Worth noting of Ben white doesn’t shank his cross in the top corner and does what he was actually likely trying to do then we have two players completely free in the middle for the tap in from his cross

White was trying to help Havertz get his hattrick

Yes, since Xmas we’ve been far more convincing in our victories than either Liverpool or City, who have often had to come from behind or have given up far more chances in games…but the league is unforgiving and it’s just the 3 points that matter, so even not at their best they’ve had enough to win the games and keep pace with us

I am completely hear for the bitterness of Chelsea’s Twitter admin refusing to name Havertz as the goalscorer of our 3rd and 4th. Haha

Excellent result and performance.

Partey’s contribution will be vital in the next few games.

It's sad we have seen so little of it. Partey at his best allows the other two so much licence. Rice was playing box to box.

Its also a shame that City's run-in is not just a little bit more tricky. Hard to see them dropping points but, hey, football's a funny old game.

Perhaps informs us what kind of midfielder we should be after this summer. Partey 2.0 easy peasy.

Its a massive ask, but Arteta and Edu's recruitment has been outstanding.

I think we will bring in a deep lying midfielder who can break lines with his passing.

If you look at Partey his strength was never an energy powered tough tackling midfield player. He was a playmaker who could operate from deep, shoot and distribute. I think you are right. Partey mark 2 is likely to arrive.

Given the squad they inherited it’s been a massive turnaround of ins/outs and getting the right pieces at the same time.

Only miss I can see so far is maybe Vieira. haven’t seen much of him but don’t think he fits the mould of the combative front foot tackler that we need for the high press.

Saw 15 mins of highlights on the way to work and how Rice managed to not score I don’t know. Such a complete midfielder except in that one thing but am almost certain he’ll be scoring more next year.

So good to trounce the blue mob too.

Not sure about the thinking on the tackling of Partey mark 1 TG.

In the Xhaka days before Rice arrived he was easily our most influential disruptive player in midfield.

He may well have been but he’s never been our disruptive shield if we are honest. Everyone expected a vieira which he isn’t.

His value has always been on the ball.

Sperz are triple motivated to beat us. They are vying for a CL spot and the millions that comes with it. They would love nothing more to scutter our title hopes and finally, well, its a NLD after all, tons of pride. Their fans will consider it a successful season beating us.

They have to be hating all the positive press we are getting and us being the lead. I'm just not sure what tactic they will ensue. I'm guessing they'll try to press us from the keeper. I can see Arteta then using Jorginho possibly. Partey did have a good game and they are so good on the counter. Can't see any 0-0 game as we need to win. Both need to win but Sperz will surely be happier about a draw than we will.

The Brighton game is a possibility.

Ben White has been fantastically consistent this season and it’s so damning of Southgate and Steve Holland that they have f-ed up having the best right sided combination in the league for the England national team. Yes England have lots of good RB but the understanding White has with Saka would be invaluable to England

City has lost 3 games. Besides us, Villa and Wolves away. All within the first half of the season. Since then, they have drawn but have not lost.

They are prone to draws. I don't see them losing but a draw or two would not surprise me one bit.

I think if we’d managed to get even just 75% of THAT Partey this season we’d have the title wrapped up already. Add in Timber as well.

I know others have had injuries but these two fill very specific gaps in our ability. Partey’s one touch forward passing is so crucial and even having just seen a small portion of what he can do I Think Timber has the attributes to be the best full back at the club

This is going to sound a bit crazy and perhaps it is. I think trying to win at Man Utd is going to be harder than trying to win at Sperz. For whatever reason, no matter how badly they are doing, we have trouble getting all the points at Anfield and Old Trafford.

Sperz have been visibly better than us till a year ago. We beat them away I think early 2023. Our first season back to being decent and we won there. We are much better than them now but we have a better record of winning there generally than we do at Old Trafford.

It's just one of those things. I recall Liverpool fans at the pub I used to watch games in LA say the same about trying to beat Man Utd away when they were often mid table and they were winning titles in the '70s and '80s. We may need to win there. It may also be a conflicting emotions game for them too. Man Utd fans want to see us win. They don't want Liverpool to equal them for titles and they don't want Man City to win 4 straight EPL titles which they think no one will be able to equal. We are the lesser of 3 evils. Which also tells you the lack of respect that has happened since our great rivalry.

Just one of those things.

On another note, I am hoping we can get Timber on the bench and into a game with 15 minutes or so to go. Maybe the pace of the game is a bit too much for him right now I fear. He and the coaches know better than me. But I am a huge early fan of his, just like I was of van Persie and knew he would huge for us.

My other fear is the bookies and fans will have everyone thinking we are going to waltz into their stadium and win. Maybe not be easy but think it will be easier than it may actually be. Of course, we'd all love to dominate them and win fairly convincingly. This is their cup final. Pride and hatred alone will have them playing well. They are well rested and my fear is they will be first to every 50/50 ball and just be a step too fast. I don't want to have to play catch up.

We have gotten very, very lucky on defense. Brighton should have had at least one goal. Chelsea should have had a goal or two. Wolves should have had a goal. We're riding our luck. Gabriel and Saliba are solid but I see little bits of small cracks in their defense.

Apart from offside decisions VAR just seems like a method to protect and enforce the on field refs decisions on the pitch. The threshold for over turns has been set so ridiculously high that you wonder whether the real motive is so the on field decision is not criticised because var is backing it up.

A smart next move is to have a completely separate set of var officials who only do var and don’t ref on field. We would lose the notion of marking your own homework

People will say we bottled it if we lose the title but the fact is City are a juggernaut in the business end of the season.

2023 from Feb 12th to May 21, 14 wins, 1 draw. They dropped points last 2 games but both games were moot as far as the title.

2022 season Feb 26th to May 22, 9 wins 3 draws.

2021 season Nov 28 to March 2, 15 straight wins. Season effectively over, last 11 games 4 losses but they won the league by 12 points. Man Utd were runners up and dropped to 2nd in late January. 8 draws but didn't lose any games.

I and others say Saka has been run to death and needs a rest. Ødegaard has been run as hard but he puts in a captain's performance week in, week out. He really does need a rest but he won't waver, he's trying to lead by example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8lWOVU ... WL&index=7

Will they emulate us?

Congratulations again Xhaka and Leverkusen.

You get the odd bad results here and there. Truth is we shouldn't have lost any games after beating Liverpool. It was crunch time as we say in the states. Draws will happen. But the home loss to Villa is a result you don't get when you are trying to get a title. A draw is far more understandable. City haven't lost games in months. They have drawn but haven't lost.

Ben white has more premier league goals and assists this season than Anthony does in his entire Man U career in the prem.

Is Anthony the worst signing ever in the premier league?

This by Barney Ronay in the Grauniad this morning:

Martin Ødegaard was sublime, such an odd mix of roughhouse pressing and wonderful surgical passing, like being hounded to death by a poet.

Love that - what a great piece of writing.

Very well put. The sheer willpower that Ødegaard exudes on the field is mesmerising. We have several players like that (Rice and Gabriel come to mind).

Yes. He’s absolutely useless.

He’s basically Nicolas Pépé without the goals and assists. Imagine that.

Maybe I'm bored (obviously lol) but looking at the game from the sperz point of view, they have to be very worried.

They know its very possible to be rolled over by us. We are in a title race, its an NLD, we must win, so they have got to be thinking a draw is a good result right now. If they can nick a win, fine, but they may play tight at the back and soak up pressure but its not their style. If they come out like Villa, they are more than worried.

I was a little disappointed in our first match. We scored first, own goal on them mid way first half, then Son scored a few minutes before half time. We scored in the first few minutes second half and a mistake by Jorginho right after and they equalize, we didn't really look like scoring. Neither did they but still. We should have won that game.

Plus obnoxious and arrogant. Useless and a complete W*&ker is quite a combo.

A flash in the pan in the Dutch league that caught United's magpie eye. £82 million!

I’ll also add that Arteta would have him nowhere near our squad.

It would be another Özil, Guendouzi, Aubameyang exile situation. Seems crazy to think now he was getting pelters for ostracising those guys. Remember Bernard’s ridiculous posts about Guendouzi and Ceballos.

Here's Santi on his mate Mikel:

Cazorla saw Mikel Arteta’s managerial potential before anyone and it was bloody annoying. “Injured, watching games together, he would get the remote and pause it. ‘What are you doing?’ He would say: ‘Go back, go back’, rewind 30 seconds, and ask: ‘What do you see?’ ‘I see a paused screen! What do you want me to see?!’ He would say: ‘Look at this guy here, how badly he’s positioned. If he goes here, and he goes there, this space opens’. Every game, pausing every 20 seconds. The match has finished and we’re still in the 20th minute. I’m thinking: ‘What’s with this guy?’

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... ot-allowed

Absolutely. Arteta clearly puts great stock in, and is an excellent judge of, character, and it is paying dividends.

Could you ask for better characters than Ødegaard and Rice? Trossard is also a gem willing to do whatever job is asked or sit on the bench. The same could be said for just about the whole squad, including players who may have question marks about their ability or attributes.

Chelsea threw in the towel after we got the second. Our lot may get beaten occasionally, but never without a fight.

I don't think Spurs can or will play defensive football, Ange religiously stick to his plan. Arteta just needs to look at how Newcastle decimated their high line and void where the full backs are. Son is a big danger and he always seems to score against us, but we should do well against teams who attack with willful abandon as long as we don't get drawn in to a basketball style match with them.
People forget how all over them we were in the first 20 minutes at home, they couldn't play out from the back as we were nicking the ball all over the pitch. No reason why we shouldn't play the same team that put Chelsea to the sword, it is the best team right now.
Partey adds the element of quicker passing from deep which will be crucial to get Ødegaard in space.
Udogie is out for the season so Saka can have fun up against Ben Davies or whoever plays left back
Havertz plays up top because things are just better connected with him and he makes intelligent runs behind to stretch Spur's back 2 - and his physicality could rattle Romero
Trossard is simply in better form than Martinelli
Tomiyasu for a bit more 1v1 defensive work against spurs wingers as they rely on them for the supply

Hurry back Timber

I certainly hope they play attacking football. It suits us.

For all the hand wringing over a tough defeat or debates over player burn out it is easy to forget what a gargantuan job Arteta and Edu have done over the past 4 years. There is so much to be admired over having a plan, and sticking to it despite all the criticism that comes your way. The plan was good, even if it hadn't worked out this way - because so much could have gone wrong, the idea and the plan were good - then you need a few things to fall your way. You need to be right! When we started the squad overhaul I said for us to back at the top in 5 years (ie: winning the biggest trophies) would take us getting at least 75-80% of all decisions spot on - mostly on recruitment but more than that as well. I don't think we're far off that.

Whatever happens this season it has been another step in the right direction. Next year we can hopefully reinforce certain areas of the squad and look to kick on again in the league and europe - and with a bit more luck on the cup draws look to go further than we have in those as well.

Most importantly Arteta's contract runs out in summer 2025 - the same time as Pep's. Kronke's need to sit down and tie him down for another 3-4 years asap

Spurs have to win, or they fall too far behind Villa for comfort and they have a brutal run-in.

That should play into our hands. The key again will be whether we can be clinical.

I'm confident we will win at WHL