Again, there's nothing desperate about what I said - City are the favourites given form. But I also don't think the towel should be thrown in with the teams level on points, that's just depressing and needlessly defeatist.

If both teams do win all their games, they had a great chance to get a head start

It only needs one of those things - either neither team dropping points or both dropping the same number of points. I think it's unlikely, but I also don't think it's a particularly wild outcome.

Yes, I said that it's unlikely to come down to goal difference. So we agree?

How so? I acknowledge that it coming to goal difference seems unlikely?

Considering it could all come down to goal difference, however unlikely that might be, City only winning by one here would be quite the let off.

Or this one…
bsky.app/profile/gary...

Tbf if ever a football club did need to go to therapy, it would be this one

Rosenior will be fine. He’s a young coach who did good work at Hull and Strasbourg, but this job was so obviously beyond him - take your payoff and run.

Chelsea are an embarrassment though. Not a shred of cohesion, clarity or conviction between any of those chumps.

Those men with Chelsea season tickets certainly were aged over the last few months. Mission accomplished, Liam.

The other part of the conversation about him as a team-mate that isn't being had: there's plenty of chat about how none of the attacking players are scoring often enough, no chat about how they're all playing with him having previously played with Jesus then Havertz.

All until injury has struck them, of course. Same goes for players like White and Timber at the back.

Big issue definitely, I find it hard not to think we're ultimately paying the price for them playing so many minutes in previous seasons without any sort of break. August 2020-July 2024, Saka played 221 games (198 starts) for club and country. Havertz + Ødegaard similar since signing.

So yes, goals come into it. But Havertz' goalscoring isn't the yardstick for Gyökeres, because Havertz is better at everything else. The team plays better with him, team-mates will score more goals with him playing. I don't care where the goals come from, I care that they're scored.

I don't think goals are the only measure of a player, personally. I think strikers can have a huge impact on playing style and whether you can dominate, and whether you get more (or less) out of the players around them. Havertz is about a lot more than goals.

Arsenal had a bad summer window and only themselves to blame for that.

He has one open play goal against top half teams. He has one more open play goal than Casemiro. The same number as Richarlison and Sesko in a lot more minutes played.

That's not "he scores goals".

They're second and they were at home, it's the hardest game of the entire season, and the game with the most pressure on it. I appreciated that we went for it and I think the trade-off is that you end up being a little more open (disagree that we were poor) defensively.

And I agree - before yesterday I didn't think we'd win the last five, so needed a result. Now I do feel like we can win the last five.

Yeah I have Villa as the last top performance in my head as well

One undermentioned thing with Eze, I think, is that he rarely played 90 minutes for Palace and that was without ever playing European football there. I think it's fair to question but I wonder if he has the capacity to do everything he has to for 90 consistently.

My focus really was on Havertz, who I think was really good and made us better bsky.app/profile/lgam...

Wish he'd take a pot shot

How many times this season have you watched Arsenal in a Premier League game and - whatever the result - thought 'I hope we play like that next week'?

It's hardly happened for me at all but it did yesterday, and that feels good.

I completely get it, like I say if asked to predict right now I'd definitely back City. But that doesn't make us dead, it makes us underdogs.

We might not win it - I definitely have City as favourites now - but we obviously aren't 'dead in the water'.

Yep, so much better. Best performance for months for me.

Sam, we're so back.

"Why can't Arsenal attack?"

It's really, really simple!

I've seen zero evidence that he can win headers and even less that he can convert them. He literally didn't score one for Sporting last season, so no, I don't think he scores it.