Arsenals chances of a top 4 finish this season

Reapersoul20 said:
Because Spurs always bottle it, basically.
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Is that really true of this Spurs side? Finished 4th 2 seasons back and had a much better crack at the CL than City did in their first season in it. It was always going to be a tough ask for them to finish 4th again last season what with City's emergence this season though they've showed to be infinitely better than Arsenal & Liverpool and a lot more consistent than Chelsea

Spurs are nailed on for 3rd imo and it'll be Chelsea that sneak 4th
 
africanspur said:
A reasoned, well thought out debate.

I barely hear the term 'bottling it' outside of this forum and yet every time I long on, it seems to appear on every other post. The obsession is frankly strange. Has Ferguson said it at some point in the past, leading to you all picking it up and using it for every situation?
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Spurs are nailed on for top three, which would obviously mean automatic Champions League qualification.

What has happened to their UEFA ranking, are they still in pot three?
 
africanspur said:
A reasoned, well thought out debate.

I barely hear the term 'bottling it' outside of this forum and yet every time I long on, it seems to appear on every other post. The obsession is frankly strange. Has Ferguson said it at some point in the past, leading to you all picking it up and using it for every situation?
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I wasn't trying to debate with you. It's not really necessary. Look at nearly any time ye've threatened to win something in the past 30 years. Ye bottle it. If you don't hear it outside of this forum, then it's obvious you come here for the insight.

Undoubtedly Spurs look safer than ever before at the moment, but if I were a Tottenham fan, I wouldn't start celebrating until I was past the post. Ever.
 
I'm actually not sure tbh. We actually almost fluked our way into pot 2 a couple of seasons ago, Leverkusen or someone were second away from being knocked out which would have put us in their place in pot 2.

But I think we'll lose the UEFA cup qf in our score for the past 5 seasons now so that will negatively impact the score. I'd assume we'd still be in pot 3 though.
 
africanspur said:
A reasoned, well thought out debate.

I barely hear the term 'bottling it' outside of this forum and yet every time I long on, it seems to appear on every other post. The obsession is frankly strange. Has Ferguson said it at some point in the past, leading to you all picking it up and using it for every situation?
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Probably, it does grate a bit with me. You can't be surprised that people have this idea that Spurs bottle it though, probably the most memorable Spurs season (particularly the finish) of the last decade - from the outside looking in, at least - was 04/05, when you lost 6 and drew 4 of your PL games from January onwards, over half of your remaining games.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
I wasn't trying to debate with you. It's not really necessary. Look at nearly any time ye've threatened to win something in the past 30 years. Ye bottle it. If you don't hear it outside of this forum, then it's obvious you come here for the insight.

Undoubtedly Spurs look safer than ever before at the moment, but if I were a Tottenham fan, I wouldn't start celebrating until I was past the post. Ever.
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Yep, that's the reason I come onto this board.

Apparently we were going to bottle it in 2010 when we had Arsenal, Chelsea, Man utd and Man City to qualify for 4th. Apparently we were going to bottle it when we got into the CL. Its such a stupid term and means almost nothing. We apparently bottled it last season. We barely even spent that long in the top 4 places and spent most of the season competing with a club that had spent more on a leftback (now reserve) than we have ever spent on a player.

I'm not celebrating anything. In the 5-1 game against Arsenal, I nearly had a heart attack when they scored their goal because even at 4-1, I thought here we go again.

But for most of the past few decades, we haven't 'bottled it'. We've just been shit. One of the most overused and meaningless phrases on this board.
 
4 PL games without a win.

Why is it that Arsenal are so bad at recovering from setbacks?

Even when they had a great team you always felt that after one bad result they'd get two or three bad results.

The very definition of a "form" team.
 
Brwned said:
Probably, it does grate a bit with me. You can't be surprised that people have this idea that Spurs bottle it though, probably the most memorable Spurs season (particularly the finish) of the last decade - from the outside looking in, at least - was 04/05, when you lost 6 and drew 4 of your PL games from January onwards, over half of your remaining games.
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I'm not saying we have never bottled it or that we haven't done more of our fair share of bottling. Just that any time we're seen to have done something poor, its always bottling. Sometimes you don't bottle it. You're just shit. Or the opposing team is better. Or their manager made a change that your manager couldn't counteract. Or one of their game-changers did his job. Or your keeper messed up. Or you get Webb or Foy as a ref. ;) A whole host of factors.

Some idiot last year wrote that we had bottled it against Real Madrid. Yeah....

Collapses like that was always prone to happen under Jol. That group of players hadn't really done anything before and Jol, as much as I loved him, proved time and time again that he was the master of letting leads slip. I don't think its a stretch to say that we're now an altogether different team. For one thing, we can actually beat Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool (we're still working on getting past the Man utd mental block...:D). We can win away at the top 4. We can just win away in general. We can qualify for the CL.

Note that not once have I said that we will finish 3rd or even 4th. I have merely pointed out that for us to finish out of the top 4 now would require a disastrous collapse from us, coupled with one of Arsenal or Liverpool putting together a run they haven't shown any signs of being able to do so far.
 
They have had little chance for a while, but they've really fluffed it now (Arsenal). Luckily 5 points isn't a massive gap and we'll be gunning to beat Chelsea on the weekend. Arsenal will have to hit some form and beat some big teams for top 4 but I just don't see it. I think Newcastle will simply fall off and finish 7th, but they keep proving me wrong so far. Arsenal and Liverpool poor right now, so maybe they'll hold on?

I came back to this thread to quote someone who said Arsenal would easily have over 40 points by Christmas (or year end it might have been), when I suggested they'd be in the mid-30's by year end, but their post seems to have been removed (unless it was in a different one, but I'm pretty sure it was here). Bottom line is, we're in February and they still don't have 40 points :lol:
 
They're playing Blackburn at home whilst Chelsea have us and Liverpool have Tottenam. Favorable results for them would see them ahead of Liverpool, back in 6th (5th even if Newcastle don't won) and 2 points behind Chelsea, who currently having been doing so great themselves.

To early to draw any conclusions.
 
Arsenal really have degenerated into a top 8 or 9 team but are being saved by Van Persie. I don't think I can remember seeing such a poor arsenal team in my time of watching football.
 
So is it time for Arsenal fans to start panicking then?

Totally outclassed by Milan during the week and look like they're heading out of the FA cup aswell. Effectively out of all competitions before the end of Feb.

They're in 4th as it stands but thats more down to the equally shocking form of Chelsea and Liverpool as much as it is to Arsenals form.

Probably the most worrying thing from an Arsenal perspective is how average and lightweight they look as a team, bar RvP they dont seem to have any other dependable, senior players that can be relied upon, players like Rosicky and Arshavin are pretty much deadweights occupying squad places while contributing very little.

Should they miss out on a top 4 place big questions are going to be asked of Wenger. For me, despite everything he's still the best man for the job, he just needs to bite the bullet and accept that he needs to spend some money on some top players.

So if you were an Arsenal supporter would you be starting to panic, or would everything be rosy as long as you get that 4th place spot?
 
They should worry if Wenger doesn't have any aces up his sleeve in terms of bargains from France and Africa. They don't seem to find those players anymore.
 
Gazza said:
They should worry if Wenger doesn't have any aces up his sleeve in terms of bargains from France and Africa. They don't seem to find those players anymore.
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Even Newcastle have a better French scouting system.

Wenger has no niche anymore. Other then being able to balance the books.
 
My Arsenal mate is not very optimistic. I've got a 15min rant from him on Skype. When Roskicky is one of your "in form players" then you've got a problem.
 
The key thing on their side is that Liverpool and Chelsea are their competitors for 4th spot and neither side are really all that good.
 
Eyepopper said:
So is it time for Arsenal fans to start panicking then?

Totally outclassed by Milan during the week and look like they're heading out of the FA cup aswell. Effectively out of all competitions before the end of Feb.

They're in 4th as it stands but thats more down to the equally shocking form of Chelsea and Liverpool as much as it is to Arsenals form.

Probably the most worrying thing from an Arsenal perspective is how average and lightweight they look as a team, bar RvP they dont seem to have any other dependable, senior players that can be relied upon, players like Rosicky and Arshavin are pretty much deadweights occupying squad places while contributing very little.

Should they miss out on a top 4 place big questions are going to be asked of Wenger. For me, despite everything he's still the best man for the job, he just needs to bite the bullet and accept that he needs to spend some money on some top players.

So if you were an Arsenal supporter would you be starting to panic, or would everything be rosy as long as you get that 4th place spot?
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If they're skint there's nothing anyone can do. If not though, then why isn't Wenger spending? Like alastair said, no one knows what is going on behind the scenes.
 
We know how Arsenal respond to bad results - by getting more. I wouldn't completely rule them out for fourth, simply because the teams they are battling for it also have problems. But I'd be shocked if Van Persie is still there on September 1. He's surely not going to sign a new deal and they are not going to keep him going into the final year of his contract, just like they didn't with Nasri.
 
They're not out of the race for 4th at all. In some situations, you'd say that a run of bad results could rule them out, but there doesn't look like a side in the top 4 at the moment who can go on a really good run.

Chelsea aren't looking good, and they are in arguably a worse position than Arsenal are. Newcastle have had a great season, however they're not the sort of side who can regularly be expected to put together runs of 5 or 6 consecutive wins. Liverpool sometimes manage to get big results, however they've had way too many draws this season and don't seem capable of going on a winning run.
 
BBC:

Arsenal allowed the opposition six shots on target this week (Milan five, Sunderland one) yet conceded six goals.
 
Relevated said:
is it true wenger was about to cry?
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Nope. I assume it was when the camera zoomed waaay in on his face towards the end. He didn't look all that pleased, but its quite an assumption to suggest he was about to cry.
 
cheesy said:
They're not out of the race for 4th at all. In some situations, you'd say that a run of bad results could rule them out, but there doesn't look like a side in the top 4 at the moment who can go on a really good run.

Chelsea aren't looking good, and they are in arguably a worse position than Arsenal are. Newcastle have had a great season, however they're not the sort of side who can regularly be expected to put together runs of 5 or 6 consecutive wins. Liverpool sometimes manage to get big results, however they've had way too many draws this season and don't seem capable of going on a winning run.
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Yes, I'm sure Wenger would have rather got three points at Sunderland last week then win tonight because the cup is unpredictable, in the league you just need to be consistent. And his objective has been top four.
 
So now their season is reduced to a four-way dog-fight to finish 4th - and next August they'll head into their 8th year without winning a trophy.

The myth of Arsene's youth "wonder team" has been exposed for the busted flush it truly is.
 
I'd argue being out of the CL and FA cup will helpt them get 4th place in the league.
 
About 1 in 3. Spurs and Newcastle are, for different reasons, unlikely to be 4th, and Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool are hard to separate. Whoever goes on a half decent run will probably get it.
 
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