Arsenal lost the Premier League title with one January decision | OneFootball

Arsenal lost the Premier League in January when they allowed Antoine Semenyo to join Manchester City.

Man City v Arsenal continues to dominate the Mailbox. Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com

Love in a bottle

May I quickly copyright the term “Quattle”

Much obliged. Richard Andrews

…Would you rather (for non Tot/Ars fans) – Tottenham get related but Arsenal win the PL – Spurs avoid the drop, but Arsenal bottle it

For me personally, Clive, Arsenal bottle it every year but the banter with Spurs getting relegated is generational. Gaurav MUFC Amsterdam

Arsenal lost the title in the January transfer window

This is a long one, so strap in.

There is one huge factor that’s not being discussed in all the City hitting form/Arsenal bottling it talk -the January 2026 transfer window.

(Here’s the Premier League table since the transfer window – Ed)

Following this window, City went from having the joint-best/second best squad in the league to the best squad. Look at all the number of options in every position and compare it side by side with Arsenal’s – for example their CBs are: Dias, Stones, Guehi, Ake, Khusanov, Alleyne and Gvardiol (though he often plays LB where City have O’Reilly and Ait Nouri).

Despite this, Arsenal should still have drifting towards winning the league serenely and not messing up like this.

Commenters online (including here at F365), have noted Arsenal’s poor productivity on the left wing of late. Trossard hasn’t scored for half a season and Martinelli only has 1 league goal (though it was a damn important one – the late equaliser against City in the home game) and IMO, one of Artetas biggest mistakes was not getting Semenyo to fix this issue.

We were interested in him but Arteta thought he had enough options to last the season. Semenyo has the best qualities of both Trossard and Martinelli (but is better than each of them at said qualities e.g he’s a better goalscorer than Trossard and is a better runner with the ball than Martinelli) combined in one neat package. He’s an Arsenal fan too. If we’d got him, Arsenal would easily be 5-10 points clear right now, even with the loss yesterday.

Arsenal didn’t really need Guehi but not getting Semenyo to stimulate the attack was foolish.

They still shouldn’t have messed up THIS badly though.

Losing yesterday was forgivable, Arsenal played well, hit the post twice and Havertz should have equalised late on, it happens BUT conceding after the 90th min to Sunderland and Wolves to drop 4 points is what has killed us this season. We lost a point to Villa in the same fashion too. Those 5 points would have us clear. Late concessions like those was why I never truly believed we’d do it. My fellow Arsenal fans got too giddy, too early, which is why I emailed in recently to not assume that the league was already won.

Hopefully Arteta goes fully attacking for the rest of the season (e.g playing a midfield 3 with rice at 6, and eze + ode as twin 10’s in certain games), so we can win all our remaining games and win the title on GD.

Doubt that will happen though. Izzy, London (ever the pessimist)

Silva, fumes, vibes and muscle memory

I thought Arsenal gave a decent account of themselves yesterday. City were relatively comfortable over the 90 mins. They certainly controlled proceedings for the most part but Arsenal had their chances and it could’ve been different were they more clinical.

The most influential player on the pitch was Bernardo Silva. It was a masterclass in experience and leadership by example. Every decision he made with the ball was the right one. He showed up wherever he was needed across the pitch, drove City through the gears, and was the steady, experienced head that Arsenal just don’t have, but desperately need.

At the final whistle the body language was telling – Arsenal players had jerseys over their heads and looked like they were exiting the pitch on fumes. Man City didn’t over celebrate but gave off inevitability vibes and side eyes to the cameras as they made their way off. It looked like muscle memory for them. JB (Arteta deserves everything he doesn’t get, and Gabriel is a very lucky man)

Still believing in Arsenal

Who gets more s**t this summer – Arsenal if we bottle the league or Spurs if getting relegated? MAW, LA Gooner (Rhetorical question – it’s Arsenal obviously. We are going to win the league though.)

How’s the Banterpocalypse coming along?

After the result against City (during which they at least showed the sort of attacking intent that has been missing from much of their eye-bleedingly dull percentage and set piece centric football this season), I thought that it might be a good time to check in on the status of the Four Horsemen of the Banterpocalypse.

(I personally think Bantermageddon trips off the tongue better, but doesn’t work for the purposes of this email.)

First came Famine in the Carabao Cup final, where Arsenal’s attack was so starved of invention and cutting edge that it barely merited that description. A barren display on the biggest domestic stage available to them at the time.

Then Pestilence rode into town in the FA Cup, overseeing Arsenal’s irritating and festering defeat to Southampton. Losses happen, but going out to lower-league opposition carries a uniquely infectious and septic frustration; the kind that lingers and spreads doubt through a squad that should know better.

Now, War on his red charger looms in the Champions League. A clash with Atletico Madrid promises trench warfare, gamesmanship, and all the other dark arts that define European knockout football (exemplified by Diego Simeone’s perennial…erm…’spoilers’ shall we say?). A bruising encounter with City and Arsenal’s fragility under pressure do not inspire confidence and that they are ready for such a battle.

And finally, the Premier League and the shadow of Death. Once holding a commanding nine-point lead, the defeat to Manchester City could be the beginning of the end. To surrender such an advantage would not just be a stumble; it would be a none-more-Arsenal collapse in what would then be a catastrophic season, and one which would surely result in the last rites being read over Arteta’s ‘always the bridesmaid’ Arsenal career.

Two horsemen have already ridden. A third is circling. And the fourth just appeared on the horizon.

The Banterpocalypse is no longer hypothetical — it’s unfolding in real time right in front of us. Matt D, London

Blaming Man City and financial doping is a nonsense

Quelle surprise. The mailbox is full of Arsenal fans bemoaning financial doping and the 115 charges against City as if that’s the reason they are where they are. If those charges and all that spending were truly the reason, City would be miles clear and probably unbeaten given the state of the league this year. They’re not.

Arsenal only have themselves to blame. They don’t know how to see an advantage out. They pile the pressure on themselves and crumble under it. Arteta isn’t helping either, constantly micromanaging from the sideline. If he could, you’d swear he’d have a controller in his hands running the match himself.

This situation is on Arsenal. No one else. Enough of the whining. Culk the Younger (enjoying some schadenfreude)

Five-year net spend table: Arsenal £675m spending dwarves Man City

…So I see that the customary narrative building has already begun in which Arsenal fans take the high road and class themselves as the people’s champions because they weren’t financially doped as they say City were.

Can we just put this tired old trope to bed please and just accept that it’s part and parcel of football? To put it in perspective by this logic a team like wolves would be well within their rights to point at Arsenal and their billion pound spend accusing them of financial doping. Wolves can’t spend that much, wolves can’t compete with a team of that value and yet they’re in the same league playing as if they’re equals in a wholly unequal league.

Football fans are culpable for this. They spend their days with their torch and pitchforks pointing to the oligarchs and Arabs screaming “cheat cheat cheat” whilst simultaneously haranguing their own club owners for not bankrupting themselves in the faint hope of success. You invited the fox into the henhouse.

Let’s be honest, if your club had the opportunity to bring an Arab owner in and do what city have done winning what they’ve won, playing how they’ve played then you would take it. The only reason you whine is because it’s not you.

Can we not just enjoy the theatre without all the straw man histrionics? Anthony, Kilburn

Moaning about 16 Conclusions

Mate did you even watch the game? City were all over Arsenal in the first quarter of the game, Gabriel got very lucky to not give a penalty away and then that deflection hit the post. City were running rampant up until Donnarumma shat the bed

At least now we have a title race. Let the bottle job commence Disgruntled, RSA

In which Dave Tickner is accused of being an Arsenal fan

Can we please have non Gooners doing the analysis/16 Conclusions of Arsenal games please – at least the really important ones. Quite nauseating. Poor old Arsenal – boo hoo. Shunt, LFC

22 minutes later

Ok – maybe I was a bit harsh on DT – basing my opinion on many previous utterances rather than today’s piece – but then that could be said about Arsenal too. Just because they turned up yesterday – it’s the rest of the season that has been the problem. They can’t be felt sorry for.

More positivity/bravery – and some proper football expected of a team of their status and they would have been out of sight by now. My opinion of them for the last 3 years or so, including this one – is that they are nowhere near as good as they and many others claim.

And ending the season potless kind of proves that – though there is still plenty of work to be done by City (and the Euro teams) for that to end up being the case. Shunt, LFC

Why is a ‘headbutt a red card?

Very close game, should have been a draw. Arsenal actually came to play, which was a wonderful surprise. Had *this* Arsenal been playing for the last month, the league really would be done. There’s always time for a twist yet though.

Anyway. You make the perfectly fair point that had Erling hit the deck when Gabriel butted him, then Gabriel would have been off. Because he didn’t and because VAR elected not to get involved for some reason, Gabriel stayed on. Thus encouraging simulation across the board, because it’s the only way the rules will be applied. All true but phenomenalstupid stuff.

For me that’s not the problem. The problem is that the *butt* from Gabriel wouldn’t have knocked down my 4 year old little girl. It certainly did not harm Haaland in any way, shape or form. So why is it a red? Players do things to their opponents that are infinitely more dangerous all game, every game.

Surely the point of VAR is that it can distinguish between a Glasgow kiss that knocks you senseless and the love tap Gabriel dished out. The ref can’t always see the strength of the thing and that’s fair enough. But VAR can, so why is the law the way it is?

If Gabriel had been sent off there it would have absolutely screwed Arsenal, not just in that game, but in all the games to come. For a tiny little head movement. He’s just lucky Erling is a reincarnated Viking warrior with pride about him.

Doesn’t stop it from being a bloody stupid rule though. James, Liverpool

Arsenal fan still taking some pleasure from football

Sam states in his email that “Spurs will fight to the last minute of the last day”. I guess my question is, when are they going to start?? Weldoninhio, BAC

To The Coward…

To Name Redacted, you have been watching football for 41 years and have opinions stuck in 1985, so you are clearly of some age and yet, you are too cowardly to put your name to your own words. Football shifts and moves, clubs rise and fall. For all Spurs recent faults we are a storied club, with a great history and a huge, enthusiastic fanbase. Proud to support this club even if we are ridiculous. Chris, London

To the pearl-clutchers

I would like to suggest that for the remainder of the season, this venerable website institute variable charging to certain types of mailbox submissions whose content falls into any of these categories:

$1 – Anything concerning how Arsenal are bottlejobs, their terrible style of play, don’t deserve to win the EPL or Arteta out

$2 – Complaining because VAR got a decision wrong

$3 – Moaning about how your License Fee (180 pounds out of a 6 billion pound budget, or 0.00000003%) is being wasted on too many articles about MUFC (oops, sorry! Wrong website!)

$4 – Claiming “it means more” if Liverpool make the CL

$5 – Your team is being persecuted by the F.A. / PGMOL