Utd as the same as Tesla stock but they are smart enough to know that revenue is tied to success on the pitch.

I hope Glazer would drop that bit of advice to Kroenke at the next NFL owner's meeting.

Well, just an opinion. No need to get all worked up because we differ. Chill!

I concur that Arteta is too conservative, not just for substitutions, but in his tactics. I'm losing confidence in him.

I'm the opposite generally. Whilst I do agree he is risk-averse in certain situations, I think we're on the right track with Arteta. It's a long term job (I *%^@*** hate the term "project"). It's worth sticking with it because we're comfortably a mid-table team at present and no one is going to change that overnight. As others have said, Raul was a disaster, Gazidis jumped ship at the first opportunity, Huss Famy was not up to it etc. This feels like progress to me, albeit one that will take time to develop. It might end up being another false dawn, but I do think we're appearing to make the right moves to clearing up the mess that has been around for some time.

If we're going to legitimately criticise him for being too conservative then we also need to consider the times he has gone on the front foot and got it right. Chelsea at home we went for them with high tempo football and stormed in to a 3-0 lead. Similarly against Leeds, very much a high press to really pressurise Leeds. His tactics helped win both games.

My view with Arteta is not necessarily judging every decision he makes but looking longer term and seeing if he is not continually making the same mistakes and to see if he is evolving in to a better manager. I've said before that hiring Arteta was like sticking a 17 year old up front and relying on him for your goals all season - but also hoping that in a few years as his game evolves he turns in to a lethal striker. He is going to have bad games and he's going to make mistakes but if we think long term he is the right man to see us through and out the other side of this transition/rebuild then we need to have some patience and perspective.
From what I've heard his 'coaching' on the training pitch is excellent - it makes sense as that is where he made his name. There will be lots of managerial qualities he needs to improve and timing of substitutions may be one but lets see how it goes.

The thought of Spurs fans wrestling with the dilemma of sacking Jose with a £30m payout or having to stick with him fills me with joy.
Ironically, of all the seasons that Son and Kane might actually want to leave Spurs this might be the season that they can't simply because no one will be able to afford the fee. Will anyone pay £100m for Kane when Haaland is available for less and Mbappe for potentially similar fee. Both are better and 8 years younger

Thanks Darren, for putting it in perspective. I just hope Arteta puts more faith in the Saka-ESR partnership. And make a quick call on Aubameyang, who is not the same player he used to be. Was hoping Leeds wasn't a "flash in a pan" performance from him. Against City, he was too easily checked by the City defenders. Ødegaard was too conservative last night, and passed back more than he moved forward with the ball. Wonder if it was Arteta's instructions?

Thanks Rich, like the additional perspective of Arteta. Sometimes I like to put it out there and hear differing views. My "voice" may sound absolute, but I certainly know I am not the best judge of tactics and the likes.

I don’t get this point about conservative substitutions. Yesterday he brought on ceballos, Lacazette and smith Rowe. Is the suggestion that was wrong ?

What did people want him to do bring on a striker and take off a defender?

Every game he doesn’t bring on Martinelli he seems to get stick for it but that player is just as off form as Willian.

I really don’t understand what people are expecting, as we pointed out last week in the big games under Wenger we were getting our arses podgered relentlessly without lube and at that time we longed for a different approach to our ridiculous gung ho brand of football that let our enemies score 5 or 6 againest us.

Now we have that and Arteta has got a reasonably solid back 4 in place and a stellar defensive record is starting to form but now the accusation is we are too conservative. It’s just silly.

The other thing about City and Pep that I admire is how little fuss they made of their poor season last year and poor start this year. They are wise enough to know that even the best don't win every match and win the league every year (unless its a really poor league). City know what they have got and know not to abandon a long term project because of a bad patch of form.

Arteta began to look a little bit like he was getting rattled when we were having our terrible run. However, the way he responded to that, most notably in the Chelsea game, gives me considerable optimism that he is growing into the job. He has a plan on how he wants the team to play and is intent on building towards that. One also senses we are not going to buy players unless they are exactly right. Sure, our results are still patchy, but that is exactly what I expected this season.

Since Christmas Arsenal have:

2nd best defence in the league.
3rd most goals per game.
5th best points per game.

A lot of that missing Partey and Tierney. There have been improvements. Even in those two games we lost against villa and wolves were worlds apart from when we lost to them both at home, we deserved nothing from those home games but deserved much more from the away games.

Reading more rumours linking Bellerin with a move away from the club in the summer. Barcelona and PSG linked, if we can get a fee of £25m or so we should definitely sanction the move. I think there are a vast number of right-backs in just the prem who suit our game. And with that sort of money I think you could find a right footed Tierney.

https://www.planetfootball.com/quizzes/ ... t-arsenal/

If you've got some time to kill take on this Arsenal quiz. 99/126 to beat

Its also worth noting that last season they had an incredible run with injuries. Van Djik, Salah, Mané, TAA, Robertson, Fabinho barely missed a game. This season they are probably closer to a normal season injury wise and they are struggling.

Its his first ever management role and he is learning on the job with a disjointed side. Losing confidence in him 1 year into the job is crazy.

Totally agree, give the guy a break for God’s sake. The results aren’t great but since Christmas we’ve improved significantly.

People are essentially advocating sacking George Graham before he had the chance to rebuild and move out Nicholas and sansom for smith, bould and Dixon.

He needs transfer windows and the opportunity to restructure his squad.

Yeah, they've had a couple of seasons where they've been incredibly lucky with injuries. That has turned around big time this season though, losing their three best central defenders for most of the season is a huge blow.

Going back to the point about big signings, we're still a little hit and miss in the post-Wenger era. Of the seven players we've signed for 20m or more I would put Leno, Partey, Tierney and Gabriel in the good category, they all look like they could be cornerstone pieces in the team we're trying to build. Torreira has to be labeled a flop considering the money we spent, and the jury's still out on Pépé and Saliba (though at this point they're probably leaning slightly more towards bad than good). Think we have a very important summer coming up, where we have to make sure the players coming in are of the right quality.