It’s nice when sometimes your team isn’t the only one imploding in front of your very eyes. So when I read that Chelski had fallen to a 4-1 defeat at Watford, I let out a little smile, because it appears they’re in as much turmoil as we’ve been in this season. It just took them a little longer to get there.

The hope is that they can continue this slide under Conte because despite the fact that we Arsenal fans are laughing it up this morning, they’re still on 50 points, which is five more than us.

So now that all of this weekend’s games have been completed it appears to have been a good one for us. That’s what kills ya yer see: the hope. Suddenly – we’re all thinking “but what if we can beat the Totts?” And starting to wonder if some sort of minor miracle can turn our season around. The reality is that we’ve been dire away from home all season though, as well as the fact that they’re no mugs, will be well up for it, plus they’ll be licking their lips at our defence.

But the good news is that at least the players have had that shot of adrenaline that the club needed and Arsène has even admitted it himself with the new signings. My hope is that what we’ve done with these new signings can have a similar impact to when we signed Arshavin in the January of 2009. We were laboured and looking devoid of much confidence at that time too, but the little Russian’s arrival lifted everyone. We’d all seen how good he had been in 2008 at Euro’s and when he first arrived the whole club – including the players – got a lift.

That’s the sort of impact we have to hope the current crop of new signings can bring. The challenge they have is that we’re operating in a far more competitive environment than 2008/9 but I guess conversely to that you could say that the quality – and resources – of Arsenal, dictate that as a result we also have signed better quality players. And you can’t argue that Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang won’t improve our squad quality wise by some distance. They’ve already shown it. Personally I think it would be asking a lot of them both to dominate a North London Derby just a couple of weeks after arriving at the club. But stranger things have happened and at least with their arrivals there is a little bit of hope.

There’s also the love-in between players that can be seen, with Hector talking up how they all knew Özil was going to stay because he loved Arsenal, but also Özil and Auba exchanging nice words about each other via social media feeds.

As a fan it’s nice to see. We all know it’s put on for show a bit, because why wouldn’t they just say nice things about each other in training, when they talk to each other every day? Probably why everybody puts stuff on Facebook about each other when they see each other every day, because they want the world to know of the bond; a public offering of the ties that they have.

I’m kind of fine with that, but I just hope that these bonds – partnerships – can develop into something big for the club. That could start this weekend but, being the eternal pessimist that I am when it comes to The Arsenal, I’m skeptical as to whether this weekend will end as positively as last weekend’s results have.

That’s pretty much it from me today. Bit of a short one because there isn’t that much happening. That’s a good thing. It means that the natives aren’t restless, the players aren’t playing “we need to learn our lesson” bingo on a PR charm offensive and the club are just getting on with prepping for this Saturday’s show down.

As it should be.

Catch you all tomorrow.