Arsenal lost to West Brom yesterday to leave themselves at risk of missing out on Champions League football for next season.
The Gunners lost 3-1 at the Hawthorns in Saturday’s early game, leaving them a huge 19 points behind Chelsea in the title race, but more importantly trailing Liverpool in fourth place by five with only one match in hand.
The Reds are set to travel to Manchester City today, and Arsenal fans should be hoping of a home win, but there may be a percentage of supporters who have not yet given up on finishing higher than fourth.
I have heard some sections of our support angrily claim to ‘not care’ what happens to our side this season, with certain individuals insisting that our failures this term would make sure Wenger leaves, with those people trying to justify their acceptance of a bad year.
I can’t bring myself to think in such a negative way about my club however, and my heart wants only the best for our club in every aspect, regardless of who is in charge.
I’m resigned to thinking that Arsene Wenger will leave at the end of the season now, with such a tough campaign taking its toll on the attitude of our players, and the fans making it clear they wish to see the back of him-
In my opinion we must now be looking to beat Liverpool and Manchester United to that fourth and final spot, and our best chance to do that we will likely need the pair to not win their matches tomorrow.
Manchester City and Tottenham are not uncatchable currently however, especially with both Gabriel Jesus and Harry Kane out injured currently, but until the pair begin to drop points, Liverpool are the team I will be concentrating on in hope of demise.
Is it time to give up on finishing in the top three spaces? Are Man City and Tottenham out of reach?
Pat J
fourth spot hopes? Who cares …
Chelsea is the only team
guaranteed ECL football.
The next six are involved
in a ruthless cut throat battle.
Ideally City beat Liverpool
then Arsenal beat City and win the catch up games.
After that Spurs collapse and Arsenal race through to 2nd
and beat Spurs in the FA Cup final allowing Wenger
to go out on a high or sign a new contract 🙂
Not much sign of ruthlessness or cutting throats in yesterday’s performance … Amazing how tough it is for the 4th place junkies to kick the habit … But they will have to plan for cold turkey because the tired one won’t even be able to claim that “victory” this time … He will leave behind a second rate squad with no star quality players hard wired to playing boring lateral football possibly on a Thursday night slot … Sad legacy and it will need a strong manager to turn it around .and attract new talent.. At least 5 starting players needed and more if ozil and Sanchez leave …The man should have been booted in to touch 5 years ago when writing was on wall and people could still feel nostalgic for the glory days .. But with the grubby yank still holding the purse strings it is looking bleak for the club
If Wenger stays, we won’t get forth. It is as simple as that.
I said it before and I say it again. All Wenger has to do is to actually announce his plan. It will shift the weight to the players. As Shearer said, only Sanchez is playing for Wenger today. Why does he do it? I don’t know, we will find out soon.
By announcing what his plans are, he will come on the top nevertheless. Say he signs and then the team will show if the play or not for the manager. Failure to do that will trigger a massive cleanup in the summer. Basically a rebuild and at least one season of searching for a core. I doubt Wenger has any more mileage to build a squad though.
Announce he will depart and again it will shift all the weight on the players, you don’t want to win even after I announce my departure? So basically you pi$$ on all these fans who actually supported you through thin and thick. It will be massacre at the games for them. The abuse they will get will make their life impossible.
So, no matter what he does, if he announce a plan then things will move. If he does not announce anything then two things will happen: we will be in huge, huge trouble because I doubt any manager wants to come to a club in rout and secondly his legacy will be tarnished forever. As it stands today he may even get a statue. In fact just give the man a statue but force him to reveal the plan.
May be that will be the crux of his
“coming soon” announcement
about his future?
Pat – the only way we could dream about finishing 4th is if the players wanted to win. At the moment they don’t want to play for the manager (that’s a different discussion) so you might as well join the rest of us in accepting this disaster. The only chance this could change, but it is a small chance, is if Wenger announces he will leave. Hopefully, the fans will rally behind him and force the players to make an effort. I don’t see any other solution that gets us into 4th. Have not seen it since last year. And it is probably too late even if he were to announce his retirement, our run in is brutal.
Not really bothered about finishing 4th, maybe a year or so out of the Champions League will do us good. Also, I don’t buy this myth that you can’t sign good players if not in CL. Man U and Chelsea still signed good players last window. It’s up to the club to sell the player the passion and intent of the club he is signing for.
The right man in charge and no european football next season could be a huge blessing in disguise – just look at Chelsea.