jinxed it

Liverpool winning

You'd think we were 2-0 down the way we are throwing men forward.

Something to look forward to though, Alexis push for golden boot

Yup, only four behind now and 45 minutes to overhaul Kane. Assuming Kane doesn't get any more in the second half. Piece of pi**.

Strangely good match. Down to 10 men but playing like Everton is down to 10 men.
Golden boot is done. Its Kane's.
If Liverpool stay 1-0 it gets dicey.

If we don't make the CL, this little run shows something. It shows just how bleeding bad we were all season. It wasn't the quality of players. Man for man, we are a very good squad. Man Utd, beating Mourinho, both Soton and Stoke away, all convincingly. It must be said, what the eff has Wenger been doing?
As I said, the CL place is our Rubicon. We put in performances whenever that is threatened and this season we waited too long. The loss to fat Sam did it. Of all managers it had to be him just like in 2003. He will talk about how he kept Arsenal out of the CL....and he'll relish in it.

These last few matches show we need new leadership. Wenger simply can't get this type of performance consistently enough. His change in formation was a desperate move. It works but it illustrates just how desperate he was.

All over guys. 2-0 at Anfield.

Liverpool 2 nil

Gabriel stretchered off.

Wonderful

2-0 Liverpool. Looks like 5th for us. We can have zero complaints. We've let a very average Liverpool get top 4 having not prepared for our opening game of the season against them and then deciding to bench Sanchez for our other game against them.

2 draws v Liverpool and we would have already got top 4. Big changes needed this summer. Many fans will welcome the wake up call of not being in the top 4

Gabriel going off on a stretcher - looks like a bad one

Oops, that far behind? I thought they were level.

Our defenders do make the strangest decisions.

Play easy casual football now. Conserve for the final. ECL is a lost hope now.

Michael Oliver probably right to send Kos off. The pen was correct to, but that came directly from him bottling hit not sending williams off when the everton man just refused to be called over for his second yellow.

I like Oliver, but that was gutless.

Just waiting for the end of game reaction from the fans. I wonder what type will be dished out?

Too bad we are not Spurs, so we get no breaks from the referees

The ref has been totally inconsistent in everton's favour today...3 everton players dodging second yellows so far...

Alexis off injured now too... a total nightmare last day...

Does Kos miss the cup final?

Liverpool 3 now.

Not that it matters...

Yup

Referee ready to dish the first yellow but highly reluctant when it's the second.

So we are potentially missing Kos, Gab and maybe Alexis for the cup final.

Sending off and injuries may have scuppered the cup final. its a shame if it has.

Worth watching the non penalty for boro when at 0-0. Lovren would have been sent off as well as the pen.
Very surprised Everton not down to 10 men - not that it matters now.

I've said it a number of times but it does seem like we are a very easy team to give red cards and penalties against. We rarely get away with any nailed on ones.

If we win, it will the most points scored by an EPL side that didn't finish in the top 4.

Hector and Rambo have been great today.

Iwobi is not a finisher. Needs to work on that part of his game.

The problem with finishing outside the top four, apart from the obvious increased difficulty in attracting and retaining the top quality players, is that you can end up doing a Liverpool and never quite getting back to where you want to be.

Teams will spend massively this summer and if we get things wrong again the transfer market, especially if Alexis goes, then we could really struggle to get that top four place back.

Dunno. I think the last highlights I watched were in Feb but that was the full roundup rather than Arsenal specifically. The decision to not watch Arsenal again until Wenger goes was after the 2nd Bayern Munich flogging. Thought it would have been harder than it has been.

Da iawn Aaron!!

Brilliant Rambo goal. Now if he could just do that Parlour or Ljungberg one again in the cup final.

Özil did so well there and a fantastic curler from Rambo !

When you see how fluid we can be at times it's annoying how we can just switch things on and off through the season.

I like Iwobi, he speeds up our play.

Piggy backing on what Soc has said about finishing outside the top 4. Liverpool are used to it. If they don't make it next season their fans are used to it. There was a time it was inconceivable for Man Utd fans. A wave of panic over that possibility, now how many seasons has it been? They are now relying on a cup final to get in. Next season is pivotal. Two seasons without CL football is big for a club like us in a league the way its set up now.

Conversely, Tottenham will likely now see it as almost a given and will play with that mindset. I hope not but they have big things going on. CL football, bigger grounds, etc. Its an exciting time for their club.

Chelsea are back. Man Utd are playing better than they were the last couple seasons. City are in a holding position, slightly backwards from a few years ago. LFC are improving steadily if not spectacularly.

The Arsenal? Backwards.

Some may sight the improvement in wins and points but the bar has been raised. Its clearly not good enough.

For the downing tools before the formation change this team doesn't deserve more, but were EPL officials competent it'd be Champion's league football again. Over the last 3-4 weeks, Liverpool and City have had so many decisions go their way when things were tight (false pens in their favour, clear pens against not given, sending offs bottled). What is it about our team that we so rarely get the kind of help from officials that both of them and Spurs and Utd do?

Is it something we are doing wrong? Is it that we aren't as good at cheating? Is it bias? Something to look at...as it costs us points relative to our rivals every year.

As for today, a good performance with excellent contributions from Ramsey, Bellerin and Özil, and with better officiating and better finishing we could have got 7 or 8.
Again the lack of a top centre-forward has cost us this year. With Ian Wright or RVP or even a more team orientated version of Defoe we could have done so much better. We miss so many chances. Harry Kane would score even more than he does for Spurs in our set up because except for the period where the team fell apart, we create more chances than anyone else.

Sanchez is certainly off. Just pray it's not to another Prem club. If I was Spurs I'd put in a bid for him just to rub it in.

Özil - not so sure, I don't think there will be as many takers, especially at £250k per week.

I retain a really small hope that Wenger leaves after the cup final but I'm pretty much resigned to him staying for another two seasons and therefore we'll be looking at at least two more years of the same old rubbish with the club gradually drifting backwards in to insignificance

Wenger not joining the lap of the ground with the players? Doesn't he usually do that

Here's a question to everyone.

Assuming Wenger is staying (and it seems like he's accepted he needs to cede some power to do so), what signings do we need to make this team competitive, despite the manager's retention?

Any plausible names?

It strikes me that we urgently need another right back to cover Hector in both formations, a reliable goalscorer, and someone else who can fulfill the Santi role if he can't be relied upon...we also need to look at centre-half with kos struggling to play twice a week.

And that's assuming Özil and Sanchez stay, which seems unlikely, particularly in the latter's case, unless the calibre of signings we need are sorted soon....

Any thoughts, suggestions?