{"id":330,"date":"2018-08-11T08:21:46","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T15:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/?p=330"},"modified":"2018-08-11T08:21:46","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T15:21:46","slug":"top-4-or-wishful-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Top 4 or Wishful Thinking?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the eve of Arsenal&#8217;s opening game of the 2018\/19 season against defending champions Manchester City, there is a new hope around our club. \u00a0Expectations are high. \u00a0There have been numerous changes including a new manager, five new players coming in, and the expectation that several young talents could rise to prominence this year. \u00a0As an Arsenal fan it easy to get excited and lose ones objectiveness. \u00a0It is easy to see the changes and assume their most positive impact and predict a top 4 finish. \u00a0But is this all wishful thinking? \u00a0 More technically termed &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamblingsites.com\/football-betting\/strategy\/psychology\/\">desirability bias<\/a>&#8216;, this psychological phenomenon is hugely common among sports fans. \u00a0But the truth is that sport is highly unpredictable, and it is impossible to know how the new players will fair in the premier league, how they will gel with the team, how the managers new tactics will work, and it is impossible to predict how the other teams have strengthened over the transfer window.<\/p>\n<p>It is easy to look to our fierce rivals Spurs and see that they have not strengthened, with a record 0 transfers in the window. \u00a0Certainly we must finish above them with all the activity we have had! \u00a0Chelsea have had a rocky summer and look to be the other team we are hoping to leap frog into the Champions League qualifying spots, but if we look down the table, there are also those predicting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailystar.co.uk\/sport\/football\/722439\/Arsenal-news-West-Ham-Sky-Sports-Tim-Sherwood-Gunners-Champions-League-Europa-AFC-WHUFC\">West Ham<\/a> has made positive changes and have a chance at challenging us for a EUFA cup spot. \u00a0In fact, we have provided our cross city rivals with Jack Wilshere and Lucas Perez in their effort to strengthen their ranks.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"nshCHQMST8VBIZl-3lHoGg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/1005613978\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'nshCHQMST8VBIZl-3lHoGg',sig:'1dYrakcusWGFADZBili98GYfAsFTPwgvuHdWIXB6wHQ=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'1005613978',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><br \/>\nGiven our desirability bias to see our team do well, the truth is it is impossible to predict the season ahead. \u00a0We need not look back too far for examples of the unpredictability of football. \u00a0Who would have thought Germany would be knocked out of the World Cup in the first round? \u00a0Who could have seen Leicster City winning the Premier League a couple of years ago? \u00a0There are countless example, but for the most part we are pretty good at predicting the top 6 in the premier league.<\/p>\n<p>To neutralize our desirability bias, we can look to non Arsenal supporters \u00a0and see what they think of our chances. \u00a0To start with the positives, <a href=\"https:\/\/soccer.nbcsports.com\/2018\/08\/03\/season-preview-can-arsenal-return-to-top-4-status\/\">NBC sports<\/a>\u00a0and Eurosport have predicted a top 4 finish for Arsenal. \u00a0But on the negative side, there are more pundits that are predicting a third season out of the top four. \u00a0Here in Canada only one of the eight pundits for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/soccer\/sportsnets-premier-league-2018-19-season-predictions\/\">sportsnet<\/a> think that Arsenal will crack the top four this year. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/45088530\">6 of 24 pundits for BBC<\/a> have predicted Arsenal to finish fourth (none higher than fourth), and of course a few of these were ex Arsenal players who likely share our desirability bias. \u00a0And giants\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11095\/11387161\/201819-premier-league-table-predict-how-the-20-teams-will-finish\">Skysport<\/a>\u00a0and Skybet have us predicted as finishing sixth while\u00a0Forbes predicts fifth overall.<\/p>\n<p>But the reality is that not even the professional pundits can predict the season. \u00a0Most of them had Germany or Brazil winning the World Cup! \u00a0So with cautious optimism and a few wins on the road and a few big wins against top 4 clubs this year it is quite fathomable that we could finish above Spurs and Chelsea! \u00a0I think finishing above City, Liverpool, or United (in that order) would definitely exceed expectations for the year, but we can dream!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the eve of Arsenal&#8217;s opening game of the 2018\/19 season against defending champions Manchester City, there is a new hope around our club. \u00a0Expectations are high. \u00a0There have been numerous changes including a new manager, five new players coming in, and the expectation that several young talents could rise to prominence this year. \u00a0As [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arsenal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa1Vgs-5k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football2020.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}