Maj

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Standing on the brink of history.

[HandofArsenal @HandofArsenal]

Simply Arsenal.

[HandofArsenal @HandofArsenal]

Greatest picture I have laid eyes on

[Maj @jonnypique]

North London Forever

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

This belongs to all of us.

[HandofArsenal @HandofArsenal]

I FUCKING LOVE THIS CLUB 😭

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

You can question the quality of some of Arsenal’s football. But you cannot question their character. Still some way to go to the finishing line but Arsenal don’t look like slowing up. When Manchester City applied pressure in the title race, Arsenal responded. They found a way to win. They fought hard. Gabriel and Rice particularly immense. Arsenal are battlers, not the “bottlers” as their critics derisively depicted them. They're resilient.

You can question Arteta’s use of set-pieces (24 of 61 goals in PL), the unseemly wrestling and occasional caution. But you also have to admire that in a crunch moment Arsenal’s manager sent on a 16-year-old ball-player with 28 minutes’ PL experience to turn the game against an obdurate Everton. Dowman delivered.

Max stretches headroom at the top for Arsenal. Hard to dislike a team with a talent like Dowman. He brings more adventure. The clamour now will be for him to play more. Dowmania. And just wait for the inevitable World Cup speculation, media frenzy, Theo revisited, but don't forget the group stage clashes with GCSEs. Let's not put too much pressure and expectation on Dowman (although he sounds like he can handle it and has good people around him, including Arteta).

Arteta also deserves credit for the way he has evolved this side. He’s bought/chosen well (Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Rice, Zubimendi, Gyokeres etc), loaned in well (Hincapie) while Hale End plays its part (Saka, MLS, Dowman).

If they keep holding their nerve, Arsenal will deserve this first title since the Invincibles. They don’t quicken the pulse like some past champions but the Indestructibles absolutely deserve more respect than they receive. #AFC

[Jamie Spangher @jamiespangher]

The most damning indictment on the state of the game right now is that fans, managers and media are forcing a narrative of Arsenal bending the rules of football when they’re in a title race with a club that is evading 115 charges for bending the rules of football.

[Guillem Balague @GuillemBalague]

Now that Arsenal fans are booing their own team and former players are lining up to criticise, let me offer the bigger picture, the one you hear across Europe.

Arsenal are not seen here as a team that has stalled. They are seen as a reference point. As the team many look at when trying to understand where elite football is heading.

The game has shifted, it is no longer enough to dominate the ball or to attack well. The top sides now compete in, and often decide matches through, the four phases that make teams excellent: organised attack, attacking transition, defensive transition and structured defence. At the highest level, those phases matter more than possession percentages or aesthetic debates.

This is where Arsenal stand out.

Under Mikel Arteta, Arsenal control space, time and another very important element, rhythm. They are aggressive without being chaotic, but can create chaos to find gaps, they are compact without being passive. Their pressing is prepared in detail, lose the ball and the reaction is immediate. The opponent is denied oxygen.

Across Europe, this is understood as modern dominance.

The key battleground today is transition. Not what you do with the ball, but what happens the instant you lose it. Defensive rhythm has overtaken offensive rhythm. Space is smaller and time is shorter. The teams that survive are the ones that arrive first, win duels, plus reset order before danger appears.

Arsenal do this as well as anyone.

In Europe, Arsenal are seen as a team that has absorbed Guardiola’s ideas and pushed them forward, they have strengthened them for a football world that now plays faster, presses harder, and it totally punishes hesitation.

At the very moment Arsenal are being questioned at home, they are being analysed as a model.

Progress is often uncomfortable and it rarely moves in straight lines. Arsenal don’t look lost. In my eyes they look early!

[Ebere @EbereEze10]

I swear imma make It and when I do, they're gunna show this tweet lol

[MR DT @MrDtAFC]

I can't wait to see Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Peter Schmeichel, and the rest of the ex-Man United clowns go after Amorim and United in the same way they go after Arteta and Arsenal. Your club's a shambles, and your manager has a worse record than Neville at Valencia. Shut up and don't mention my club again!!

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

It was only ever Arsenal.

A boyhood Gooner, our new number 10 – welcome home, Ebere ❤️

[Ebuka @EbukaMeanzGreat]

🚨🗣️Arsène Wenger after Arsenal’s win:
“No matter how much life lets you down, always remember that there’s a team that lost by three goals, then promised revenge in the second leg, filmed a documentary, called themselves the Kings of Europe, asked their fans to pack the stadium, closed the roof to raise the pressure, and said ‘90 minutes at the Bernabéu is a long time’…

And in the end? They lost again, at home, and got knocked out of the tournament.

This is the truth: history doesn’t make the present, trophies don’t score goals, and the past won’t save you when you face a hungry team that fears no legends.

[LE GROVE @LeGrove]

For football to be adjudicated fairly, there must be consistent implementation of the rules and a standardized approach to the norms of the game.

It is clear that PGMOL refs/VARs have intentionally taken extreme interpretations of both concepts to shape games to their preference. It’s no longer a suspicion that Arsenal are officiated differently; it is now an objective fact that has undermined our title challenge and soiled what could have been a historic campaign between two great clubs.

They rigidly applied the letter of the law when sending off Declan Rice ("I have no choice") to harm Arsenal. They did it to Arsenal twice, then quietly agreed they wouldn't do it after blowback.

Conversely, they took a lenient view of Kovacic's challenge against City to preserve the integrity of a "big game."

This arbitrary extremism corrupts the game. It allows referees to take center stage, influencing outcomes with zero consequence or even scrutiny in the media. How many times does this decision making land on tone being the issue and 'mistakes happen.'

The Premier League needs to demonstrate leadership. It is beginning to look like they view this as a feature of the game rather than a disgusting bug that must be eradicated before it infects fans' love for football.

Michael Oliver should not be a Premier League referee after today, but he will be, and he'll be put back on Arsenal games despite his horrible record of terrible red cards (8 reds), and his freelance actions raising deeply disturbing questions over his judgement and integrity when it comes to how he refs other teams (City 0 red cards).

[Maj @jonnypique]

"..spin their rules whichever way they want to.." @FA_PGMOL = disgrace

[BBC 5 Live Sport @5liveSport]

'Baffling... that is nonsensical.' 🤯

Mark Chapman and Pat Nevin discuss Myles Lewis-Skelly's controversial sending off.

Listen live: https://t.co/NI1sjtGRxI 📻⚽️

#BBCFootball #WOLARS

[GeoffArsenal @GeoffArsenal]

Morning All,

Seeing loads of negative stuff on here about our beloved football team from some of the fanbase, most of whom couldn’t run a bath never mind a competitive PL football team.

I even see a many calling out the manager for not being able to break down a dogged Everton low block yesterday, I see them calling out certain players again because they don’t think they’re performing how they expect them to perform and for not buying a Striker in the Summer even though you know we were definitely trying to buy a Striker, all the while having to be careful about FFP.

Our manager is one of the best in the world in my opinion, one that is also still learning on the job. What he’s done to transform us from that dead pool of players 3/4 seasons ago to now is like night and day. We are now a football team that can compete with anyone in the world, and we’re still building and will always continue to build. But nothing is guaranteed and we have no entitlement to win the biggest competitions but you can see we are really trying and edging closer.

The fans, the players and the whole club are all together for the first time in many years again now, so please don’t get sucked in to the nonsense from the click baiting operations like the likes of AFTV again, they get rich when we turn on each other, and on our bad results on pitch. That’s what they want. Just concentrate on what we’re doing and believe in the manager, the boys and the club. If we all do that I think we will grab some silverware on the way. Most of all, embrace it, enjoy the challenge, nothing is easy, if it was, you’d get bored of it anyway.

We are The Arsenal.

[Rory Talks Football @Rory_Talks_Ball]

This should be the end of PGMOL, not just Coote’s career

How many of the other refs feel like this against certain clubs but aren’t monumentally stupid enough to say it on camera?

Need foreign refs

[Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT @3cbPerformance]

After 2.5 months of the Premier League this season, the following mentality has clicked for me when dealing with the officials:

They absolutely suck, aren’t getting any better, and have no incentive to get better bc there’s no accountability, actual punishments, process improvements, and there’s an entire industry built around the attention & engagement their decisions create.

I can sit here and complain until I’m blue in the face but the only person that hurts is me. It’s pointless.

What teams have to do is adapt and completely take it out of the officials’ hands. Take the energy used for complaining and channel it into the support and play. Control what you can control.

PGMOL isn’t worth my time or the energy. What is worth it is backing the boys on and off the pitch. We go again.

[Maj @jonnypique]

Spot on @Stillmanator.