Chelsea labelled ‘pathetic’ three times over after Arsenal bore to final | OneFootball

Chelsea have to take most of the blame for Arsenal reaching their first final of the season; that was ‘pathetic’.

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Jacquet required

Jeremy Jacquet sounds like a name Bob Mortimer would make up. Simon “Stolen from Twitter / X” S, NUFC, Cheshire

Arsenal boring but blaming Chelsea..

Good luck writing 16 conclusions (as if; this was a one piece kind of night – Ed)

Were never escaping the accusations are we? That was hardly an enjoyable game of football for anyone I imagine. Oh well onto Wembley we go, results are what matters. I think because of our approach we don’t have anyone playing in the number 10 space between the lines. So we’re always outnumbered (see Gyokeres) when attacking and nobody is using the central space. It’s by design, it mostly works but it isn’t “fun”. Just effective

I see a lot of people saying Arsenal have the least likable team in the League. Then I watch Chelsea and think, are you serious? They are pathetic, constantly pushing and harassing off the ball, diving, shouting at refs. VAR didn’t even look back at the wrestling move in the corner. Couldn’t be happier to beat them. I cant think of a single player who appears even remotely likeable (maybe Palmer).

Also whilst I’m here, can we veto Neville from commentating on Arsenal games. We know you hate us, we know you don’t want us to win, but can you even pretend to be a little bit subtle. I might have to start illegally streaming so I can enjoy the football with the sound on. Genuinely dire. Rob A (it may be boring but our defense is so so good, so so good) AFC

…My favourite things are:

1) The hearty laughter of my infant son 2) A delicious beverage in good company and an atmospheric location 3) Basically anything that annoys Chelsea

Yours Sincerely, Niallo, Gooner, Uibh Fháilí

…Through to Wembley after probably the most dull game we’ve played all season. I don’t think there is a lot to take from last night but some observations on both teams.

It’s easy to say after the event but Chelsea playing it safe suited Arsenal. We have a pretty good defence even when teams come at us, so to see Chelsea keep it tight and not come at us (not saying it was a low block) meant we were even less troubled.

The tactics from Rosenior were reasonable with the idea to try and score late on, but also energy saving for Arsenal considering we have a few big games coming up (Chelsea again, Spurs and City away). We avoided an expansive emotional game, injuries, and avoided extra time.

Arsenal played it safe, not overcommitting and it would have only taken one goal from the Chelsea diving squad to flip the game. Our biggest challenge was the nerves, and this does feel like a team that knows it needs to win something.

Eze had a very good game off the ball. He let Cash go for the away game at Villa park and his minutes in the premier league were noticeably limited after that.

If you’re going to play in this team, you have to grind. Hoping Eza kicks on now, as that hattrick aside, it’s been a relatively quiet start in an Arsenal shirt.

That was a stonewall penalty for Martinelli, if Chalobah doesn’t clip his feet on the second challenge, Martinelli is in, how is that not given? Thankfully it was irrelevant.

The 6 minutes injury time can only have been for all the substitutions, but not getting that penalty made it a nervy finish. Nice of the ref to go over the 6 mins injury time allowing Kai to score against his old club. His return from injury is huge. Havertz movement and technical security will make us less predictable and harder to defend, it’s been pretty stodgy at times this season.

Divers: Every team has players that go down easily, Merino is one for us but overall I feel most of our players are pretty strong in the duels and stay on their feet..Chelsea though, just pathetic. I thought they were pretty quick to flop under Maresca, it seems they are even worse under Rosenoir. They’re so incredulous anytime a foul is given against them, and yet several of them dive at the slightest touch. Refs will surely notice what a lot of people can see.

Arsenal have a massive game on the weekend now. Beat Sunderland on Saturday and hope Liverpool can at least draw with City to give us some breathing room for the home straight as I don’t think we’re going to blow teams away en route to a title. This is going to be a slog. Strevs, AFC, Canada

…Now this is going to be one of those ‘I don’t care about…’ and then I proceed to write extensively on the subject, but anyway.

I just don’t think Arsenal are going to get any credit, no matter what they do this season. And tonight summed it up.

I’ve seen a lot of ‘Arsenal are so boring to watch’ and whilst that has oftentimes been true, I’m not sure the onus was on us to make this game fun tonight. Genuinely, what did people expect?

If you recall, the first leg was a pretty open, fun game ending 3-2, which flattered our hosts and we should’ve been out of sight. Because we weren’t, we had work to do and, unfortunately for those pesky neutrals hate watching, a lead to protect.

The onus was absolutely on Chelsea tonight. Their tactics were actually ok; keep it tight for an hour, make sure we don’t score again and then bring their best attackers on with the tie still in reach.

Except they did absolutely nothing. The comms wanted Estevao and Palmer to come on and be Maradona and Pele, but all I remember is one being booked and the other taking two minutes to punt a free kick into the wall. Kepa did not make a save, and in a semi final second leg a goal down, that’s a disgrace. That 30 minutes from them was pathetic. I tell you now, roles reversed, people would be sticking the knife in and twisting it. Hard.

In fact, Chelsea couldn’t even work an angle for a cross in stoppage time, such was the effort from our boys. To then go and nick it on the counter with Havertz scoring was too perfect an ending.

And so back to my original point… I’ve not really seen anyone with a platform praise our defensive display or that we held them to under 1xG and that 9 of their 14 shots were speculative ones from distance. In fact, we’re being criticised for how the game played out.

Analyse with your priors all you want. We’re going to Wembley. Joe, AFC, East Sussex

…Second legs of cup semi finals are usually exciting games, usually the onus is on one of the teams, one team will often know they’re knocked out if they do nothing so you see some fireworks.

Clearly no one told Chelsea this. I’m sure there will be plenty of talk about a boring game and Arsenal will strangely take face the blame – but once again the dullness of the game is far more down to our opponent than us. This has been proven in the Champions League where most teams attack and so far every team has been thoroughly well beaten by Arsenal in very much not boring games. Although I still look forward to the gymnastics some rival fans (and high profile pundits) will do to try to discredit anything Arsenal do.

So Chelsea turn up knowing they have to win the game and they play a back 5 and 2 defensive mids. Most of the game was a team who knew a clean sheet got them to the final vs a team who was too scared to go for the goals they needed for fear of conceding a single goal that almost certainly would end the tie for them.

Clearly over the two legs the better team went through, Chelsea were fortunate to still be in the tie after the first leg.

Head down for the league now for Arsenal before a cup final to look forward to, very enjoyable and very much not boring for us! Rich, AFC

Arsenal fans write at length to show they don’t care

Need to send this out to all the Arsenal haters – you guys are really on one this season. Not unlike past seasons but now that we really look like we’re gonna win it has reached insane levels of delusion. I feel like some Arsenal fans like me added flames to this fire – I was as critical of Arsenal after the United match as anyone since the performance really wasn’t up to par. But mainly I just hate losing to them more than anything.

First, I want to reiterate my genuine love for the idea that somehow this season is indicative of a terrible league. What about last season when Liverpool had a free run cause City is no longer the City we knew and Arsenal just fell off the pace due to a variety of reasons (and Mo Salah had one of the all-time great seasons – I imagine last season would look much like this season for Liverpool if not worse had been playing like he is now). Or literally any United title from ’96-’03 if Arsenal weren’t at the races that year (cause who else was challenging those United teams, again?).

It’s funny when Liverpool fans (btw, maybe this is me being an American fan but since when did our fan bases have beef like this? I always liked Liverpool and their fans until they all went insane after last years title and started talking way too much s***) write in about how the league is so weak as if the league is any different than last season in terms of overall performance – if anything the league is stronger than last season as indicated by almost all 6 teams being in the top 8 in CL (more on this later) and midtable positions shifting drastically after each matchday because there’s a ton of quality in midtable.

Also, for those of a more data-minded persuasion, Opta’s power rankings have 13 PL clubs in the top 25 (Brighton is right behind Real Madrid). Yes, these algorithms are not perfect but when data skews this heavily rarely is it ever a fluke – England clearly has an extremely strong league.

Which brings me to RHT/TS x and their abominable lovely mails which are clearly written to rile up fan bases (trying to be the new Stewie?). And all of those who write in complaining about Arsenal’s football. Have you guys watched us in the Champions League this season? The competition that pits the best European teams against each other and we went 8/8 while scoring the most goals (even more than the vaunted Bayern and PSG attacks – but yes blame it on set pieces) and allowing the least goals (cause of course we did)?

First of all – Saka is not going to leave. Rival fans keep saying this – look I get it it hurts that we have such a good squad but these hypotheticals where players like Saka, Saliba, Nwaneri are unhappy (all just signed extensions in the last 6 months) and are going to leave is just wishful thinking on the part of rival fans. You want it to happen so you make up reasons in your head that it will happen. It’s a coping mechanism – I get it.

Yes, our league matches are not the best to watch. In other words, YES, we need to work on how to get past teams who set up defensively against us. NO, we are not prime Barca or the City teams of old. Who, btw, were also eventually considered boring to watch by neutrals at a certain point with all their possession-based tactics and sideways passes.

People have been writing about how Arsenal are “sterile” and how our insistence on controlling matches makes for bad footy. Guess what – if the teams in England played against us like those teams on the continent then you would have much more watchable games. It’s not our fault we have to play against low blocks anytime we come up against domestic opposition while in the CL teams are willing to have a go. Unless we get hit with incisive counter-attacking (there are many other examples but United at the Emirates was a perfect one, the Haaland goal against us at the Emirates, Chelsea in 1st leg Carabao and they could have more in store for us later today, we have to be careful) then no one in England is scoring goals against us. And it’s up to us to break down a low-block to get the three points which, again and admittedly, we are not that good at. Some stick to beat us with.

Yes, Wenger’s later, non-title contending teams were more fun to watch as on our day we were able to break down any side but we weren’t competing with the elite clubs because football was changing and has continued to change. And now – whether you like it or not – we are the leaders of this new school of football (see Johnny Nic’s most recent article or this Guillem Blague tweet). Try to play the protagonist against us and you are almost definitely going to lose – we’re too good at this game now. Ask Bayern, Atletico and Inter about that. Ask Pep Guardiola – who had to go Full Mourinho. A tactic replicated by Slot – who went defensive at the Emirates then waited to release his attack in the 2nd half just like a bottom-half side would against a top side – so he could earn an away draw against us cause another loss would bring him closer to being sacked.

If you’re a rival fan complaining about Arsenal’s alleged turgid football 1. Realize that this is strictly limited to the domestic league 2. It’s your team’s fault you don’t want to go toe-to-toe with us and 3. STFU and stop piggy-backing on narratives and instead observe things as they happen with your own eyes and formulate your own opinions with independent, critical thinking. MAW, LA Gooner (Thanks.)

…I’m not sure I’ve ever read such complete nonsense as the sanctimonious rubbish spouted by RHT/TS X—and that’s saying something, given how many of their emails I’ve read before. Ian Allinson

…Another day, another email from someone telling Arsenal fans that they don’t like to watch Arsenal.

Don’t watch then. But do it quietly. Stop going on about it. Leave your ‘hate watches’ (an absolutely pathetic concept by the way – filming yourself getting rattled by a team you can’t stand!), get off X, out of the Instagram comments and let the people that do enjoy it, actually enjoy it.

This is definitely something that has really ramped up in recent years – not enjoying the football of your own team but the ‘failure’ of other teams or if that team doesn’t fail, just making up negativity. The fact ‘professional’ pundits like Paul Scholes and Jamie O’Hara are at it now is a staggering indictment of where we are with football nowadays.

If Arsenal win the league playing this way, real Arsenal fans won’t care. The duck will be broken. Arsenal aren’t here to entertain ‘the neutral’, they are here to compete for and win trophies. Well, that is what we were always told when Arsenal weren’t winning them so why has it changed now? Stewart

…In 22/23, Arsenal stepped up the level of their football to an extent that nobody expected, played some lovely stuff but could ultimately not sustain a challenge against the Man City juggernaut and ended 2nd. In 23/24, with expectations heightened, Arsenal recovered from a bleak December by going on an absolute rampage in January, breaking scoring and points records along the way but ultimately fell short again. In 24/25 we were never quite at it and a combo of bad luck, timing and injuries meant that Slot’s Liverpool could saunter to a league title since Man City also decided to take the year off but we will always have that quarter final against Real Madrid and still finished 2nd in the league.

The point is, over the last three seasons, we’ve seen a bit of everything football wise and this time it’s just about getting the job done. If nobody else can stomach watching our games, we don’t care. If Own Goal ends the season as our top scorer, good for him. If everyone and their mum wants to tut about the form of Saka, Gyokeres or Odegaard, let them tut. If the baby from Family Guy needs to get his jollies from explaining why technically none of this can be enjoyed or respected in the form of extremely tenuous MAGA analogies and many emojis, let him get his jollies. If it ends with Martin Odegaard holding the Premier League trophy aloft in May, none of that will matter. By the way, thanks to rival fans for declaring that already – we remain cautiously optimistic at best. There is a long way to go.

IF Arteta and the squad can get that massive monkey off their back, then perhaps next season we can start talking about silk AND steel. The prospect of that is actually quite exciting, but for now it’s just about getting the job done. Lawrence SA

Spurs aren’t losers (on this particular measure)

Whilst I appreciate the sentiment both you and Cristian Romero are exhibiting over Spurs lack of transfer business in January, I do have some sympathy for the Spurs hierarchy here.

(There’s also the added complication of an article like this, despite being well written and entertaining, being absolute bollocks because it requires the writer to predict the future based on some decisions people they’ve never met made. You probably had Liverpool and Spurs in the winners section of the summer transfer window and how’s that worked out?)

Robertson would have been great. Semenyo would have been awesome. But after that, no one’s giving up the players we’d need to make a difference. Buying from overseas feels fraught with risk. It feels like a player needs at least 6 months to get their head round Our League.

Spurs are, as you repeatedly and rightly point out, a hot mess. I’m not convinced that adding more players, unless they’re Declan Rice, to that mess is the right way to get out of it. I’m also not convinced many top top players want to become part of it. Or to play for TF. In a weird way I’m not convinced that sacking Tommy F now solves the mess. Feel free to laugh your backside off in May but I don’t think we’re going to get relegated. There are some very smug, deluded Spurs fans out there. I genuinely don’t want to be one of them, but I think there are just enough £50m footballers in that squad to get us 42 – 44 points. Oh joy.

Luckily the champs league play offs were dodged. 12 days break between the Newcastle and Arsenal game. 7 days break between Arsenal and Fulham. After Saturday it’s well over a month before they have to leave London for a game. The games aren’t going to come thick and fast anymore. They have a bit of time to get some players back from injury.

It would take Steven Hawking to unravel what Spurs should do to be a serious football club. One night in Bilbao aside it has been a truly dreadful couple of seasons. All they can do is make some attempt to sort this mess out in the summer. Andrew, Woodford Green

Villa ARE losers

When I saw Villa in the headline for transfer window losers, my blood started to boil. Don’t they realise the PSR, the frustration of having to make do and juggle.

But then I read the article and you nailed it. And articulated what we are dealing with a lot better than I could have done. Paul

Do Man Utd really need Cole Palmer?

That Cole Palmer is an outstanding player is not in question. That his signing will improve the squad is also not in doubt.

A very significant question still remains and it is becoming increasingly imperative to discuss this matter. Should United break the bank to sign him when we currently have equally good attacking players?

Chelsea have slammed an astonishing price tag of £125M on the player. Is he worth that much? Some fans will say YES, other fans may say NO.

More importantly, Cole Palmer plays better as an attacking midfielder albeit he has the ability to play in related attacking positions as well. Notably, the other key issue for United, aside the selling price, is the number of attacking players currently available at the disposal of our Head Coach. The likes of Amad, Dorgu, Mbeumo, Cunha, Mount etc. led by our distinguished Captain Bruno Fernandes are very talented and have the weaponry to expose any defence.

As it stands at the moment, the Head Coach and his staff have the unenviable task of having to choose 4 forwards for the 4-2-3-1 formation from at least 5 or 6 good players. Sight should further not be lost of the fact that we also have a number of up and coming young attacking footballers waiting to make their mark.

Under these circumstances, I suggest to United not to rush into signing Cole Palmer unless and until one or more of our highly performing forwards leave. The money for the huge price can be used more rewardingly and appropriately elsewhere in defence (especially left back) and/or midfield (central midfield) to replace Casemiro. United must be very strategic in player recruitment within the constraints of the allocated budget. Professor (Dr) David Achanfuo Yeboah

Sunderland normalised

As a Sunderland fan I’m obviously enjoying the season. What I’m enjoying even more is that it’s no longer remarkable.

I open up an article about relegation. We’re not mentioned. We win a game 3-0 against a team that most thought would be ahead of us this season. Just another day at the office. Even the trolls from up the road have started to go back to talking about League One attendances – I guess we’ve played some proper teams now?

Maybe we’ll be back in the editorials again if we’re still 3 points behind Liverpool at the end of the season, but for now I’m very happy with not being talked about – it’s not happened a lot in the decades I’ve followed the club.