[Football] Did Arsenal bottle the league?

[Bodian]

According to David Squires. Yes.

 

[AlexBH]

Yeah they bottled it, but still a great season for them and we’d swap places in the table with them in a heartbeat.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Absolutely they did

They could have lost to city twice and still won the league

2-0 in back to back games to draw
3-3 against a very poor Southampton

 

[Dibdab]

They got a massive dose of Karma for all that Caceido fuckery in January.

 

[A1X]

Yes, but not against us or City. It was their dropped points against the likes of West Ham which caused their issue, teams which go on to win the title simply do not drop those points.

 

[Wozza]

had the luxury of no cup games, giving a week's prep for some PL games.

Forgot about that. Was supposed to be the benefit of exiting the Europa League.

All this talk about Arsenal's lack of squad depth in laughable. Got thrashed at home by a Brighton side missing March, Veltman, Lamptey, Lallana, Sarmineto, Webster and with Caicedo forced out of position. Tsk!

 

[Jim in the West]

It's funny, I look at their team and wonder who I'd take over anyone in ours. Ben White, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, obvs. Probably Saliba. Are they really THAT much better than BHA (and I mean generally, not referring to Sunday)? Maybe I've got my blue & white specs on a little too tightly....

 

[Pavilionaire]

I am by no means a fan of Arsenal FC but I think it is unfair to say they bottled the title when most onlookers agree they have been 2-3 players short all season.

City have the best manager, the best striker, the best creative midfielder, the best goalkeeper, ridiculous squad depth and a decade of going the distance and winning trophies. I don't think Arsenal have phased them at any stage this season, and the match between the two clubs billed as a title decider was only ever a title decider if City won.

With Spurs and Chelsea basket cases, Arsenal and Man Utd rebuilding and Liverpool creaking with age City were always likely to win the Prem with something to spare. Arsenal have done really well to run away with second.

 

[jamie-oh]

Its worth remembering that poor underfinanced underdogs arsenal have spent about twice what man city have in the past five seasons - net spend of £485m as opposed to City's considerably more modest £224m.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Yes. Not sure how you can see it any other way. It was theirs to lose and they've lost it spectacularly. They've gone from being well clear to having lost the title in 8 (eight!) games.

They were clear, gaining something like 2.5points a game for the first 75% of the season and then 1.5 over the last eight games. It didn't matter what City did, they had the points in hand and just needed to take care of their business like they had done all season. The fact that they didn't is down to being in sight of the finishing line and the title becoming real, and the pressure that City put them under by wining week in week out. Arsenal couldn't deal with it and collapsed.

It's not just the points that they dropped but the manner in which they dropped them.

They bottled it. If you don't like the term 'bottled it' replace it with threw away.

 

[Sheebo]

I don’t think they did. But as they have a lot of online insufferable fans I’m happy for people to tell them they bottled it. Man City are a different kettle of fish so I don’t consider it bottling as such & that game in hand was always there.

 

[Triggaaar]

I'm going with 'a bit'.

Even challenging for the title and finishing second is a great achievement for a team who finished 5th last year. Even when they were ahead, there was still a lot to do with a squad nowhere near as deep as City's.

But they did bottle it a little when 2 up against Liverpool, then 2 up against West Ham and then at home to Southampton.

 

[beorhthelm]

It's funny, I look at their team and wonder who I'd take over anyone in ours. Ben White, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, obvs. Probably Saliba. Are they really THAT much better than BHA (and I mean generally, not referring to Sunday)? Maybe I've got my blue & white specs on a little too tightly....

sounds about right. lack of leadship, seems to be the perenial problem at Arsenal, no one to fire up the team when fading.

and all the comparisons to City, they were behind having lost games earlier in season, just they plugged away to get the results. Arsenal had done the work in first half and faltered against average teams in the second.

 

[Napper]

bottled , decent season mainly due to it being an off season with the 3rd - 8th teams being a similar standard.

Reckon they will miss out top 4 next year

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Think people are missing the point:

Why were they good enough for 28 games to be 8 points clear, but at crunch time when it mattered they weren’t?

If a guy is leading the Masters golf going down the last by 5 shots and makes a 9 and loses, that would be a bottle job because he was good enough for 71 holes but then all of a sudden wasn’t.

There’s no argument from me that City are the better team and have a far superior squad but from that position, given they’ve dropped points from 2 goals up against Liverpool and West Ham, conceded 3 against Southampton and lost 3-0 at home to us can we really say it wasn’t a bottle?

Because the season is 38 games, not 28.
Because they lost some key players from an already relatively young and inexperienced squad
Because they got beaten by the eventual Champions (pretty much guaranteed) who are a better, more mature/evolved team.
Because Arteta is relatively inexperienced next to Pep.
Because a few bad results meant that Arsenal lost momentum when it really matters. It happens – you could argue that City should never have been in second place and eight points behind after 28 games.

I hate the term 'bottle' in that sense. Arsenal have overachieved, compared to where pretty much everyone thought they would be. The team has it's own plan and being champions this season almost certainly wasn't part of it. As such, in addition to the above, there was probably a bit of panic when it came to the crunch. That's not bottling it, that's just not having the experience – both in terms of the players and having literally gone through a title challenge, like Liverpool did. When Ben White went there and no-one could understand it, I could see what the team/Arteta was trying to do and that's build for the future. That's why they wanted Caicedo and have shipped out older heads in favour of young guns.

 

[Trevor]

Voted No, They have a similar issue to us in that they are in an unexpectedly high league position without the depth of squad to adequately support that.

 

[Simster]

Well they definitely threw it away, but I think their 8 point lead flattered them in the first place to be honest. Clearly they're a good side and they were brilliant at the Amex, but they've fallen away badly and weren't the same team by the time we beat them comfortably on Sunday.

By the way, I assume all those bandying around the "bottled it" terminology will be describing our team in the same way if we don't reach the Europa league from this position?

I don't like "bottled it" at all. They will finish second by a mile without the backing of an oil state. That's a good season, and they have continuously improved over 2 seasons now.

 

[Badger Boy]

Its worth remembering that poor underfinanced underdogs arsenal have spent about twice what man city have in the past five seasons - net spend of £485m as opposed to City's considerably more modest £224m.

It is worth remembering that Man City were charged not that long ago with 100 breaches of various financial rules. I'm not making any commentary on the nature of the breaches or anything else, but if you believe the "modest" £224m figure then you're probably the only person who does. Although, saying that, I have a Man City supporting friend of 30 years who genuinely seems to believe that Haaland only cost about £50m. I think that's the most naive thing I've ever heard but it's nice to live in a world where you believe people are telling the truth.

To be fair to City, they are very good at buying young players and selling them for generous fees that most fans won't have heard about. Pedro Porro, now rubbish at Tottenham, was picked up and sold on for big money and they got another big payout when Spurs generously bought him from Sporting in January. They also made many sales to Southampton this summer of guff young players. Bazunu netted them about £15m which is an atrocious robbery.

 

[HalfaSeatOn]

North London are providing the EPL bottle merchants so far…

 

[herecomesaregular]

They lost their best player, Saliba, to injury at the worst time and had to play Holding as his replacement. Any team would suffer with that.