Tonight, we could secure Champions League qualification with two games to go. This despite us being “awful” according to many.
Beat Burnley by an England cricket score on Saturday and we could be watching Match of the Day from the top of the table. Not bad considering Mikel Arteta has been “found out” this season.
Following the Newcastle game, we blogged about how strong the Premier League was looking this season, and that the eventual champions will probably lose 6 or 7 games.
Manchester City have already lost twice in 11 games this season.
Liverpool struggled to a draw away to Luton Town on Sunday
Aston Villa were beaten comprehensively by Nottingham Forest
Tottenham were thrashed at home to Chelsea
Brighton were held at Everton
Of the Top 7 going into last weekend, only 2 got all 3 points – Newcastle and Manchester City. It is tight at the top and Arsenal could well finish the weekend top of the tree, or in 5th place…
That is why we have to learn to ignore the noise behind every defeat, every draw. Because all it is is noise.
Compare the fall-out from us losing away to a very good Newcastle team to Tottenham who lost 4-1 at home to Chelsea.
Tottenham, rightly, went down to 9-men. Both men sent off could have been shown a red card earlier in the game.
There brilliant, young up and coming manager, 58-year-old Ange Postecoglou, then deployed kamakazi tactics that you would not even see in the 3rd Division of the Essex Corinthians League. And yet the Aussie manager and his team came out of the game with praise.
They lost 4-1 at home, their players were ill-disciplined and their manager tactically naive. I am not sure why Sky were heaping so much praise on them.
Were this Arsenal, and it was Granit Xhaka and Shkodran Mustafi sent off, Sky would have dedicated a whole new show to the pair letting the club down again. About how they were a liability. About how Wenger (who would have been managing us then) was tactically arrogant.
Instead, Ange deflected. He played the nice-guy act. Praised the referees who got every decision right. And all Gary Neville et al could go on about was “how nice is the Tottenham manager” rather than “how bad were Tottenham”.
My view is Neville, Jamie Carragher, Michael Owen and others have a deep -seated hateed for Arsenal. This leads them to overly criticise our club, trying to make a negative mountain our of every molehill.
Due to this hatred against Arsenal, then they love Tottenham. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
They overly praise Tottenham for poor performances and their manager as a dig at Arsenal, not because they actually think Tottenham have done well.
I also think the relationship between the PGMOL and Sky Sports needs to be investigated.
Following the Liverpool game, where Sky pundits correctly heavily criticised officials, the PGMOL released the audio of the decision making exclusively to Sky. Since then, they have continued to exclusively release audio to Sky for them to discuss the weekend decisions ahead of Monday Night Football.
And the pundit often left to lead the analysis of the PGMOL audio? Gary Neville. And who is he often joined by? The Professional Game Match Officials Limited Chief Refereeing Officer, Howard Webb.
Is it not a conflict of interests that Sky release audio exclusively to one channel, and the PGMOL is also associated with that channel?
Have the PGMOL told Sky executives “tell your pundits to tone down their criticism of our officials and we will provide you with more access”. It would not be a surprise if that was the case.
My final thought on this is would Jamie Carragher’s response have been different if it was Liverpool who got those decisions against Newcastle? Had Jurgen Klopp come out and said what Arteta did? And had Liverpool made the statement of how they are looking to work with the PGMOL to improve?
He would probably be praising his former team for looking to work with the PGMOL on improvements rather than just criticising.
Tonight, we beat Sevilla and we are through to the knockout stages as long as PSV do not beat Lens. We will join Manchester City and RB Leipzig as the teams guaranteed qualifcation after just 4 games.
So block out the negative noise, The Arsenal are in a good place both domestically and in Europe, and we have not got close to hitting top gear yeat.
UTA
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
At last a man speaking sense agree with everything you said
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