What Our Opponents' Fans Are Saying About Us 21/22

[bomberH]

This is before our game with Newcastle. It's in their thread about the Palace game but we get mentioned a fair bit! Most of this is one very confident poster (SA Gunner) who comes across as some kinda of highly intelligent expert and very patronising to his fellow Gooners.

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SA Gunner - Another straight win here Im afraid. The issue for me is how comfortable it will be. As Arteta mentioned after Villa, we needed to score that second, third and fourth goal and put the game to bed.

"Need to make the most of the next three games of classic banana skins - vs 11th, 12th, 13th. Win these three and add +6 to our GD and we're looking very nice. Any points dropped and Spuds probably go ahead of us. Mentality crucial."

SA Gunner - Based on what do the Spuds go ahead of us? Have they been in killer form of late, winning 5/6 in a row or something? Nah, nothing to worry about with Sp**s. They should be concerned about whether they will break down Newcastle’s low block next match day. Chelsea just barely got past that for a lucky 3 points recently.

"Zaha rumoured to be out"

SA Gunner - I actually wanted Zaha to play, so we could beat them at absolute full strength. Not bothered with any attacker in the league to be honest. We've kept Liverpool and City relatively quiet in recent games, so there is nothing to really worry about.

Who do you see getting top 4? There are just too many potential banana skins in Arsenals run for my liking. I see Sp**s somehow taking 4th. We need Howe and his men to produce tomorrow.

SA Gunner - Its Arsenal all day. I dont think you understand how solid we are as a football side right now, if you don't believe me go and have a look at the multiple runs we put together so far this season. Sp**s and United are just not on our level.

SA Gunner - The fundamental problem with Sp**s is that they cannot break teams down, due to a blunt midfield and inability to pull opposition players out of their shape. Teams know this, and stay tight, and its why they fail to beat teams like Middlesbrough and Burnley, and cant win more than 2 games in a row. Son and Kane are excellent yes, but with space to work with. This is why Im not bothered about them, and actually think we can beat them at their place. And dont worry about the media, and Sp**s fans. They are trying to make themselves relevant, when they really arent. The only way they get into this race is if we falter, and we wont.

Feel its different now. When Conte first arrived, he wanted Kane closest to goal, thats why they struggled. In recent games, Kane has reverted back to dropping deep and playing balls, they are breaking teams down now. I don't envisage them struggling vs Villa, Brighton or Brentford. Hopefully Newcastle can cause an upset tomorrow though.

SA Gunner - That's a key thing you've seen there, Kane dropping deep, with Son and Kulusevski running behind. Its a symptom of their inability in midfield. What Kulusevski brings now is that extra creative/attacking option, which allows Kane to drop the way he does. Have a look today, when Newcastle keeps little space between their lines and would only press when Sp**s enters their half. They completely shut down Chelsea until the dying minutes of their game. Anything can still happen of course... Sp**s or United could beat us to 4th yes. Whether its probable is another story.

Kulusevski has been a revelation for them. Bentancur has been quite good too, but it doesn't need much against their other midfielders. Kulusevski might help them break down those busses. Annoying they for once got a transfer window right, just in time for this top 4 race.

Bentancur been bang average what u on about.

Only lately he has been a bit worse, but he is better than what they have mostly.

Bang average bro u tried to pull a fast one thinking nobody watches Sp**s but I watch every game hoping they lose (Fuck me, he watches our games and thinks Bentancur is bang average. Therein lies Arsenal's delusion)

No I didn't try to, but I don't watch every game. I have a cousin who is a Tottenham fan and watches every game, and he has also said he has been better than what they have (like Winks or even Hojbjerg), but recently he hasn't been as good as earlier.

Trash vs slightly less trash

We relax now, take 12pts from the last 4games when Sp**s get 6.

SA - Gunner - Very interested to see how we turn up tonight, on paper and current form it should be a comfortable win, but with the pressure of Tottenham winning yesterday and being the favourites, will be intriguing on how we cope with that, getting more comfortable that we'll turn up and perform professionally. I'm going for a 1-2 win for us, interested to see the starting line up of Palace, ours pretty much picks itself, but Zaha and Olise being out will be huge if true

Anything less than a win is catastrophic. Tonight's game is the first of our run of winnable games before our Chelsea game. Anything other than maximum points will be a disaster, what with Sp**s recent upturn in form.
We need to be going to the Chelsea game with a safe cushion especially with the fact that Sp**s and Chelsea have a favourable fixture list.

SA - Gunner - I honestly think we'll beat Sp**s, United and Chelsea mate. That's why Im so calm about our performances. Im seeing enough out there to convince me we going to do very well. You could call me absolutely delusional as well :lol: Of course, get ready for the media and rival excuses once we get those done. Probably a combination of Arteta being so lucky these managers had off days, to one game a week played resulted in those specific losses to Arsenal, to 150m spent in the summer, etc. This team and Arteta will only finally prove themselves once we win the Champions League with 9 men on the pitch, having played 48 hours before. Of course, without a cent spent... because we cant have chequebook managers. But Ill say less , and leave it to the boys to prove my point.

1 nil Palace

Losing 1-0 - Gonna be tough tonight. A draw wouldn't be the worst result as it puts us back above Sp**s.

SA Gunner - Dont worry... we'll win.

If palace are smart they keep the pressure on. They don't want to have Saka running at them all match long.

SA Gunner - is not the smart thing to do, they should sit back already, otherwise they'll tire. LOL: what a knob, acts like he's some kind of guru on there!)

2 nil Palace

SA Gunner - Ah no... that's poor. Mistake after mistake tonight.

Imagine this team still having to go to Southampton, Newcastle, Chelsea..

SA Gunner - Likely wins, bar Chelsea.

the worst part is the scum winning yesterday and dominating as they did. i will sell the stadium if that can get us Kane here.

3-0

SA - Gunner - a shambles tonight. Guess the Sp**s gang are jumping on their horses and charging my mentions now. (yes, I'm right here now)

Sp**s pile on their goal difference yesterday. Ours takes a battering today.

Haha stop. We are ****ed. Sp**s sense blood. 3 of our 1st eleven gone with no adequate back ups. Was fun while it lasted.

SA Gunner - on points with a game in hand, and Sp**s to play? What you smoking over there, I need some after this performance.

Sp**s to play? So what? When did we win away to them? Has been years

SA Gunner - Dont let this result demotivate you. We are more than capable of winning there.

I honestly expect us to lose against Conte’s Sp**s, it will just be a repeat match of when we’ve played either City, Liverpool or Chelsea (under Tuchel) during the last two years or so.

SA Gunner - Not against Conte's Sp**s, not unless they replicate what Palace did tonight, which I dont think they can do. They are a counter attacking team, and we are aware of that. I expect us to smother them at the lane.

How can you? We always know that they counter attack and run into their knife. Just bc they were completely out of form when they played at the emirates we had a comfortable game until they were 10. Usually they outsmart us and in this kind of form, it wont even be a contest. Have you seen this game. They are not magically better than that. They are that. I said it before. U thought they wouldnt have a chance with worse tactics and worse players. Well you were wrong and i fear you are wrong again but you are right in being positive and not losing sleep over a footballteam so i respect: Optimistic until the end.

Issue is Sp**s run in actually couldn’t be easier. We’ve got 2 free hits as well so that cancels out 6 points. It’s looking more nervy than I thought

Sp**s had a really bad spell and got over it, bought Bentacur and Kulusevski and are a fine team now. We had a good spell with many easy games and thats why we have the tough fixture now. Theres your tough fixture face.

SA Gunner - Its not blind optimism, there is method to our tactics which gives me confidence we can do the job. With Sp**s you could see the Newcastle tactics on display up until they took charge of the game. Howe himself mentioned in his post match, that they started to chase the game far too early and that is exactly what Sp**s want when you play against them. Sp**s are not the best at high intensity counter attacks, Liverpool are. And to counter Liverpool, we deployed a 5 defence vs 5 attack marking strategy, combined with tight lines and it completely neutralised Klopp's boys until they stepped it up with a moment of magic. This is the foundation of our game against Sp**s at their ground. Arteta will not deploy a deep block approach to completely shut them out (as we did with 10 men at Anfield), so the risk of our progressive play gives Sp**s the chance to win. But first... we need to resolve this Palace performance on the training ground... succumbing like that is not good at all.

I’ll be shocked if we get top four now, think this game is damaging. Sp**s look red hot too, with the Asian lad and Kano.

It was 10pm and SA Gunner contributed no more to their match thread. I assume it was past his bed time.

SA Gunner reminds me of slappy guy for some reason. No matter how many times he’s proven wrong by his peers, he just sticks to his guns and makes himself look more of a twat as he goes on.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

SA Gunner reminds me of slappy guy for some reason. No matter how many times he’s proven wrong by his peers, he just sticks to his guns and makes himself look more of a twat as he goes on.

That's an accurate description of numerous SC members, especially when the topic under discussion involves indvidual Spurs players.

Here are some real examples of guns that were stuck to, for months, even years, long after evidence had proven otherwise:

• Kulusevski is slow.
• Every player in our squad is Championship-level/relegation-fodder except Son and Kane.
• Winks would struggle at a League 1 side.
• Doherty is the worst footballer in the whole league.
• Walker is the stupidest footballer in the universe and belongs in a Championship side (you all know who this was, I'm sure).
• Berbatov is lazy.
• All Modric ever does is pass the ball 3 yards sideways.
• Carrick is useless because he never gets his shirt dirty.
  

I could go on...

 

[Japhet]

Mate, I had an Ipswich supporting teenager (my nephew) claim Ipswich had won more than Spurs because we’d never won anything. The banter accounts and social media have poisoned young fans’ minds to think we are some 2-bit club currently in our golden era who had never finished above 14th before Pochettino arrived. It’s mental.

Mus be pretty fucking old if he can remember Ipswich winning anything.

 

[topper]

Mus be pretty fucking old if he can remember Ipswich winning anything.

Must have been reincarnated!

 

[tommo84]

Mus be pretty fucking old if he can remember Ipswich winning anything.

He’s a fucking idiot is what he is and his Uncle Tom told him so!

(“Fucking idiot” may not have been my actual words).

 

[The Doc]

That's an accurate description of numerous SC members, especially when the topic under discussion involves indvidual Spurs players.

Here are some real examples of guns that were stuck to, for months, even years, long after evidence had proven otherwise:

• Kulusevski is slow.
• Every player in our squad is Championship-level/relegation-fodder except Son and Kane.
• Winks would struggle at a League 1 side.
• Doherty is the worst footballer in the whole league.
• Walker is the stupidest footballer in the universe and belongs in a Championship side (you all know who this was, I'm sure).
• Berbatov is lazy.
• All Modric ever does is pass the ball 3 yards sideways.
• Carrick is useless because he never gets his shirt dirty.

I could go on...

I will bite on the Walker statement. Was it dear old, long since departed, Bus Conductor? I was reflecting the other day, whilst simultaneously regretting my constant inability to build a working time machine, that, if we had sold Rose and Dele at the same time as Walker, we would probably have recouped something north of 150M min that Summer to reinvest. Obviously, we would all have been in a state of uproar, demanding Levy's head on a stick, etc. Still though.

 

[TheChosenOne]

Mus be pretty fucking old if he can remember Ipswich winning anything.

Arse 78 FAC was a wonderful thing.
then 1981 EUFA Cup final.

(I'm old)

 

[dagraham]

I am perpetually bemused as to why people seem to think Harry Redknapp didn't exist and do amazing things in his time here. Notably getting top 4 twice, a cup final, and a CL quarter final.

Whilst Jol didn't get top 4, he was also lifting us up from "struggles" and "mid table" a whole decade prior to 2015

Well sadly there are enough Spurs fans on here who denigrate his time with us, seemingly to me based mainly on their dislike for him as a person and because he was considered unsophisticated and old school.

And whilst the latter may be true to some extent it doesn’t detract from team he built and the way he had us playing. Yes, we ultimately fell short, but that’s certainly not limited to his time with us and some of the football we played was every bit as good as the Poch era ( and at times even better imo).

 

[GMI]

Well sadly there are enough Spurs fans on here who denigrate his time with us, seemingly to me based mainly on their dislike for him as a person and because he was considered unsophisticated and old school.

And whilst the latter may be true to some extent it doesn’t detract from team he built and the way he had us playing. Yes, we ultimately fell short, but that’s certainly not limited to his time with us and some of the football we played was every bit as good as the Poch era ( and at times even better imo).

If I recall he said something along the lines of ‘this is as good as it will get for Spurs’ which people took umbrage with. He had the team purring for a while but then he did have King, Bale, Modric, peak Lennon and VdV at his disposal. I agree he should be looked at more favourably. Maybe his son and his negative schtik on Sky has impacted on how we view his dad?

 

[Thenewcat]

Well sadly there are enough Spurs fans on here who denigrate his time with us, seemingly to me based mainly on their dislike for him as a person and because he was considered unsophisticated and old school.

And whilst the latter may be true to some extent it doesn’t detract from team he built and the way he had us playing. Yes, we ultimately fell short, but that’s certainly not limited to his time with us and some of the football we played was every bit as good as the Poch era ( and at times even better imo).

I’ll bite and give the counter view. IMO, Harry lucked into having 2 of the best 10 players in the world (one of whom he tried to sell to forest) plus a pretty good supporting cast at a time when the competition was relatively speaking not that great. He hugely underachieved, culminating in our 2012 title challenge falling apart after a ludicrous Jan transfer window as Harry thought he had the England job in the bag.

 

[Japhet]

Arse 78 FAC was a wonderful thing.
then 1981 EUFA Cup final.

(I'm old)

I could probably name a fair few of those teams!

 

[dagraham]

I’ll bite and give the counter view. IMO, Harry lucked into having 2 of the best 10 players in the world (one of whom he tried to sell to forest) plus a pretty good supporting cast at a time when the competition was relatively speaking not that great. He hugely underachieved, culminating in our 2012 title challenge falling apart after a ludicrous Jan transfer window as Harry thought he had the England job in the bag.

Not sure we can categorically say that the ludicrous Jan transfer window was necessarily all down to Redknapp ( even if we’ve all heard the Suarez story).

I take your points though and yes it can be argued we underachieved. However, I’d argue underachieving has been synonymous with Spurs throughout the whole time I’ve been a fan. Even the 80’s where we still won stuff.

Plus you could chuck the “lucked out” bit just as easily at Poch with Kane.

 

[elfy]

If I recall he said something along the lines of ‘this is as good as it will get for Spurs’ which people took umbrage with. He had the team purring for a while but then he did have King, Bale, Modric, peak Lennon and VdV at his disposal. I agree he should be looked at more favourably. Maybe his son and his negative schtik on Sky has impacted on how we view his dad?

I'll never forget the 'as good as it gets' comments. I can't remember if that was before or after he openely courted the England job to the detriment of us. He basically spent 3 months expecting to move to the national team and didn't give a fuck (which ironically cost him said job).

Not taking away what he did for us up to then, he was bloody marvellous until that, but there was no way back. It is a shame that is what I remember most.

I still like the guy, and will always be grateful for what he gave us but I won't forget how and why he left.

 

[jurgen]

Not sure we can categorically say that the ludicrous Jan transfer window was necessarily all down to Redknapp ( even if we’ve all heard the Suarez story).

I take your points though and yes it can be argued we underachieved. However, I’d argue underachieving has been synonymous with Spurs throughout the whole time I’ve been a fan. Even the 80’s where we still won stuff.

Plus you could chuck the “lucked out” bit just as easily at Poch with Kane.

Redknapp gets a lot more flak, but there's also a significant amount of posters who are revising Poch's history in a similar manner (transfer obstinacy, moodiness, eyeing other jobs etc.). It seems to be the lot of a successful Spurs manager. I'm not sure the 'as good as it gets' was a dig, more an acceptance of where we were in the food chain, and it's something that other managers have effectively repeated before and after.

Both were great managers for us and as nice as Jol was, Redknapp was the first time in my lifetime a Spurs team was genuinely good - and we smashed our weird psychological glass ceiling by getting 4th.

We've seemed to bounce between shit and great managers for the last 15 years so that does bode very well for Conte.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

Arse 78 FAC was a wonderful thing.

(I'm old)

I was at the semi-final vs. West Brom, which was at Highbury. My partner then came from a stalwart Ipswich-supporting family from Sudbury, Suffolk, so we went to several Ipswich matches when they played in London. We couldn't get tickets to the final, so we watched it on her small B&W television.

My introduction to Spurs and WHL was Tottenham 5 Ipswich 3 in 1980 or 1981. Hoddle scored a fine goal. We were standing on the away terraces, which I guess were in the Paxton end (?), in the pouring rain.

Ipswich had a sensational, dynamic and highly creative team in those days and really should have won the league in 1981.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

He had the team purring for a while but then he did have King, Bale, Modric, peak Lennon and VdV at his disposal.

People should never underestimate the importance of Tom Huddlestone to Redknapp's side. Especially before VDV, when we played 4-4-2 and he and Modric were routinely controlling midfield against teams with three midfielders.

 

[BosSpurs08]

That's an accurate description of numerous SC members, especially when the topic under discussion involves indvidual Spurs players.

Here are some real examples of guns that were stuck to, for months, even years, long after evidence had proven otherwise:

• Kulusevski is slow.
• Every player in our squad is Championship-level/relegation-fodder except Son and Kane.
• Winks would struggle at a League 1 side.
• Doherty is the worst footballer in the whole league.
• Walker is the stupidest footballer in the universe and belongs in a Championship side (you all know who this was, I'm sure).
• Berbatov is lazy.
• All Modric ever does is pass the ball 3 yards sideways.
• Carrick is useless because he never gets his shirt dirty.

I could go on...

Agree with your overall point, though I think it's worth mentioning that each of the examples you mention are both as delusional AND directionally opposite the overconfident battshittery you see coming out of AM, r/gunners and the like.

Skepticism is personal, and no matter your age you've probably seen some enough shit from this club to make you feel that way. Feel like most of the stupider takes are more borne out of anger/frustration than anything else.

I find that mindset 1000x more preferable to the obnoxious "we'll walk to top 4" every time Arsenal show a competent attacking structure against a bottom half team. Easy to point to a few noisy examples, but I've feel like there's a high-hubris, low-humility mindset that most of their fanbase (that I've encountered) shares that I find way more repulsive than some of the more extreme doubters here.

 

[sausage]

Mus be pretty fucking old if he can remember Ipswich winning anything.

Ipswich collectively won "the most residents on one episode of 'who do you think you are'" record, if that counts ?

 

[DogsOfWar]

I checked. For the years 2011/12 to 2020/21, our average league position has been 4.5 and Arsenal's has been 4.8.

Slightly better than I remember! But I also believe that Chelsea, United, and Liverpool were only slightly better than us.
It was only City who were significantly better, around 2.
I only know because someone posted a while back that our average position over the last decade wasn't very good so checked the teams around us only to find their's weren't much better.

 

[DogsOfWar]

Sadly, 4.8 or 5.0, theyve won trophies and we have not in the past 10 years.

Yes, but that doesn't mean we didn't have good teams before 2015.