Arsenal fans will obviously be hoping that all six of the clubs currently sitting above the Gunners in the Premier League table drop points this weekend, unlikely as it may be. At least one of them will, though, because Antonio Conte takes his Chelsea team to high flying Man City and that brings up an interesting dilemma for Arsenal fans.
Most of us would probably prefer the two big title rivals to draw and claim just a point each, which would let Arsenal gain ground on both, assuming we win our own game at home to Brighton of course. But if one was to win, which do you think would be better from our point of view?
I really think it hinges on whether you believe Arsenal have any chance of lifting the Premier League trophy next May or not. If not then we may as well root for a Man City win and let them increase their lead at the top. They are looking the most likely at the moment, whereas Chelsea have stuttered a bit and defeat would mean we could move level on points and maybe even above them on goal difference.
After our slow start that would be quite something and would boost our top four hopes considerably, but it would also get Arsenal fans feeling more optimistic about the title itself. If Chelsea were to win it would knock the rampant City off their momentum and give us hope that Guardiola’s men are not going to run away with it.
That is why a draw would be great for the Gunners. If not, who would you like to win?
Bob.
A draw is good for us.
Prefer a home win always do when the big team play
I have no businesse with other teams. As an arsenal fan i would want a draw of course. I don’t want top 4 i want the god damn epl trophy. And since the premier league trophy is looking very unlikely i think we should just focus on the europa league because even if we don’t finish in the top four spot winning the europa league automatically gives us champions league football. There are so many reasons we should be looking to win the europa league.
These clubs are both very impressive and have better squads and managers so I personally believe it is a pipe dream to think we can finish in front of either. So to Arsenal, the outcome of this game doesn’t matter IMO.
I loathe Mourinho (but respect him as a manager) and would dread Man U winning the PL, at the same time I respect Pep for sticking to his principles and trying to win the PL with attractive and effective football and he has a good eye for talent (the guy bought Jesus for 27 million and Gundogan for 20 million), Jesus for one-third of the price of Lukaku is great business and he was only 19 when he was bought.
So my hope is on City.
Got to give a lot of credit to Conte though who was basically written off by the press before the season started yet at the moment Chelsea look the only team capable of keeping the PL title out of Manchester. Last nights victory against Atletico was deserved and impressive in my book yet with only one full today to prepare for City you have to give City the advantage in the department as well.
Let’s continue winning until we beat them all. That’s the only way to climb up.
I hope Bayern are not targeting Arsenal in the Europa league. They way the played yesterday was as if they are interested in going down to the Europa league.
Chelsea Spurs Liverpool Utd
and Spurs all won which means
they will keep playing their top
teams in the hope of making
the knock out stage of the ECL.
Personally I think none of these teams will win the ECL
and will just lose players to injury and burn out.
Arsenal by comparison only play the “B” and “C” graders
in the silly Europa league keeping the top X1 for the Premier League.
Also I personally would prefer an early FL exit
avoiding the horror of a congested Jan schedule.
Man City away 1/4 final should do the trick
Remember the last 2 PL winners had no ECL.
Last season’s 5th place finish looks like being
the best thing to happen to Arsenal in a dozen years.
I think it would be great for the PL if one of their teams could at least make it to the final. Also the better the PL teams do the more points the PL gets toward keeping that all-important (for us) 4th place pre-qualifying spot.
I think is the year the PL teams have the best chance, Bayern is struggling, Real are not (yet) firing and hopefully have an off year, Barca are coming to terms with life without Neymar and Juventus are getting on in age (I hope). Whilst Chelsea, Man U and City seem to have made a step forward.
PS: IMO last years 5th place finish was the worst thing to happen to Arsenal in a long time. Had we had CL football we would likely have been able to sign Lemar, and possibly would have had a better chance at convincing Sanchez and Ozil not to speak of the distraction of Thursday night football and Monday football.
Why all the talk about us finishing in the top 4 I don’t want to finish in the top 4 I want to WIN the title.Why are some of you happy to settle for a top 4 have you no ambition?
Wenger doesn’t have the ability to win the league anymore, with 2016 being a brilliant example of this, and he also has wrong mentality to even fight for the league, with CL qualification being his number one priority.
As I’ve already said numerous times, the league was gone the very second Wenger renewed his contract. We’ve won all our easy games, but haven’t won any of our tough games this season (or even scored in them), and Wenger’s still making a complete hash of the starting lineups, so clearly nothing has changed as of yet. The regression continues!
I knew it!!!!!
Celtic beat Anderlecht away. They will beat them home again. On the other hand, Bayern lose last night. They will go on to not be able to beat Celtic.
Then Bayern will drop into Europa League and Arsenal will get their annual thrashing ???
You are joking.
Bayern will MURDER Celtic! !@!
Admin you are afraid that’s why you want them to trash Celtic and continue in CL. But I want Celtic to qualify.
Look up in my post earlier here. Am also having the feeling that Bayern are targeting us and drop to Europa league but they will be in for a surprise this time.
That is the height of paranoia! So Bayern purposely want to get knocked out of Champions zleague just so they can play Arsenal? ?
Doctor!!!
One game at a time. Eyeing the EPL trophy at this moment is too far fetched even for Man City and United.
The big boys will most likely cancel each other out, so far only Ars vs Chelsea / Lpool vs City / Lpool vs Ars have played each other and we have Man C vs Chelsea coming up so more drama to come plus a few shockers from the lesser teams too.
– Man U – is still on a good run of playing lesser teams, there team is already wearing down with injuries pilling up. There hard to beat at the moment though a well organised team will give them a lot of problems. Its mostly muscle and less brains out there.
– City – Pep you cant play that type of football for a full season in 4 competitions. The players will most likely burn out at crucial stages. Not even your Barca or Bayern played at this pace and those leagues are less physical and have a winter break. Beautiful to watch yes but wait until body parts start falling off players on the pitch.
– Chelsea – looks well balanced to me, I see them either getting the UCL and finishing 4th or 5th in the EPL or winning the EPL and getting knocked out in the last 16 of UCL. Something has to give especially with players like Luize in there.
– Spurs – are one or too injuries to total disaster. A long term injury to Kane and/or Erickson and they wont look so special anymore. Like last season they don’t have a bench for 4 competitions.
– Oxpool – have a leaky defence which will cost them having consistency to contest for big majors. We may more likely be in a dog fight for fourth with them and Spurs.
So lets keep calm, shut shop at the back and we have a good chance of winning a match. We also need to improve our goal difference because come May small details will matter.
I dont see city or even chelsea wining, arsenal will are are still growing we are yet to decide the direction ww want our team to go. Jose mourhino will lift the cup come may. Its ahard one but he has agame plan which is working out perfectly.
man u hasn’t met any one serious yet bar Stoke away. what happened then. even we will be top of the league if we had man u fixtures.
What we need to do is focus on us, winning our next game each time. Now in term of points, maths & mainly logic will want us to see Chelsea win at home, close gap to 3 points these 2 teams top of us. Man U should be cruising for a while but ill struggle more losing Pogba and have some tricky games coming up, so do Liverpool and Spurs one point ahead of us…Considering not facing anyone bigger than Everton until we face Manchester city and hosting Spurs November; we should be catching up or be on top as all these teams who face each others and have ECL to cop with. Then December, same, we host Liverpool & Chelsea or MU; if i recall. So, by and for boxing day, we can be optimist and realisticly imagine oursleves on top by and after boxing day. Up to us and all about winning our next game and respect each opponent we face to do so…Then; obviously we will be bring 3 wise addition; Lucas & Draxler so pissed in Paris right now and bring Seri to bring some engine into the middle, makes all team run better; they all have characters and hungry, ready for challenge… Then we can stand a chance to top the EPL. Now we should also support all UK Top teams in ECL, make sure they burn loads of energy there; but don’t depend on that, hope they do great…:). Cheers Gooners!
If I had to pick a result then I would choose City to win and my reasoning is…
6 points…
We have to play both UTD and City twice, that is 6 points from both of them if we can get the winS, it is still in our own hands and I feel we should encourage the team to push forward and go for the EPL.
Chelsea are only 3 points ahead at the moment and as I pointed out, we have to play them at home after getting a draw at theirs already.
If City can beat Chelsea and by a number of goals as well then we have the chance to get above Chelsea this weekend as long as we win by a number of goals, we need to make up more than 6 goal difference so a 4-0 loss for Chelsea and a 3-0 win for us would see us go above them.
Moral.
We get above Chelsea and with a lot of luck we get that result and at the same time Liverpool and/or spuds draw and we are back in the top 4, this would be a good boost to player and supporter moral after the horrendous start.
One game after the other is very important at this stage. Let’s take it one after the other. With support of the fans and the team spirit we can bring some ? come in May
I can not understand Bayern deliberately dropping to Europa league just to get a chance at Arsenal , beside Arsenal is just one match and does not guarantee them the Europa cup. If Bayern is not good enough to beat celtic to the 2nd spot and remain in the champion league , then I can tell you they won’t be good enough to win it either