Arsenal are in near-perfect form but will miss out on the Premier League title unless Manchester City play West Ham at home on the final day. That's unlikely, to say the least.
So what went wrong with Mikel Arteta and his players? Here are five moments that may have contributed to City's second-place finish and their fourth consecutive title. please…
How Arsenal lost the Premier League title to Man City
fulham football club
Arsenal's performance against the so-called 'big six' has been outstanding this season. top a particular table very convincingly. There were two occasions when it looked like we might lose one of these matches. When Alejandro Garnacho scored the winning goal in the last minute against the Emirates, and when the Gunners were trailing 2-0 away to Chelsea.
The former was disallowed for offside, despite VAR using a “wrong angle”, and Arsenal scored two goals in stoppage time to win 3-1. Against their London rivals, Arsenal fought back to draw 2-2. Leandro Trossard's equalizer was one of many clutch goals the diminutive Belgian has scored this season.
This irreverent record is worth celebrating, but it could all have been for nothing as Arsenal dropped five points to Marco Silva's enigmatic Fulham.
In an experimental start to the season against Fulham, Arteta started Thomas Partey at right-back, Benjamin White and William Saliba at centre-back and Jakub Kivioglu at left-back. Aaron Ramsdale opened the scoring and Andreas Pereira opened the scoring shortly after the break with a speculative shot from long range. Silva's side were on the front foot for 69 minutes, conceding two goals in those few minutes, but were down to 10 men in the 83rd minute.
Arsenal built up a man-advantage and managed to pull a draw with Joao Parinha's equalizer in the 87th minute. The Gunners' disorganized performance led to a puzzling result.
In the return match, blonde-haired Bukayo Saka took the lead, but Arsenal were completely outclassed and unsurprisingly suffered a 2-1 defeat. These two results for him turned out to be very costly and very frustrating, especially considering Fulham's record against Manchester City. They lost 0-4 at home and 5-1 away. Oh no.
December slump
The aforementioned away defeat to Fulham was the last game before the winter break. Arsenal took the time to visit Dubai and returned tanned and ready for a run-in. They rejuvenated and began dominating teams week in and week out.
While this isn't exactly a 'moment', clubs have sometimes been described as being 'going through a bad period' in the parlance of the past decade, with a string of poor results, and this is what happened at Arsenal in December. That's what happened. The month started with narrow wins against Wolves and Luton, followed by a 1-0 loss to Aston Villa, an unsurprising result given the Villans' form, but complaints about penalties not awarded and goals set aside. As a result, Arsenal fans felt that they had been treated badly. .
After getting things back on track with a comfortable 2-0 home win over Brighton, a very respectable 1-1 draw against Liverpool at Anfield saw Martin Odegaard score. This time, a strange decision was made. A combination of breakdancing and basketball dribbling in your own box.
Liverpool's result wasn't bad at the time, and it's not good looking back, but it was part of a three-game winless run. Losing at home to West Ham would mean a very difficult night. Declan Rice's penalty awarded in front of the away fans was a significant low for the £100m midfielder, but that blush was saved by David Raya and left Said Benrahma embarrassed by the poor result. I refused to avoid any consequences.
Fulham's defeat continued. I wish my trip to Dubai had been sooner.
defamation of st james park
Mikel Arteta recorded a pure box-office hit after Arsenal lost 1-0 to Newcastle United in November.. Anthony Gordon's winner was furious that Joelinton's foul on Brazil team-mate Gabriel Magalhães was not dismissed. Manager Arteta branded the presenter as “embarrassing” and “disgraceful”. He overreacted a bit, but his head was in Jupiter. Sometimes there is a red mist.
Arteta and Arsenal have hired the best lawyers in the business to sue the FA because the word 'disgrace' is very similar in spelling and pronunciation to the Spanish word 'degracia' which means misfortune, tragedy or misfortune. I hired him to avoid this. Bad luck. wonderful.
It looked like a foul because it was a foul, but Arteta's reaction was completely unwarranted. Since the introduction of VAR, there have been many worse calls, even against his team. When the VAR audio came out, it was revealed that they deemed Gabriel to have exaggerated Joelinton's push and essentially screwed himself by exaggerating the contact. He cried out in dismay, but neither the referee nor VAR agreed.
This is probably the least important of the five 'moments', but Arsenal have been so good this season that it's worth mentioning. The ball may have been out of play. All of this could have been avoided if David Raya had claimed Joe Willock's cross.
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This is 2 pieces for the price of 1. Don't say we're not good to you.
Sometimes a crucial mistake can haunt you for months, and that was the case with Leandro Trossard's 2-0 loss to Aston Villa at the Emirates, Arsenal's only defeat of 2024. . If he had scored that, the Gunners likely would have won the title. But there's also a good chance they won't, as we inexplicably tease and then explain.
Arsenal fans were left speechless as Trossard fired the ball into the only part of the goal covered by Emi Martinez. This is a chance to defeat the Belgians. His excellent form in the run-in means we can let him go.
Another mistake that will bother Arsenal fans if Manchester City beat West Ham on Sunday was one by a Tottenham player. As Gunners fans watched Spurs host City this week, time stood still until Son Heung-min ran into goal in the 85th minute. One-on-ones are his weapon, and nine out of 10 will result in a goal, but his meek shot was saved by Stefan Ortega. If Arsenal fans hated him before, they will now despise him with bloody scorn.
If Son had missed that chance and Spurs had drawn the game, Arsenal would have taken control of the title race. On a very strange night at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, many home fans were relieved to see their captain thwart such a golden chance.
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Mikel Arteta's starting lineup vs Aston Villa
Yes, it was a decisive moment when Trossard fluffed the aforementioned sitter against Villa, and had he done that, Arsenal would probably have won the match and, barring the butterfly effect, would have remained unbeaten in 2024. It would have been. However, the result was not the same, with Arsenal completely lacking against Unai Emery's side and ultimately losing 2-0, which looks completely out of place next to these wins in the results column.
Arsenal's form faltered only once throughout training, and the only points they dropped were the 0-0 draw against Manchester City and the 2-0 home defeat against Aston Villa. I was wrong, but this is something he rarely does. His team exceeded expectations with another great season, but that doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. And really, that's the only thing he could be criticized for all season. This was the biggest moment of the five.
Arteta's side had Kai Havertz up front, thanks to Jorginho's role as a No. 6, and Declan Rice was playing high up the pitch, keeping his team entertained. For some reason known only to him and his players, the Spanish coach decided to shake things up and made the move. Rice moved down one position, with Havertz in midfield and Gabriel Jesus up front, and despite incredible defensive stability with Oleksandr Zinchenko left the team, he was moved to left-back. I'm back.
The first half was decent, but the Gunners were completely dominated in the second half and deservedly lost. Zinchenko wasn't sent off until three minutes left, Martin Odegaard was sent off with an obvious bruise as Havertz remained in the center of the park, Jorginho wasn't introduced until the 79th minute, and Benjamin White was brought on when Takehiro Tomiyasu was introduced. was. , not Zinchenko.
A bizarre day on Emirates Airlines makes us believe this is all just a social experiment.
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