Arsenal and Manchester City are out of the Champions League and the Mailbox has rather a lot to say, starting with the Gunners and then moving onto Pep and Haaland.
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What a night!
Arsenal out.
Tottenham out of next season’s before it’s even started.
Magnificent.
James (we’re STILL the only team in London with a European Cup) CFC, Gravesend
Arsenal need a Tony Blair
Arteta is Arsenal’s Neil Kinnock. He made victory possible but he’s the one who is standing in its way. They’ll never win the general election Premier League/Champions League under him.
Matthew
Arsenal utterly destroyed after that meek exit
So! For all the talk or Arteta’s ‘success’, and other Gooners talking of these ‘new heights’ Arteta has taken Arsenal to…let’s just stop this nonsensical charade and call things as they bluntly are:
Bayern Munich currently have their worst team in over a decade – evidenced by the fact they’ve been destroyed by Leverkusen in the Bundesliga (a team who’d never won a title), outclassed by a rookie manager and failed to win a one-team league for the first time in 11 years.
Arsenal meanwhile, whose fans have spent the entire season waxing lyrical about ‘best CB pairing in the league’, ‘best form in 2024’, best midfielder, top manager blabla etc….Arsenal who spent £200m over summer and have, according to Arsenal folklore, their best team in a decade.
And guess what? Even at their lowest ebb, Bayern Munich are a big club and Arsenal, are not – despite the delusions and protestations of their fans. On their worst day, a club like Bayern will always school a pretender like Arsenal! No “fossil fuel money” excuses here eh? 😉
It’s just the Arsene Wenger Circus legacy: Arteta’s Arsenal is just a refined Harrods version of Spurs. Ultimately the outcome is the same: expensively-assembled Losers. Come rain, come shine, Arsenal will always, always fold at the business end of a season when the pressure is on. There really are, no excuses for the latest collapse of an entire season in the space of three days! Arsenal were overwhelming favourites with the bookies to win this tie but when push came to shove, Bayern have a Big-Game mentality, and Arsenal do not.
The more you examine the reality of what other managers are doing with far less time, experience and money than Arteta, the more obvious it becomes that Mikel Arteta is effectively a Spanish Brendan Rodgers. Examples?
Dortmund are in a CL semi final, with a young team, a ManYoo reject and a 41 year-old rookie manager in his first managerial job. By the way, the Dortmund boss was an ex-assistant at West Ham! Has achieved something Arteta has never, could never.
Xabi Alonso, who one Arsenal fan hilariously referred to as “Flavour of the Month” when I suggested he’d be an upgrade on Arteta? Rookie manager, took over a club that had never won a title, and who were in the bottom six. In one year they’re *Unbeaten* champions, in a European semi, and in a cup final. Another rookie manager with far less time, resources and patience than Mikel Rodgers.
Even Xavi, who is getting pelters – will walk away from his first ever European managerial job with a league title under his belt. A reminder that Xavi took over a basket-case club who are broke. Still beat the mighty Madrid over a season, as a 43 year-old boss.
Now. When you look at Arteta and his ‘achievements’, it’s actually borderline embarrassing the way Arsenal fans talk this guy up like some Basque Arrigo Sacchi. The standards at Arsenal FC, as I will never tire of saying, are super-low because the fans were fed a diet of “merde sous-vide” and a “piss jus” for so long by Wenger, that anything that mildly resembles competence is exalted as “world-beating”.
Sounds a lot like the Tory party at this point, with standards so low after the utter dumpster fire of a previous leader (for Wenger read Johnson), that anything that resembles basic minimum standards is treated as Gold dust.
Arsenal played a decent side so I’ll ask again: was Kai Havertz any good? Or did I miss his ‘unseen work’? £65m and Arsenal fans are just fine with a mule who can’t score or create against any of the Top 6, and can’t be expected to deliver a goal or an assist in any CL knock-out match. If Havertz was at a big club, such a return would be unacceptable – at Arsenal? They sing his name! Jesus the exact same. Etc etc.
So. That’s All for another season Folks! 21 seasons and counting. This dumpster fire actually now has more seasons than the never-ending ‘Desperate Housewives’ series! It’s like performance art at this stage! Still – perhaps Mikel Rodgers could help Pep out some more and add Cancelo to the “Citeh rejects circus table” that is now the Emirates this summer! 🤣🤣🤣
Stewie Griffin (hoping Dortmund win it. Gooners bitching about Citeh whilst giving them over £80m for Pep’s forgotten attic dross? Only Arsenal!)
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Arteta at fault again but he will learn
I like Arteta, he is an okay coach, but last night he showed his limited IQ. At what point will he knows that Rice is not a 6? No matter what the English media thinks. The Rice, Odegaard, Havertz triumvirate failed against Villa, it’s will fail against FC Bayern, there is mitigation for the Trossard and Jesus, Jesus loves UCL and Trossard scored against FC Porto and FC Bayern.
At the 30th minute I noticed Bayern were directing us to go the flanks, where they had a plan for Saka and Martinelli. We where crying for a line breaking pass from deep for Odegaard or for our wingers who can invert. Thomas Partey was that man. He was in the field for less than 8 minutes in the 1st leg, and Saka was one on one with Neuer, it was something FC Bayern were not expecting. Partey’s line breaking passes from deep should help our already potent attack of which has now gone 200 minutes without scoring.
I love Saka, he is our star boy. But Rio is right, he is not world class yet, but he will be, Ability wise he is, but the elite mentality comes with experience of playing year in year out in the UCL. He will get there.
Two very poor decisions in the very end of both legs when given a sight of goal showed a non elite mentality.. but he will get there, he is a phenomenal talent, and a humble one too.
Havertz is much loved, we want him to succeed, but he is not a midfielder and should not be our only reliable forward.
When G.Jesus broke thru, albeit offside. 98% of Arsenal fans knew he will miss, it was as certain as day and night, it will have been a surprise. The less said about Nketiah the better.
League is not over. We have next season
..and again Rice got dominated by Laimer and Goretzka. I am sure when one of the best midfielders in the world tag was given to him by the guys at Football 365, Messrs Konrad and Goretzka where not in that list. We just saw 200 minutes of total domination
Kufre, Nigeria
You might want to go straight to the comments about now…
Arsenal are good, though
I f***ing love this club.
Arsenal have been brilliant this season. Not good enough to be champions of Europe or England (just yet). But, we’re on course to be the second best team in the Premier League two years in a row. Trophies will happen. We’re a good team again. We’re not a joke anymore.
There’ll be plenty of rival fans desperate to mock Arsenal following the last two defeats. I guarantee you those will all be fans of clubs who have been awful and/or aren’t going to win anything this year. Also, let’s see if the ridicule for elimination is equal for both City and Arsenal. It won’t be.
I don’t mind rival fans celebrating Arsenal failing, of course. That’s part of the game. But, just watch the hot takes and recency bias hit social media over the next couple of days. I just hope the Arsenal fanbase sticks together and stays behind the boys. We have six games to win and then look to a strong summer pre-season to launch our next title challenge. Also, I said I’d be flabbergasted if City don’t win the treble again. So, I’m duly flabbergasted.
Simon, Norf London Gooner
P.S. Watch Spurs fans celebrate while they lose out on the 5th spot getting Champions League qualification.
Laughing at Man City and Haaland
Sign more £100m players and get the lawyers ready to fight another 115 charges to go again next year
Duck
…If City ever get relegated to the lower leagues at least Haaland will get to play against his level more often.
Philip
…So Pep Guardiola, £1.75BILLION spent, one off-shore account, 115 charges and ONE Champions League trophy in EIGHT attempts. Hardly genius levels.
Jo (Europe is a bowl of soup and City are a fork) Kent
…Its good to know no matter how much City can cheat and how much the football media creams over them just because Pep is their manager that penalties still exist and the weaker minds always fail at them.
Football won last night, corruption lost. Thank you Real Madrid!
Morris
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Ancelotti for Liverpool please
Watching City vs Madrid (minute 62.), I have come to a conclusion. Ancelotti is the GOAT. He just gets it, regardless of decade. In at Liverpool please.
Nik (no questions asked), Paris
Hey Jude…don’t be so tired
I’ve enjoyed being able to watch Real Madrid last week and this.
But Bellingham looks knackered to me. The technique is there and he’s usually in the right position but he just seems tired. A bit worrying from an England point of view if that’s the case.
Can someone who has watched them more often this season tell me if Bellingham generally looks tired or it’s just the result of being up against City and their relentless possession ?
Paul in Brussels (nice pen though)
This is what jetlag looks like…
The F365 mailbox is many (often glorious) things, but I’ve just enough sense to know it is not a travel blog. That said, I’m abroad as I write this and may I mention what my last 48 hours has been like ?
I flew an overnighter out of Heathrow meant to land in Dubai unremarkably on a Tuesday morning, and land we eventually did. But because of End Times-like levels of storms and flooding engulfing the emirates the last few days, our flight had circled above Dubai endlessly and to no avail before being diverted to Bahrain, where we landed and sat in the aircraft for several hours while a refuel took place for another go at Dubai, as they hoped to find breaks in the storm to land.
The freefalling dips on that descent were the worst I’ve ever experienced, and as a somewhat jaded international traveler I was spooked; we’re talking devices flung through the cabin and shrieking screams of passengers and those hunched over in prayer like you might see in a plane crash on film. Once on the ground, my car from the airport became a small hydrofoil and when I’d arrived the house I’m staying at now, I waded about with my luggage held high above water like a jungle scene.
Why this ridiculous entry to the mailbox then ? Because a day and a hot shower later, watching the first half of City vs Madrid last night, the football suddenly looked intensely, overwhelmingly beautiful to me, flawed and perfect, as if executed on a tidy green stage by agile little deities. And I hate both these clubs to the bone.
But the tactical philosophies at play were intriguing as if perfectly opposed and made to align, the action simply so pleasing even to this neutral eye (neutral so far as hoping both sides would lose by a tennis score). But as I watched this terrific footie last night, very inexplicably I began to wonder what the chances were my plane might’ve gone down that day and a half prior…
There was a moment on that flight the mind briefly flicked through a series of thoughts: well hmm this seems more than “turbulence,” might I see loved ones again, could this really be how it is, today, like this in a metal tube of farts and curry, and then somewhere in those panicked intermittent seconds I recall even thinking of this mailbox and how nobody would ever notice or care if Eric from LA never sent another crap entry into F365.
I’m not Johnny Nic, I’m not a longtime contributor even, and unless you support Liverpool FC I probably hate your club anyway and you hate me. That’s the mailbox, that’s football, that’s tribes in all walks really. But you know what ? I’ve got love for you all; I love reading your letters, I love hating your clubs, I love writing in when I can (and especially if my letter gets printed sometimes), and I really just enjoy watching uber talented footballing professionals kicking a ball around trying to win pots and pans, and then rolling my eyes or nodding in agreement at reading what you people say about it after the whistle. That is all.
Eric, Los Angeles CA (God why is it so damned humid in Dubai)
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