I said it yesterday, I’ve said it a couple of months back when the announcement of Gazidis was made, but don’t let the door hit you on the way out Ivan.

Yesterday he was officially gone and it said so much about his tenure that half of the people who are Arsenal fans that I frequent with didn’t even realise. It was as underwhelming as his tenure at Arsenal which included:

  • A decade of sound bites
  • A polished PR guru saying all the right things but delivering little
  • A period in our history in which we were a laughing stock from a contract negotiation perspective
  • A decline on the football field in terms of the quality of players we have
  • I’ve seen people point to the fact he’s not responsible for the on field stuff and of course they’re right, but to label him as some kind of commercially savvy CEO is a complete misnomer if you ask me, because every Premier League football club has seen sustained increases on revenues season-on-season.
  • He gave us one good year of infrastructure changes and then he was gone. So long Ivan, your legacy will be barely remembered in 18 months.
  • So with that chapter in Arsenal’s history closing, we can indeed look ‘forward’ and that will start with this weekend, in which Unai Emery will have to find some way of minimising the damage caused by the Liverpool front line, whilst maximising our potency at the other end.
  • I do think we will have to be more daring in our making of chances though. So far this season we’ve been one of the most efficient teams when it comes to our shots to goals ratios. Indeed, we can hardly point to goalkeeping masterclasses against us that have seen us be u lucky not to give somebody a hiding. We’ve ridden our luck at times and I can’t see us doing the same against Liverpool if we gift them 1-on-1s against Bernd Leno tomorrow.
  • But who knows, right? I may be struggling to make a case for an Arsenal win tomorrow but perhaps Unai has some kind of master plan up his sleeves.
  • I just hope it involves proper full backs and not the makeshift ones we’ve had to deal with in the last few games. The thought of Xhaka and Lichsteiner against the pace of Mane and Salah hardly fills me with glee.
  • But hey, I’ve been surprised in football before and I’m sure I’ll be surprised again, so let’s just see how this pans out and let’s see what Unai says in his press conference later today.
  • The pundits aren’t giving us much hope either. Lawro says we’ll lose, Merse has been very vocal on the result, whilst Sports Mole think we’ll ship four with our back line. As much as I want to scoff at them and as great as it would be to see us turn over the scousers, our injuries, set up at the back, plus the fact that we’re up against probably the best front three in the league, have me Mr Kipling style Exceedingly Nervous.
  • Let’s see how we all feel tomorrow though but more importantly let’s see if Emery has some kind of magic master plan up his sleeve. Maybe there’s some of the old Tottenham lasagne lying around that we could sneak on to the Liverpool team bus…
  • Anyway, I’m going to try to not get myself too worked up and nervous about it, it is Friday after all.
  • Laters you lovely people.