The problem is a) Arsenal also played well enough to win at Old Trafford and beat Citeh at home but didn't, and the tack record is too often a case of "well enough" but not getting 3 pts, or more broadly, well enough to deserve top 4 but not sealing the deal; b) This is a crucial time in the evolution of the club in terms of recognizing their progress and building upon that to ensure it continues, and fans are tired of alleged moral victories and hearing age-old excuses. Put another way - ManU has played poorly much of the season but found ways to finish and steal games, and while the politics of the club is disjointed they largely united in the notion recognizing it's not good enough and they need to do something to get better still. Conversely, Arsenal have played well enough to win but found a lot of ways to drop points, and the fear is the club is failing to take another step due to the same short-sighted attitudes that allowed the club to sink the past few years. If Arsenal has intentions to climb back to higher heights, they can't simply sit still as if the last window's signings is sufficient for the program, or else we're likely going to hear a lot more often about how they played well enough to win, but didn't.
We have no functional striker, and both of our starting quality CMs have rocks for brains. Sure top 4 is technically possible, but with this group of players and this manager, it not happening. We have more than enough games left against the top 8 where we will drop points to afford anything but 3 points against the smaller clubs. Top 4 wasn't on the cards even before Burnley, barring some earth shattering transfer business, and it is definitely not on now.
USA feed cut away so quickly after FT, I didn't notice the booing that I'm hearing about on various pods. Did any of you catch that and was it directed at our not being able to get a win or at the Coote and his highly questionable non-call on Westwood which would've seen them down to 10-men with 60mins to go? I don't usually moan about calls against us, but that was a blatant error in officiating. I haven't thought too much about this match since it finished. But I think we actually didn't play so badly overall, we just absolutely suck at taking our goal chances. So it ends up being a game of fine margins. IIRC, both Laca & ESR missed gaping close-range shots (in the same sequence), Laca had a shot turned onto the bar, MO had a FK graze the top netting, etc. If any one of those goes in, the narrative for this match and our season to date is quite different. p.s. Given how decimated our MF has been for several weeks now, it's kind of surprising we didn't do worse and drop even more points. So I'm gonna be optimistic that a 2-1/2 week rest and trip to Dubai, can get us back on on track, and humming like we were1-2 months ago.
What each person sees is subjective, so I used the stats to reinforce what I saw, which as I said wasn’t great, but was better than most here seemed to feel. As another example of our differing subjective reactions to the game, some saw White as having a good game at right back. Despite some good moments I saw a player who sometimes hesitated because he didn’t quite know what he was doing at right back. Hardly a surprise since he was playing out of position, but that may have also affected Saka’s performance. BTW that was a cheap shot.
It was meant to be fairly light hearted (I employed an all-powerful emoji for chrissake!). I did hesitate for a second, but then sent it nevertheless, as "civil banter". Sorry that it didn't come off that way. Having read your previous post, which didn't say or imply that you'd watched the game, but rather just launched into stats... that prompted my sarcastic question. Anyway, of course the variability of subjectivity is at play, not to mention the different levels of attentive, analytical watching. When I'm typing a lot of posts during a match, the quality and quantity of my viewing is definitely diminished. Plus I often miss replays because of it. Saka's performance still seemed impotent to me, especially when he already had the ball, out wide in the final third, and was trying to evade one, two or three defenders. Whether White figured into that futility IDK, but I'll agree the he also was largely ineffectual too, going up the right flank. However he did play one or two sweet long cross-field diagonals (to Tierney or Martinelli?)
I just glanced at our schedule and it's downright vacuous. In fact we're practically having a month off winter break, with one match (Thurs @wolves) during that month. And a full 8 days after that before Brentford. But since 2 matches in February against CFC & LFC have to be rescheduled (because of their cup commitments presumably) we'll end up with some congestion in later months. So hopefully the boys are getting some good physical and mental rehab time in now, especially key players like Saka, ESR, Tomiyasu, Partey... Enjoy the benefits of being an "also ran" club who's knocked out of all cups, because as of next year that ain't continuing!!!