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

To be fair Carragher wasn't a worldclass CB.

As Carragher pointed out, doesn't Ben White have to move across to cover the RB area as the move develops and Gabriel move across to cover White?

Remember the George Graham piece of string.

I read not getting into the Champions League will reduce our income by a lot of money. The highest figure I’ve seen was £75m-£80m. Whatever the amount is, it will presumably reduce the budget to get new players unless Stan financially dopes us again.

Sky are going WAY overboard and the players are too. Neville’s perma hysteria is ridiculous tonight.

Bad result yeah but this isn’t end of days stuff,

Again, I don't see why it's a given other teams will improve and we won't? On the contrary, I think it's easier to see how we can improve (new midfielder and striker) than Tottenham (need signings all over the place to become more than the two-man team they currently are) and Man Utd (need a completely new midfield and defense, plus they need their new and quite inexperienced manager to hit the ground running). Add in Chelsea who are as likely to take a step back as they are to improve under new ownership, and I see no reason why we can't challenge for CL again next season.

It feels like our injuries in defence piled up at the end of the season but apparently our first choice back 4 of Tierney, Gabriel, White, Tomiyasu only started 4 games together this season. I can’t quite believe that. Can anyone verify that?

George’s right back wouldn’t have been on the halfway line

Every year we read and hear that Sp#rs “will be stronger next year”.

They never quite get there though, do they?

Eventually we had to rely on too many of our back ups who whilst they showed some of their best football for us recently, shouldn’t be starters.
Cédric, Elneny, Tavares, Nketiah- none of them have ‘let us down’ and they all fought to get us top 4 but none of them are starters in a top 4 team.

Quite right

The Berlin Wall hadnt been built let alone knocked down last time spurs won the league

Just don't see it, Haz.

As much as we like to overhype our players, Ramsdale looked shaky tonight, Xhaka and Elneny were completely overrun, Ødegaard barely touched the ball.

Partey can't stay fit, neither can Tomiyasu or Tierney. Nketiah was one of our better players tonight but needs to be on loan in the PL but obviously that won't happen now.

I know TG will disagree but I think White is a very average defender, good on the ball but not great defensively. Does his ability on the ball compensate enough for his defensive weaknesses. I don't know.

I reckon we need another CB (maybe Saliba), a central midfielder, a LB and RB, two CFs, a goalscoring winger/midfielder. A big summer needed again if we are to make top four next year.

I had optimism a few weeks ago but the losses against Palace, Brighton and Southampton and the manner of the performances set alarm bells ringing for me. The United, Chelsea and West Ham games lifted the mood somewhat but the NL derby was a joke performance and tonight was the steaming turd on top of a great big *%^@ pie.

I suppose the reasoning is based on the fact that Man Utd have had their worst season in PL history and Tottenham were pretty crap until Conte came in. Both clubs sacked their managers during the season so it's not difficult to see them getting more points next season. Sadly, we have blown a great chance. We've lost 5 of our last 9 games.

Spurs aren't winning the league anytime soon but they look like they will finish above us again.

Wow, Xhaka has really thrown thrown the players under the bus with his post match interview.

This season ? Yeah obviously but next? Please bear in mind before the injuries hit we would have steamrolled this

That’s the way with squad players, surely?

Don't know, depends on the summer I guess.

Newcastle have a good summer and they could be challenging us for 5th or 6th at least next season.

Well, now do the same for Man Utd