NICK FEINBERG: Gunners bottled it
HELLO my good football people and thanks for the messages while I was in hospital.
I am back at home now, and while I’m not rearing to go like a blue-balled stud on Red Bull, I’m off the heavy medication and properly back into football!
And what a big weekend to surface back into!
The Leicester versus Brentford result on Friday was a foregone conclusion. Despite a couple of slightly more competitive performances recently, the Foxes are rubbish and I still can’t understand with Premier League survival at stake, why did they hire a coach with such little top-flight experience (Ruud van Nistelrooy) to guide a desperate group of players back to winning ways?
It is not working…
On the subject of management, I messaged my good mate Lawson (an old-school Everton fan) at halftime and said it’s amazing to see what a difference a quality, pedigreed coach like David Moyes can make. I mean watching Everton a month ago was painful, and now, they are fighting, playing some good football and chalking up the points.
But it did change in the second half on Saturday! Pathetic Manchester United somehow found themselves levelling at 2-2.
Looked like a bit of complacency on the part of Everton, rather than an inspired half-time team talk by Ruben Amorim, and they’ll be hugely disappointed not to have buried United.
As for the additional time VAR assisted reversal of the double shirt pull on Ashley Young, how the hell does that happen? The angle from behind the goal clearly showed two shirt tugs.
But VAR didn’t show the angle to the ref? For me it’s not about corruption, rather incompetence.
Incompetence by officials who were so obsessed by the merit of Young diving, they totally ignored the initial foul play.
Anyway… onto more important matters and can someone explain what is wrong with Arsenal? This was going to be the big weekend as far as the title was concerned…
The Gunners with a seemingly straight three pointer at the Emirates, followed by a potential Liverpool point dropper at the Etihad. And yes, we know Mikel Arteta is dealing with injuries, aren’t we all…
The difference is he/ the club were on the verge of another super close title race, but refused to invest to sure up any potential weaknesses (like losing Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka for a prolonged period).
They’ve been left looking about as potent up front as a castrated monk. It was horrible. The (now) hugely irritating Martin Odegaard was buzzing around like a mosquito, making absolutely zero impact with a bouquet of annoying passes.
It almost felt like Arteta knew there was something up and he unusually showed little emotion…
Gone were his slapstick theatrics and arrogance to pitch side officials, as his team showed little or no real motivation or energy.
I said this to a Gooner mate last time out (when they squeezed past Leicester 2-0), you’d imagine, (last week) with Liverpool dropping points, and this past weekend (ahead of Liverpool travelling to Manchester City on Sunday) that the team would be buzzing…
You’d expect they would be working their b******xs off to make sure they seized any small opportunity gifted to them. But no, something is up? I mean what the hell do I know about managing a top-flight football team?
Perhaps the correct strategy is to slow it down, be patient, don’t make stupid mistakes, be clinical with carefully crafted opportunities? Because that’s what they look like they’re doing right?
After 50 years of watching title races, I’ve never really seen that?
When you think of Chelsea under Jose Mourinho, United under Sir Alex Ferguson, City under Pep Guardiola (up until last season), it was always relentless to the end, no doors opened, no foot off the pedal… Arsenal have bottled it.
Despite admiring the work Arteta has done, I get the anger aimed at him and the board by fans. The disappointment is amplified because of how close they’ve come and it appears the solution to take the club over the line is plain to see.
Hahaha, even following Chelsea’s s**te “performance” at Villa, I still felt like I was having a good (sporting) weekend.
The suffering of these arrogant w*****s fuels my happiness! Sorry to my old school Arsenal mates… but hey, they’d be feeling exactly the same way (and have been laughing at us all season).
As it turned out, rather than the gap being reduced to five points, Liverpool are now 11 clear after a relatively easy win at the Etihad. Guardiola flops hardly created a chance.
A few fairly boring looking fixtures tonight, ahead of some blockbusters tomorrow, as Spurs host City, Newcastle go to Anfield and Arsenal hope to take the noose off their necks and get a result at Nottingham Forest!
Thanks again for the messages, I’m getting better day by day.
Chat next week, bye bye.