League winners over last 3 decades

It certainly wasn't Robb. That Arsenal team scored an extraordinary number of last minute goals to rescue a bucket load of points that year. But they just didn't have the quality to break into the top 2, who also contested the CL final that season

For me the Arsenal 02/03 side were better than the Utd one. Obviously the league table tells a different story!

comment by Barefoot (U19770)
posted 12 seconds ago
For me the Arsenal 02/03 side were better than the Utd one. Obviously the league table tells a different story!
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It was very close as we saw with how well arsenal did the following season. There really wasn’t much between the two sides in the early half of the decade tbh

comment by Robb, the fifth husband of Joe Exotic (U22311)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Barefoot (U19770)
posted 12 seconds ago
For me the Arsenal 02/03 side were better than the Utd one. Obviously the league table tells a different story!
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It was very close as we saw with how well arsenal did the following season. There really wasn’t much between the two sides in the early half of the decade tbh
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I think from 02-04 Arsenal were the better team. Maybe 05 as well but you dominated them in the cup final, despite losing.

I’ve always thought the injury to Eduardo costing Arsenal the title is massively overplayed by Arsenal fans. It’s not like he was a great goal scorer for Arsenal. That team played wonderful football, but even with Eduardo I don’t think anyone, other than Arsenal fans, really believe they’d have held off two teams of the quality of United and Chelsea that season.

comment by Joe The King Exotic (U10026)
posted 3 minutes ago
I’ve always thought the injury to Eduardo costing Arsenal the title is massively overplayed by Arsenal fans. It’s not like he was a great goal scorer for Arsenal. That team played wonderful football, but even with Eduardo I don’t think anyone, other than Arsenal fans, really believe they’d have held off two teams of the quality of United and Chelsea that season.
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Yep. We won the champions league unbeaten that season. We had Ronaldo in world player of the year form with quality up and down the side. We were absolutely the best side in Europe that season

Yes, we were. But it was fine margins. People forget how good that Chelsea team was, even with Avram Grant as manager. They took us to the last day of the season and were within a Terry slip of beating us in the final. It could quite easily have been them that were the double winning champions that season.

I never felt Arsenal had the staying power to hold of both us and Chelsea that season, even before the injury to their four goal striker. There was just too much quality, and know how, in the other two teams for Arsenal to have got over the line.

comment by Joe The King Exotic (U10026)
posted 5 hours, 14 minutes ago
I’ve always thought the injury to Eduardo costing Arsenal the title is massively overplayed by Arsenal fans. It’s not like he was a great goal scorer for Arsenal. That team played wonderful football, but even with Eduardo I don’t think anyone, other than Arsenal fans, really believe they’d have held off two teams of the quality of United and Chelsea that season.
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Disagree (unsurprisingly).

Yes, Eduardo might not have been that prolific - though he was very efficient - but you have to put his injury in the context of that being in the main a young, fairly inexperienced side, that were getting the sh/t kicked out of them week in week out, with barely any protection from referees - remember Taylor was only actually send off here because he completely mashed Eduardo's leg, rather than for the out of control challenge.

And all the while the story was "Arsenal... they don't like it up 'em!" which Ferguson and his British cronies al fully brought in to.

Had we had a proper captain at the time, an Adams, Arteta, or Mertesaker type, we might still have been okay. But we didn't.

And so yeah, the players just saw Eduardo's leg, and career hanging by a thread, and of course understandably it affected them, thinking that next week... that could be them.

Needs to be remembered that we'd achieved a record number of league points in February, and would've gone 8pts clear - admittedly having played a game more than United - had we won at Birmingham.

Had that not happened, and had RvP not been unavailable too, then I think we'd have gotten over the line, despite what United and Chelsea were doing.

But none of that happened, so we'll never know.

I get it affected them, but I still don’t think there was much to indicate Arsenal had it in them to get over the line. The fact that they were such a mentally weak team that the injury to Eduardo did what it did would indicate that - as would all the years and years of Arsenal displaying this in the years after. I think it’s just a convenient excuse, to be honest. The injury didn’t cost them the title, Arsenal being Arsenal cost them the title. I know it’s not nice to hear, but it’s a pretty fair appraisal given what we know about those three teams.

Nah, even as a United fan I don't think that. I don't know how things would have gone but it was an awful injury and may well have affected some. We were a strong side though and I would have fancied us.