Hey kids, thinking of drinking during a week night, when you might have work or school the next day? I wouldn’t recommend it. 

I’ve fallen victim to the tasty rouge flavourings of the Meantime brewery’s beverages and the only outcome this morning is a clear lack of sleep deprivation and a headache. All brought on by friends and the phrase “Thursday’s the new Friday”. 

Still, I was able to break bread with colleagues, whilst able to discuss with a couple the finer points of an Arsenal team brimming with confidence. One was a QPR fan and like a growing number of ‘neutrals’, he only had good things to say about our title chances, which is nice to hear. 

Except we don’t want to hear it, do we? We don’t want to even utter the phrase “this could be Arsenal’s year” because a) we’re not Liverpool/Spud fans, and b) we don’t want to anger the football karma gods. We’ve already had to make the sacrifices to such gods in the forms of injuries to Wilshere, Welbeck and as Arsène confirmed yesterday on the official site, Ramsey too until at least after the next international break in about a months time. I just hope the karma gods have been satisfied with these sacrifices, that they see fit not to rob us of more players, or at least players in the same position.

It’s a funny thing though, football, because the greatest high in the world can be seeing your team win a trophy and I have seen us win most trophies. But the only true fun bit is when the final whistle goes to confirm that trophy win. Before then I’m all just nerves and excitement. Or usually during the game just anger and resentment. Towards the ref, or the away team, usually.

So actually, the amount of time I get of pleasure in a season is very little, in comparison to the amount of time I spend being nervous and worrying. 

So why do it? 

Those highs people, those highs. As a football fan I can’t even articulate it on this blog. I like to think I can turn the occasional phrase, doing this blog every day has helped that, but even I cannot attempt to describe those highs. If you’re an Arsenal fan reading this you’ll understand. You know and you’ve experienced it too.

I want to get the high of seeing The Arsenal win the league this season so much, that any superstitious ritual that I can adopt to play some sort of cosmic karma part, I will do. Which is why I am so dismissive of saying out loud that w* h*** a ch**** of w****** the t**** this season. I don’t want to stir the gods and make them angry.

Illogical? Yes. Absurd? Absolutely. But in my mind, necessary? You betcha.

Anyway, back to the real world, to which we’ll hear from Arsène about how the team are doing physically and what impact back-to-back-to-back wins has had for their mental condition too. I expect Arsène to be in a decent mood this morning. He’s just had a birthday, will probably get a cake and will most likely be given plenty of praise given the form of the team, but I wonder if he’ll be asked about Jose? The guys been trying little digs all season so far and did so again on Wednesday, but when Arsène’s teams have their tales up, he’s usually very good at a cheeky little quip or two. My favourite of all time was the “everybody thinks they have the prettiest wife at home” comment after Fergie said that United deserved to win the league ahead of us. Ahh, good times.

He doesn’t do that as much these days, probably because he’s more guarded with the way the press have been, but I expect we’ll get one or two decent titbits to chew over between now and kick off. Not least about Ospina, who I wonder if he hasn’t suffered an Almuniaesque broken heart after his Olympiakos gaff. He’s also out until the next international break too, apparently, which is odd because there hasn’t really been any publicity surrounding his injury. We shall wait and see.

Anyway, not a lot else going on as I write this, so might as well call it a blogging day. Laters.