Morning folks. Dropping you this match preview in the early hours of Thursday morning, ahead of what feels like a perpetual ‘must win’ for The Arsenal these days. Well, I’ve written it in the early hours, so please excuse the fact that there’ll be even more typos than normal. Probably won’t actually finish it until about midday, given that I had my work Christmas party last night until the witching hour.

Anyway, where was I? Ahh yes, The Arsenal and our desperate need for a ‘must win’

Of course that’s a matter of perspective. If you think that Arsenal have a cats hell in chance of making the top four then firstly a) fair play for being a ‘better’ fan than I am, but b) what on earth are you smoking because I’ll take a hefty dose please.

Of course I’m being a little melodramatic but having witnessed the farce that is The Arsenal over the last few weeks, can anybody really blame me? I mean the top four feels like a mile away but as long as we’ll hold out some kind of hope in Freddie then I guess we have to believe. After all he is the guy in charge and the man charged with turning over a fair old points deficit. But if he drops a win tonight at home to Brighton then the hope will seep back into all of us.

And I’m ok with that. We’ve had so long wondering just how low it would get over the last few weeks, that it’s nice to have a little bit of hope, if I’m honest. Freddie – for all of the question marks that a few minor randoms have had for him – has helped to talk up the ways in which he’d changed things, and it feels like the training sessions we’ve watched in which he’s clearly defined a style, has also showed that he’s willing to switch things up a bit so that’s a positive for us all. We need him to do something different and I guess we’re all hanging on to that hope that he will. By hook or by crook.

And let’s be honest; we all wanted him to first and foremost get a result even before the performance. That’s what football is and he knows it as much as we do. Heck, Unai survived six months longer as a result of a 22 game run which belied the performances, so Freddie will be acutely aware just how important a win is.

So, what we need to see from Freddie’s Arsenal is an aggressive nature that starts with tonight and it starts with a performance that means three points for The Arsenal. That doesn’t sound too unrealistic. After all, we have managed eight without a win and so a home game against a team who seem like they’re also struggling for their football identity, kind of feels like we’re in the same boat. The difference is that our boat is silver lined and has provisions to see us through the ‘hard times’. The only question is whether we make the beat use of those ‘provisions’.

Apologies, I’m a little drunk and as a result, my forked tongue sticks out a little more. But it’s just my random feelings my because I want to see a successful Arsenal team. Also because I write this every day and it’s the words that spew out of my mouth regardless of what the situation is. That’s what happened when you have too many Peroni’s I guess.

Brighton will fancy their chances against our beleaguered defence and hopefully that plays into our hands. On Monday on the GunnersTown show I spoke to a Brighton fan who didn’t really seem to know what to make of Graham Potter and he also said that Brighton are more attack-minded and possession based. If they come at The Arsenal tonight what we might find is that there are pockets available for us to exploit and so I’m hoping Freddie goes with natural wide men and Aubameyang up top, with Özil picking the spaces to drift into that Brighton have left free, potentially exploiting their attacking nature.

If we can put a performance together that shows that this team is starting to adapt quickly to their new coach, then we can start to look forward and believe again, which is what all of us want.

And in that note I’ll take my leave and hope that when I’m next talking to you it’s about a match that Arsenal have won.

Laters.