I’ve woken up this morning in some sort of parallel universe where it is acceptable for Alexis to join Chelski in the summer. There’s a few members of the gutter press who are running with this back page trash and to think that Arsenal would even entertain the idea of letting him toddle off to Chelski seems laughable.

But then you realise this is Arsenal and they don’t seem to know which direction to steer the ship at the moment, so it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody from another vessel has rowed their way over to us offering a new life for the Chilean.

You’d love to think that Arsenal were part of the unspoken rule that the bigger clubs don’t sell to each other in the same league, but Cole, Nasri, Adebayor, Clichy, Toure and van Persie suggests otherwise. So whilst I’d love to be able to 100% dismiss what seems like such a spurious rumour, I am looking at our history – especially with contract rebels – and hoping that it’s just a bit of agent briefing for his client. 

We just have to hope that Alexis has enough interest from overseas clubs to be able to ship him somewhere where all he could do is knock us out of the Champions League. Hey, there’s enough other players from Bayern and Barcelona who have been doing that in the last six or seven years, so why not send him to the German champions, then it won’t come as a shock any more. Well, that is if we even make the Champions League, which is a feat seeking all the more unlikely with the way the team have been playing.

This weekend will tell us a lot about the fight in the team, as well as being a dress rehearsal for the FA Cup in a few weeks time. It’s an FA Cup semi at Wembley and yesterday all of those season ticket holders who put their name down on the ballot were confirmed as being successful. That’s a Wembley allocation of 32,000 which hasn’t been taken up by all season ticket holders, of which I believe we have more than that number registered at The Emirates, which tells you a lot about the state of play at the moment. I’ve seen some debating as to whether it’s the regular frequency of Wembley which has contributed towards the lack of interest, but I think that’s poppycock, because it’s one bright spot in an otherwise dismal season for us so far. So if you’re a season ticket holder who’s had to sit through some pretty tripe performances this season, why wouldn’t you want a day out?

Perhaps if you were getting bored of the whole saga that is Arsenal these days. Perhaps if you’ve had enough of spending a fortune to watch an underperforming product. Perhaps if you’ve lost faith in the manager. Perhaps all of these things.

For me I love the day out itself. Starting early, meeting friends and sharing a few jars, followed by a walk to the national stadium and then a game in a different setting. And I’m hopeful that the change of scenery will also change the mood of the Arsenal fans. Because the Emirates atmosphere gets toxic very quickly these days. So for me I was always going to be selecting my ticket as soon as they became available. But I can understand why some people didn’t bother.

It’s all a bit ‘down and out’ these days, isn’t it? I feel like that’s the style I always seem to adopt in these daily ramblings. But I can’t help it. The manager, board and players have contributed towards this malaise through consistent underperformance this season, of which the only right of reply that counts comes on the pitch. Which they haven’t replied enough times this season. Of course it could all change and a performance on Sunday will be a big help. But we’ll need more and more big performances from individual players that aren’t Alexis, if we want to finish this season with some semblance of pride, so now that the players are returning from international duty, I hope they are collectively having a word with themselves about what they want to be truly remembered as this season. Cowards? Not playing for the manager? No fight? No desire? Or do they want to win a little bit more faith back from some of us? There will be some that will inevitably be off in the summer and you probably know who they are like I think I do. But for now we should keep up appearances and give them enough support providing they demonstrate they actually give a sh*t about their own professional pride right now.

A marriage of convenience until the end of the season, when some of them can bugger off for good.

Catch y’all tomorrow.