I'm not buying that narrative Ash. Anyway, it's all academic now.

2minutes a goal. Easy.

Exactly. I don't think refs go in to games thinking I don;t want Arsenal to win this and i'll do everything in my power to make sure they don't. But I think you'd have to be very naive to believe refs aren't influenced by certain crowds and certain atmospheres and that certain players and teams are given greater leniency and are reffed different. It has quite literally been admitted by ex refs that it happens

I mean he has I don’t care what you’re buying.

Grow up mate.

We've had 2 shots on goal all night.

Ok. Stop calling people delusional

That's true of course. The thing that is so devastating is that in the final stretch, with top 4 in our hands, we lost against Crystal Palace, Brighton, Southampton and Newcastle. That is a very tough pill to swallow, especially losing like this to such a loathsome club, sponsored by a state where human rights don't matter.

Overall though, the target for me going into the season was getting back into Europe, and we've done that. I think we've taken a big step forward, not just in terms of league position, but with the way we play. We've seen an identity forming, with a team that's fighting for each other and the manager. We know how we want to play, we just don't have the experience and depth to execute it with consistency yet. Big summer coming up, because 2-3 players of the right quality and I can really see this team taking off.

Not good enough today and last thursday. But 5th is better than we expected and anyone expected at the start of the season. it feels like failure because we have been so close to 4th

The starting defence and midfield is ok, add strikers and depth and we're hugely stronger.

We're comparing a U23 team with no striker against Spurs with 3 of the deadliest strikers in europe. We ran them all the way

Yeh, but United have had their worst season in PL history and Spurs relying totally on the front three.

It was the Palace, Brighton and Southampton trilogy that did for us. Even 4 points out of that would have been huge.

Guarantee without major investment we won't make top four next season. This was our big chance, especially without european football. Newcastle might even be in the race next year.

Sorry, I didn't realise that offering an alternative to your opinion wasn't allowed.

St James park is not the place you want to get when you are desperate for a win.

Yep. We know we have deficiencies but this match confirms it. The ref has gius nothing but you havecto accept that and deal with it. The top teams keep the ref onside.

On target you mean. And how many have they had?

People already making excuses but that's a pathetic effort in a game of this magnitude.

Totally outfought and outplayed.

Pépé falls over himself and asks for a foul. What a joke.

Stand up lads. Did your best this year. Nobody could suggest otherwise.

They must have had a few, apart from the goals I recall the Ramsdale save, one kicked off the line at least.

Not sure why this is the case at all? It's far from guaranteed Man Utd and Tottenham will improve enough, and Chelsea are a mess at the moment.

4

They had hardly any until we went for broke when 0-1 down.

And we had to score their opening goal for them.

Jog on mate

Ditto pal.

It was: pressed us the whole game

We don’t yet have a team equipped for the CL.

Just play reserves in the europa league if it’s that much of a problem. Saka, Gabriel, Ben white and Ødegaard don’t touch it unless you reach a semi.

Gutted though spud *%^@ will be celebrating at our expense.
Conte probably stays and now they have champions league money as well.
So galling
Horrific performance today.
We looked terrified and over whelmed.
Switched off with few minutes to go.
Can't bear to hear the likes of neville enjoying this.
We were playing for champions league ffs but never got started.
I said I'd take europa and thought champions league had gone when we lost to Brighton and spurs beat villa.
To claw it back with 4pts clear with 3 games to go and then lose it again is gut wrenching.
I just hope we will spend regardless to improve the squad and the first team
I feared this game for a while and so it's proved.

Trying to blame Ben white for that goal is borderline retarded.

Europa league is *%^@. We’ve now missed the change to buy the quality players we need to improve on a given day but also add the squad depth to deal with the additional matches. Man U will be stronger next year and possibly Totts too so further progress next year will be much harder than most are thinking.

They dominated the game though and we never looked like scoring. They looked fitter, faster, hungrier.

Another match where a manager totally out thought Arteta. This was a puerile performance where we never got into the game. Vierra, Potter, Conte and Howe have all done it recently.

Yep, told you

Conte is a top manager and if Spurs back him in the market that is very bad news. Plus you can add Newcastle to that list as I expect the Saudi's to open the wallet in a big way.

Depends, you could argue his initial postional play wasn't great. It caused Elneny to have to cover the fullback area and, as Neville pointed out, you rarely see top defenders making those kind of desperate lunges. The likes of Terry, Stam, Vidic, to name just a few, rarely got beaten in that crucial near post area because they read the game superbly and positioned themselves perfectly to stop the cross.

That said, I don't think White was fit tonight.

Steady on. There is still one game left. Its hard to see Spurs not getting a point in their last game, but stranger things happen all the time.

Carragher use to make plenty of those lunges and score plenty of own goals. Ben White had to go for that, on another occasion he turns it round the post and it’s great defending

His right back is absent without leave and his defensive midfielder is running on clay. Zero protection for the centre halves and keeper.

Last season we had no European football at all and dropped £150m on a pretty decent set of players who were happy to come. Yes CL may have given us the big star name striker for £70m, but that route to the top is only really available for the Uber rich, stick to the strategy, young hungry well scouted players to fit the system and provide the desperately needed cover and quality and upgrades. We’ll be a better team next year no doubt

Arteta was scathing in his interview.

He said Newcastle were 10 times better than us in every department.

He seemed shellshocked and made no excuses for what he described as an inexcusable performance.

100%

Players from Bologna, Brighton and Sheffield improved us immensely last summer. More of that please