Newcastle v Chelsea and El Clásico headline crucial set of games – matchday live | Soccer

“With the clear proviso that all fanbases have a level of entitlement and very vocal idiots, it has been entertaining hearing (some) Arsenal fans explain furiously how Liverpool don’t deserve the league, and Arsenal have been better, and so on and so on,” writes Matt Dony. “It’s enormously childish, but I almost hope Arsenal win today, purely to see the frothing-at-the-mouth on Twitter later on. Arteta’s post-match comments would be for the ages.”

Are Arteta’s Arsenal becoming a cult? I don’t say that pejoratively – plenty of great teams are – but it does feel like something has changed in the past few weeks. All managers present a distorted reality when it comes to refereeing decisions, but when that extends to performance I think it’s a dangerous sign.

One example. In his first year at Man Utd, Erik ten Hag was a Dutchman to the core, bracingly honest, happy to admit when United were crap. But in his second season, as the pressure mounted, he started defending the indefensible. Whatever happens with Mikel Arteta, and he probably just needs a holiday, he’s still massively in credit overall. When he took over, Arsenal were an irrelevance. The existence of this entry shows that’s not the case any more.