Isn’t it just the modern day football fan that we’re so well informed as to what goes on thanks to an over saturation of news and content, that when the news came out that Monchi was leaving Roma yesterday, a fair few Arsenal fans (myself included) looked at the situation and exclaimed delight that hopefully he’d be an Arsenal man soon. We’re so caught up in Arsenal that we’re lauding the possible signing of a member of the back room team.

IN reality though, it’s more the name and reputation of Monchi and the work he did at Sevilla that has got us excited and at a time when some of the other big clubs in England can drop £150million in a transfer window without blinking, the way Arsenal and their absent owner have to compete is through smart transfers, which is why we’re getting exciting about a potential arrival of someone like Monchi in the same way that we got excited with Sven’s arrival.

Of course Sven’s situation and subsequent exit shows that it doesn’t always work out as you think but on paper at least this feels like the right move for Arsenal and with Monchi having left Roma earlier than usual if Arsenal want to make their move, they can do so sooner rather than later. That will also enable them to have more time prepping what has to be a very important summer in the transfer market.

But aside from back room shenanigans we need to hope that the team is focused on keeping us in the hunt for the top four ahead of what is essentially the biggest week of the season. It feels like it’s all or nothing in the next six days.

A win against United and a better than two goal margin win against Rennes and we go in to the international break with the players being able to be rested and with a bit of a swing in their step.

A draw against United and you feel as though the league qualification route for the Champions League is fading. We have plenty of difficult away games so anything other than a win on Sunday will probably be seen as the opportunity slipping away.

Then there’s the Rennes game in which Arsenal need to essentially have a proper go for goals against a Rennes team who really have more of a lead than we should have allowed them to.

A defeat on Sunday and then exit from the Europa League next Thursday and you do wonder if some of the fans will be baying for the managers blood. I don’t know how I feel at the moment but I’m loathed to get that far at this stage. We lambast Chelski for their approach to hiring and firing managers on a whim, but are we not in the same boat if we do that? Hey, I know that approach has seen them win titles but after the pathetic way in which we managed – or failed to more likely – the game last Thursday after going a man down, I’m starting to think that the manager is less of the problem as is some of the personnel we have in our team. So giving the manager the chop only for a new guy to come in is one thing, but unless he’s given £250million to ship out a host of players and bring his own ones in then what more can we do?

Unai has already been talking about making some rotational changes for Sunday and I think that makes sense. There were some underperforming players on Thursday, there will be some tired players from Thursday, but also I think there is an opportunity for us to surprise United a bit by playing a different system. What Emery must do is to make sure that he lifts the players because after it felt like we were building a bit of momentum it suddenly seems to have become a little flat around the place. We’re at home, we have played well in the big games, so I’m hoping that we see a big performance from some of those Arsenal players tomorrow.

back with a preview on the game tomorrow.