How many times can a title race be declared over? And does anybody think that Bruno Fernandes’ goal played any part at all in their failure?
They think it’s all over…again
How many times can a title race be declared over? Surely, there wasn’t a single person outside of perhaps Mikel Arteta (and his dog, Win) who thought that if Arsenal could somehow score a winner at Manchester United, they would be a mere 13 points behind Liverpool (one defeat all season) in the Premier League table and it would be ‘game on’.
We understand it is a tad frustrating that the Premier League title race is over – we’re all searching for narratives where there are none – but that draw at Old Trafford shifted their odds of winning the title from about 30/1 to 40/1. In other words, damned unlikely became really damned unlikely.
And yet here we are, with The Sun declaring on their back page that ‘now the TITLE RACE IS OVER’. Because 15 points is somehow insurmountable while 13 points would have been a piece of p***.
In the second paragraph on the actual back page we are told that Paul Merson ‘declared his ex-club’s chances of catching Liverpool are over following the draw at Manchester United’. Guys, he was using the word “impossible” a month ago.
If you had kept listening you would have actually heard Merson say: “Fifth are nearer to Arsenal than Arsenal are to first. I’d be saying they have to concentrate and make sure they get in the top four!” Now that’s newsworthy.
On the inside pages, Dave Kidd writes that ‘it was probably the most irrelevant United-Arsenal fixture of the Premier League era, with Arsenal’s pursuit of Liverpool clearly a wild goose chase, while Amorim’s side cannot realistically be relegated nor qualify for Europe’.
A ‘wild goose chase’ and yet your back page claims that ‘now’ (and only now) the title race/Rice is over.
The Daily Mirror say that Bruno Fernandes ‘effectively ended Arsenal’s title hopes’ while the Daily Star say the Portuguese midfielder ‘left Arsenal’s title hopes in tatters’.
Hmmm. Even apart from the fact that Arsenal would still have been 13 points behind Liverpool had they won at Old Trafford, can an opening goal that is then equalised ever be said to have left anything in tatters? The simple answer? Can it balls.
Bus stop
‘Stats show how Ruben Amorim emulated idol Jose Mourinho with cautious Man Utd tactics keeping Arsenal at bay’ – The Sun.
Odd how the much, much worse team opted to play quite defensively against the Premier League’s second-best side who had scored seven goals in midweek.
And Jose Mourinho is definitely the only coach in the world who would have come up with that plan.
We expected better of The Guardian, who wrote that ‘this was Amorim’s first home game against a “big six” club, but it might as well have been away. He parked the bus. His nominal 3-4-2-1 was actually a 5-4-1. United started with no No 9 and just one real forward, Alejandro Garnacho.’
Pesky fact: Manchester United are the 14th-best team in the Premier League. What the actual f*** did you expect?
Tell it to my heart…Over in the Liverpool media, nobody wants to linger too long on that almost meritless win over Southampton, which is how we end up here on the Liverpool Echo:
‘I’m sure’ – Declan Rice makes telling Liverpool title admission after Arsenal slip-up
And what’s the ‘telling Liverpool title admission’?
“Liverpool have been amazing all year, credit to them but it’s not over yet, we need to keep pushing.”
My, that really is a) telling and b) quite the admission. Definitely worth the time of a ‘Senior Football Writer’.
But where does the “I’m sure” come in?
“[We’ll] keep pushing, same mindset and I’m sure we’ll be alright.”
We take it back; this is big, big news.
We, the accused…
One of the genuinely lowest tactics in this business is to take a footballer’s quotes about how him and his teammates have failed and somehow make it sound like a player has turned on his colleagues.
Declan Rice was very clear about where Arsenal fell short at Old Trafford…
“In the first half, we had some beautiful bits of play but didn’t have that cutting edge. In the second half, we were very naive and almost gave the game to Man United. To get back in the game and to score and keep pushing. It’s probably a fair point in the end.”
If you read those quotes and immediately think ‘Declan Rice vents frustrations with ‘naive’ Arsenal team-mates after Man Utd draw’ then congratulations, for you could work for Mirror Sport. And that’s really not a compliment.
And if you read these quotes, search Rice’s name on X, find some lunatics and then write…
‘Arsenal fans turn on Declan Rice after what he said on air following Man United draw’
…then maybe you can work for Football Insider.