As another season goes by where I will not be watching my favorite team play Champions League football, countless people are to blame for this unacceptable failure. None more significant than the 3 headed monsters of idiocy between Mikel, Edu, and the players. They are just absolute choke artists. But besides the Arsenal clowns, we saw performances from our opponents all season that were very mean to my well-being. Here is the TOTY for players against Arsenal this season:
GK: Fraser Forster – If you combined 2014 Manuel Neuer (Ballon d’Or finalist that year), Tim Howard against Belgium in 2014, and Thibaut Courtois in the past Champions League final, you’d get Fraser Forster against Arsenal at St. Mary’s:
Fraser Forster made 6 saves in that match which is a result that will haunt me for years to come and is one of the bigger reasons we can point to in why we didn’t make the Champions League.
Just a frustrating day for everybody wanting an Arsenal win, Kent included. What people forget is that the man lost his job to Alex McCarthy before injuries led him to get the rare start against us. Always against us.
RB: Djed Spence – Technically a Middlesbrough player who was on loan to Nottingham Forest this year, was an absolute menace and Forest’s best player in their victory over us in the FA Cup. Even though he technically wasn’t in the Premier League this past season, his performance against us last season essentially will get him a move to the Premier League (looking like Spurs at this point smh) for this upcoming season. Charity club FC I tell you.
Just ran through our whole team in this passage of play and abused Martinelli all game long. Arsenal was supposedly in on him and rightfully so, a shame that Spurs are going to be getting this talented player. It would be a real shame if that didn’t happen.
CB: Virgil van Dijk – This guy is more worried about not letting players dribble past him but to his credit, we played Liverpool 4 times this season and we didn’t sniff a goal in any of them. 4-0, 0-0, 2-0, 2-0 with VVD playing in all those games. Just absolutely dominated by this man all season long.
CB: Pablo Mari – An Arsenal player that got loaned off to Udinese for the second half of the season, was absolutely terrible for Arsenal while covering for an injured Ben White. Might as well have been playing against us. He didn’t get a game for us since the debacle against Chelsea at the Emirates where Lukaku rag-dolled him all game long. LUKAKU, I TELL YOU. The flop of the season Lukaku who is going back to Inter because of how much he couldn’t cut it in the Premier League. Yeah, that guy was having his way with Pablo Mari, unfortunately for Rom, every other team he played in the Prem had much better players than Pablo Mari.
LB: Marc Cucurella – How a Barcelona academy product ended up at Brighton is beyond me but what a first season he had in the Prem. He absolutely ravaged us during both Brighton games this season down the left flank. The game down at Brighton, was a force down the left and showed his versatility by playing LCB at the Emirates match and was outstanding there as well. Contributing to their 2-1 victory over us. The man just never stops running and is a relentless menace up and down that left flank with his stupid hair flowing in the back. Not a surprise that Pep has made him a priority signing for City this summer transfer window.
The gif above is Cucurella in a nutshell, putting in a decent cross for his team and then just scurrying back to provide defensive cover, what an annoying ass player to play against.
CM: Rodri – My POTY this season. Not known for his goal-scoring prowess but leave it to Arsenal to let this CDM score 2 of his 7 goals against us. The game at the Etihad where City beat us 5-0, Rodri was just toying with us all game with having to basically do nothing defensively against us and had a joke of a goal with the inside of his boot, outside of the box:
If the goal against us at the Etihad wasn’t enough, in the game at the Emirates where we thoroughly outplayed City, leave it to Rodri to make a run forward to score the game-winner in extra time against us. Just an absolute fuck you to me and you, also confirming his ownership of me for the time being:
In his celebration, he goes and takes off his shirt and mocks the Arsenal fans… what a troll job by my POTY, gotta respect it.
CM: Bruno Guimarães – In the January transfer window, it was well noted that Arsenal were keen on the Brazilian midfielder but was not able to attain his services ahead of the Saudi-backed Newcastle regime. It was reported that we didn’t have the financial backing to win the player and his team over, especially in a bear winter market where teams chose not to spend heavily for numerous reasons. With all that being said, it took awhile for Eddie Howe to acclimate t Bruno and he got conveniently very hot when we played him at the end of the season. Just as a fuck you to Edu for not getting the deal over the line, Bruno took away our Champions League hopes by scoring 1 of his 5 goals on the season against us:
CM: Christian Nørgaard – I didn’t know who he was before this season either but leave it to Arsenal to let this guy score twice against us this season which accounted for 67% of his goals in the league this season.
The one that took place at the beginning of the season was particularly painful as it gave me a glimpse of the shit-show that would be the 21/22 season.
FW – Diogo Jota: Scored twice against us this season, home and away. And to add injury to insult, added another two goals in our Carabao Cup SF at the Emirates. Despite him losing his job to Luis Diaz towards the end of the season, he was a menace to us all season and have no interest in seeing him anytime soon.
FW: Cristiano Ronaldo: He owned me when he left Manchester United and he still owns me now. I haven’t gotten over Cristiano knocking us out of the Champions League SFs in 2009:
And 13 years later he still fucking can’t stop scoring against us. When Ole was on his final legs as Manchester United manager and they couldn’t get a result to save their lives in December 2021, leave it to Arsenal to be Ole’s last saving grace as manager eeking out a 3-2 win over us at Old Trafford with the customary Ronaldo two-goal performance smh.
And when United’s season was over in April 2022 when we played them at the Emirates, he was by far United’s best player despite the tragedy of his deceased child and still managed to get a goal against us cause why the fuck not:
FW: HM Son – He scored against us at the Tottenham Stadium game, no fucking shit. But more importantly, it’s not what he did against us directly, it’s the fact that his dumb smiley face refused to stop scoring against every other team down the stretch to secure Champions League for Spurs while we were squandering around trying to find one goal to score a game.
Featured image credits: BuildLineup
Image credits: Getty, IMAGO
Video credits: NBC, Entertainment Channel