Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [28th April - 2nd May 2012]

Soldato
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Arsenal have had the weirdest season - they lose Nasri and Fabregas late in the summer window and end up with 'poorer' and/or rushed replacements...yet 3 points out of the next 2 games means they a) beat last year's total and b) finish a place higher in a league which is arguably more competitive than last years.

I'm not sure if this is an achievement or ??

What an amazing way to reflect on Arsenals season! Even weirder to think the Wenger out campaign at the start of the season looks even more foolish.
 
Caporegime
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It doesn't, the league is in no way more competitive, at all.

The arguement is based on a complete fallacy, last years position, score, everything is basically irrellevant as, there were 3 different teams and hundreds of different players.

Chelsea have underperformed, Spurs have underperformed, Liverpool have underperformed, rinse repeat for half the teams in the league.

The only relevant question would be, how many more points might we have had with Cesc and Nasri playing instead of Gervinho and Ramsey, for anyone that isn't utterly and ridiculously blind, the answer is both more, and still not enough to be competitive.

Utd, with an arguably worse team, or similar team have improved FAR further than Arsenal have in the league, with much less competition at the top of the league? So how does that compare to Arsenal? We're further away than we were, we've gained FAR fewer points than the top two have this season, we were absolutely uninvolved in the title race at every stage this season.

At points last season we were 5-7 points behind Utd with 20-30 points to play for still in the season, at the same point this year we were between 17-20 points off Utd this season.

Utd have at the same point in time(but played one game more) won 5 more games, have 9 more points, City have played 2 more games at the same time(this is simply how footie 365 does its comparison) and they are 21 points higher than they were last season, they have won 8 more games in that time, still 6 more when you take into the games in hand potentially, that is a massive improvement.

Arsenal have at the same time played 2 games more than last season at this stage of the season, we've got 2 whole points more for 2 extra games. We have a WORSE points per game ratio at this point last season (66 points/36 games vs 64 points/34 games),

we've won two more games having played two more games at the same point, we've conceded 8 more goals(this has come down in recent weeks), we've scored one more despite playing two extra games and having the most prolific striker this season.

WE lost 6 games last season at this point, we've lost 10 this season, I'll let you do the math, that's losing over 50% more games.

Arsenal have not improved in general.

For me Utd, City and Newcastle pretty much prove where the top end of the table has gone, more points available, much weaker, easier to get wins, all doing significantly better than last season. The other "big" teams have all done much worse. We were 13 points behind Spurs at the end of Jan, and 2 behind Liverpool.... it's less our good run and more both of those guys horrifically woeful run that has seen us leapfrog them. Were we 13 points behind Spurs and a couple behind liverpool at the half way mark last season?

EDIT:- For the sake of it Newcastle, 21 points more, 8 more wins, identical to City's improvement this year, Utd have improved but less so than those two and a large part of that is, they simply had less room to move.

We've managed to stay static, in a MUCH easier season while other teams have imploded for various reasons. We've actually gotten worse as frankly we had as much room to improve as Newcastle or City did, and we've basically stood still.
 
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Soldato
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I think if we manage to finish 3rd after the worst start to the season i can remember then this season can only be seen as a success. We were being written off long before the first game of the season too. Wenger has made comments with regards to doing transfers and bringing people in which gives me hope towards having a much stronger next season.

Hoping for a 0-0 tonight as i don't want City to win the league and it suits my fantasy footy team :D.
 
Associate
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I think if we manage to finish 3rd after the worst start to the season i can remember then this season can only be seen as a success. We were being written off long before the first game of the season too. Wenger has made comments with regards to doing transfers and bringing people in which gives me hope towards having a much stronger next season.

Hoping for a 0-0 tonight as i don't want City to win the league and it suits my fantasy footy team :D.

I'm hoping for Rooney and Valencia to get at least a hat-trick each for my FF team, oh and to make all the assists for eachother :p. also Man City to score 4 as well so the Man Utd defenders don't get to many points :D.
 
Caporegime
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tevez and aguero will slaughter uniteds CB's tonight

it's what every united fan is thinking.

Its a concern,

But id daresay that city fans arent exactly fearing the welbeck threat with the same attention:/

I guess that is always a concern when you replace a 30 million striker with one who might not fetch 5-8 million on todays market...

But hey, im not Fergie, so clearly i have no idea what im talking about.
 
Caporegime
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Got my money on Utd to win tonight, well i hope they do...dont want moneybags City winning the EPL and for me Utd are the lesser of the 2 evils:p

Wouldnt surprise me if it ends up in a draw though, that would be the best result for Utd i think rather than losing.
 
Soldato
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drunkenmaster said:
snip WE lost 6 games last season at this point, we've lost 10 this season, I'll let you do the math, that's losing over 50% more games.
Hi - if Arsenal have lost 50% more games than last season, yet finish on a higher amount of points, I'll let you do the math and work out what that means :p

Regardless Wenger I imagine has done more than enough to secure another term - I for one look forward to another 10,000 words of incessant moaning and whining every Saturday next season! :p
 
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