We have two very different contrasting Spurs fans, blaming the referees and the club. We also have more thoughts on Arsenal.
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Spurs will let you down, too…
As a Spurs fan, I feel like one of many that have been trampled by a stampede over the course of this season (and longer?)
Week after week, not just defeats (although there have been many), but the mistakes, the bad luck, the deflections, the red cards, the biased decisions, the laughter from the opposition fans, the glee from the commentators and the pundits in the studio.
One stampede after another.
And so, after one more trampling this week, on what was hoped to be the beginning of the renaissance, I can only think of one conclusion:
I can’t wait to gloat in this mailbox when Spurs disappoint everyone else and stay up!!
Honestly, the giddy glee of everyone outside Spurs is borderline shameful. From opposition fans, honestly I can accept, and even respect that. West Ham or Arsenal fans taking the p*** out of us? Fair enough. Deserved.
But it’s the media, the F365s, the commentators. Jeez, the commentators in the Spurs Sunderland game yesterday were dreadful. Every Brian Brobbey elbow or a malicious, injury intending push was met with ‘ahhh what a physical player he is!’ while every Spurs foul or mistake was met with disdain. It’s the same every week.
F365, every podcast, every radio show, everyone delighted to see Spurs gone.
Even the referees, that’s the scariest thing. Every marginal call going against Spurs. Red cards, inconsistent VAR decisions, even that crazy handball given against Kolo Muani yesterday that came off his head on a breakaway? And when it happens to Spurs, instead of any apology it’s just ‘hah, Spursy!’. Are we the last team in the league this year without a penalty? It’s borderline corruption at this stage.
If De Zerbi and the players have *anything* about them, they’ll turn this ridicule into a siege mentality. They are being absolutely laughed at by everyone involved in English football. They need to turn that into venom that gets put to work on the pitch.
Six games left and people are salivating over Spurs demise. But I’m sorry to tell you, like they’ve done for us fans for so long: Spurs will disappoint you.
Salvation seems miles from us for now… but one win can change everything. De Zerbi will make more progress. Xavi Simons, Bergvall, Van de Ven, Porro, Tel will step up. Maddison might even return.
Spurs will stay up… and I can’t wait to be back here when they do!
Andy, Spurs, Eire
Where Spurs got it very wrong
Should, as feels increasingly inevitable, Spurs get relegated, the January transfer window won’t be the reason but it will be a huge reason why. In no world do I expect us to get in Guehi and Semenyo but I look at West Ham, of all clubs, who bring in two players who are transformative.
Spurs, and the brain trust that is Lange and Vinai, sell Johnson our final (in)consistent goal threat at the very beginning of the window, and replace him with Gallagher, giving him £200k p/w by the by, insanity. We lose Richarlison, Kudus, Bergvall and Bentancur during that same window, and bring in…..nobody. Not a single other player…oh wait, a 19 year old Brazilian…who’s barely seen the pitch since arriving.
Then, when it was clear Frank needed binning off, they waited until after the window had passed. Mind boggling.
That is bone headed arrogance and negligent to the extreme.
Spurs won’t get relegated because of that window but it was a chance to give the squad a shot/kick up the arse and it was spectacularly passed up.
No matter what happens. Those two bozos have to be relieved of their duties with immediate effect. Painful to watch, but morbidly fascinating at the same time.
Finally, a big apology to both my kids who it seems really want to support Spurs; forgive me.
Dan Mallerman
READ: Premier League winners and losers: Manchester City, Arsenal, West Ham, De Zerbi, Thiago, Rosenior
Arsenal ruining football? Not so fast…
I love this idea that Arsenal are ruining football when you have 1. Rival fans clamoring for City to win (again – even despite 115) and 2. Rival fans (e.g. Chelsea today) actively rooting against their own club’s interests (CL not looking likely now is it?) in order to root for Man City getting a lifeline back into the title race.
All because…you don’t like our Lego-headed manager, our online fanbase and that we score from a lot of set piece situations? It’s not Arsenal who’s ruining football – it’s you f***ing idiots who take these asinine positions and then actually try to defend them. It honestly seems past the point of just “bantz” now. This is what football has become and it’s kinda sad.
Now stfu and watch us still win this league.
MAW, LA Gooner (Also, to all you people who were hating on Americans – you are all also total idiots. And I imagine there’s a strong correlation between the likelihood of someone I described above also being the same type of person that I’m describing in these brackets. Or, as we call them in America, “parentheses”. F*** off.)
On those spoiled Arsenal fans…
I am not going to make silly forecasts about whether Arsenal will or won’t bottle the league but I mentioned multiple times this season that if you coach negativity you give elite players an inferiority complex. You’re telling them they’re not good enough to win toe to toe and need to, instead, resort to dark arts and gamesmanship. That is not a recipe for trophies in the long haul, regardless of how this season pans out.
That said I was surprised more attention wasn’t paid to the boos at full time. Liverpool, in all my life, have never been top of the league and been boo’d off a home pitch. I’d love to know what the players thought and felt when they heard that. I can’t imagine they felt motivated to work harder for the benefit of fans entitled enough to boo them off when they’re 6 points clear at the summit.
I remember a couple months ago Arsenal had a bad draw the same weekend Man City lost and fans were at pains to point out how actually it was a good weekend for the team; but generally if you hope to win trophies dropping easy points is never positive. Those chickens might feel like they’re coming home to roost a bit now.
Finally, fans are eager to question why neutrals might favour Man City. Some have pointed out that Man City almost get disregarded because they haven’t really got a fan base in the way the actual big clubs do. I won’t shed any tears for Arsenal because they seemed perfectly happy to jump into bed, and promote their new sponsorship, with Deel this season. If you want to partner with corporations that actively support the genocide in Gaza then forgive us all for not caring how “proper” you think your club is.
Minty, LFC
…To highlight how much this Arsenal team’s collective heads seem to have gone you only need look at the celebrations after the Gyokores penalty. At 36 minutes into the game, this was hardly a case of desperate times and at that point in time you’re sitting a solid 10 point clear of your nearest competition.
How did the Arsenal team react though? Did they go and drink in the applause, celebrate with each other or dare I say it enjoy themselves a little? No, Gyokores gave a brief showing of his trademark hand gesture and then sprinted back to the halfway line as if this was stoppage time in a cup tie and they needed another not to get knocked out. Add to this the fact that David Raya went up for a corner at the end of the game this paints a picture of a team that has a mindset of hanging on to the title rather than believing it’s theirs.
Being 9 points clear at the top is by no means a desperate situation despite what the papers and a majority of Arsenal fan social media “celebs” would have you believe. The genuine fear that has enveloped the club however is.
Maybe players and fans alike should spend some time overthinking the positives instead of catastrophising the negatives.
Anthony (Raya could’ve thrown away that precious goal difference “point” too), Kilburn
The HyperBowl starts here
The wait for the return of Villa to action over the international break and FA Cup QF’s felt like a lifetime. However, it feels like the massively overhyped build up to the City v Arsenal game on Sunday may make this week even more intolerable.
It won’t decide the title. It may influence it significantly, but it won’t decide it. We can’t watch Arsenal lose at home and then proclaim them champions if they get a result at The Etihad.
Gary AVFC, Oxford (Got to score those Watkins and Rogers).
Cescy talk
One must take these reports with a massive handful of salt of cold. But that they’re even being spread. – and are perfectly believable – shows how fast Arsenal’s season is unravelling.
Cesc Fabregas is *reportedly* being lined up to replace Arteta, in the event he wins no silverware this season. I wonder what Arsenal fans think of this? Cesc of course * knows the club * and he’s doing pretty well at Como, but he’d basically be another very inexperienced manager.
On the plus side, you would imagine he’d play a rather more interesting style of football. And there’s no way this squad needs major expensive surgery, it just needs the best getting out of it.
From potential Quadruple winners to looking at a new manager in about 3 weeks. Modern football moves *fast*.
Jamie, Liverpool
Stop lying about a child…
Did nobody else kinda pick up on how daft this fella sounded?
That being said Madueke and Mosquera lack elite “mentality. Dowman seems to be riding his lucky Everton’s cross. The boy is 16, very talented …but he make forward or side passes, cannot create chances (creating chances in different from creating chaos), he just runs, dribbles into blind alleys, get fouled”.
What are you even on about? Since that Everton game he has played 3 games. One of them was where he was Arsenal’s best player in the FA Cup in the loss to Southampton. He then played 14 mins against Sporting and 35 mins against Bmouth. He’s a winger whose main attribute is dribbling. He’s very good at it. Arsenals wide players are scared to take men on, he isn’t. What is your sample size here? Less than half a game vs Bournemouth? Why do people always speak so confidently when spouting drivel.
Dion Byrne
We end with Stewie
Sorry but I have to point out the dissembling, dishonesty and delusional guff from Arsenal fans, which goes some way to explaining why they are perennial Losers and the butt of every joke. Take that mailbox entry from (I assume Arsenal fan) Mubashir.
This is a classic case of Islington MAGA dissembling and dishonesty. First off, he states Noni “is the ball out if you dribble it past the white chalk” Madueke “cost £30m”. This is false and dishonest – Madueke cost £52m! Then, Arteta’s coaching allegedly “isn’t the central issue”…but here’s where it gets “Alternative Facts”: Mubashir goes on a few sentences later to bemoan “ no chemistry, no patterns, no coordinated pressing”. Strange, because where do players learn these attacking patterns? Ah yes through training ground drills and repetition! Where do they learn coordinated ball pressing? Again: on the training ground! And who is 100% responsible for this? Aaaah yes. The manager!
But my favourite part arrives with the moment of clarity that “recruitment is the problem”. Whose decisions were they to blow £52m on Madueke, £65m on an ashtray, £60m on a Viking Clogger? It’s subsequently concluded that “Arsenal were never good enough” – quite a conclusion to reach when the manager has had 7 years and over £1bn!!!!
Hate to go back to this point but when 4 seasons ago, the usual banal El Fraudo-lovers bandied about the “who would you replace Arteta with” bollocks, I suggested Luis Enrique. This was shot down as I was reliably informed that he “didn’t have what it takes” to compete in the PL and “my granny coulda won a Treble with that Barca side”. Interesting.
I contend that if you had given Luis Enrique the exact same conditions El Pulizon has had the past 2 seasons, he’d have back to back PL titles and possibly a CL.
This remember, is the same manager who took a punt on a Barca-reject Dembele, who’d spent his Barca career persistently crocked, or out of form. Dembele was such unwanted goods that Enrique got him for just €50m – aka a €20m discount on a Chelsea reject ashtray. A few seasons later with Enrique’s coaching, Dembele is a European champion and ballon d’Or winner! Look at Vitinha, ex-Wolves, signed for just over €40m – aka a huge discount on a Madueke. One of the best midfielders in Europe! Desire Doué – a young precocious talent, now a European champion and going to the WC with France. And it goes beyond that, look at the wealth of youth talent Enrique has put his trust in: Mayulu, Zaïre-Emery, Barcola. Nuno Mendes far cheaper than a Ben Shite etc. Examples abound. The point? Enrique is a progressive manager who trusts in youth, is attacking and demonstrated that raw attacking talent thrive under him. All this after losing Mbappe! Oh and a reminder: Enrique earns less than Arteta. Farcical.
Meanwhile….El Fraudo has signed 194 defenders, is linked with another 27 defenders this summer, has spent far more than an Enrique but is whining that duds like Fraudegaard are “injured”. It’s pathetic. 7 years and not one person can name an unquantified attacking success he’s coached! Max Dowman will be the biggest beneficiary of a new, inventive creative manager – as will Ethan Nwaneri and MLS. The talent is clearly there in those players, but having some Fake Technocrat regurgitating David Brent quotes, whilst making you do 370 hours of bleep tests (as he forbids you from shooting, improvising, or taking risks)…is the worst possible thing.
Here’s a final curveball: I will bet my bottom dollar that if Arsenal sacked Arteta tomorrow and brought in an emergency interim manager (Alonso is literally free), Arsenal would get more wins, play better, and win the PL. Crazy idea, but call it a “new manager bounce”. I even think Maresca would get the 3 more wins required at this point!
That Arsenal fan claims “title was never in Arsenal’s hands”. A 9-point lead, home to Bournemouth, with a chance to go 12 clear. With 8 matches or so left. But MAGA-style lads, “ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears”. Hilarious.
7 years, over 100 different players, different squads, different seasons…what is the one common bottling denominator?
Stewie Griffin (£1bn spent but not one Arsenal attacker can finish like Guehi! LOL)
