Mikel Arteta and his players have said all season that their focus is – rightly – on themselves and not others around them. The party line has been towed since August and we’ve heard different iterations from both manager and his staff along the lines of “one game at a time”, or “we’re only focused on the next match”. It is absolutely the right mentality and it has led us in to this fantastic position in which we’ve been able to get to April competing for the Premier League. The expectations were of a top four battle and given that the Scum hilariously drew yesterday to notch themselves up to 50 points – level with Newcastle and Man United – fighting for those two Champions League positions, where we sit 22 points north of that just four wins away from mathematically confirming top four, is a massive achievement that none of us expected. We are way ahead of the schedule that Edu set out in the summer when he said “we have to get top four”. That SHOULD be practically wrapped up now unless the most monumental collapse happens and all of those teams below us step up.
(You can feel the BUT coming now, can’t you…..?)
But despite all of that, despite the fact that we have been the best team up until this deep in to the Premier League season, despite how impressed so many people have been and despite the fact that it is still in our hands, what hit home to me this morning having watched a little clip of the Monday Night Football debate between Carragher and Neville, was just how fragile this supposed points gap is that we have.
Both pundits were mentioning Arsenal because they were talking in the context of the game at Anfield and Carragher said he thought Liverpool would beat Arsenal. Gary Neville called it a ‘big call’, but I disagree with that. Liverpool may have been shocking this season, but it has been on the road where they have been a shambles. At Anfield their record reads like a team who are fighting towards the top of the league. They sit third behind City and Arsenal on nine wins, three draws and one defeat, which explains away Carragher’s confidence I thought. And he’s right to be because we ALWAYS seem to lose up there. And in the last three or four years it has been quite convincingly beaten that we’ve succumbed.
But that in itself wasn’t what gave me chills, nor Carragher’s confidence, but instead it was what Neville said after that exchange. He said that if Liverpool do win, then it is in City’s hands, which really did hit home just what we are up against this season. Forget the tough matches we have, forget the records and stats and number of difficult games we still have to play and forget Liverpool; what Man City are doing despite having spent the whole season with pundits telling us they are ‘not the same City’ should tell a story in itself.
Arsenal have just gone seven games in a row winning all games to build us what, come Sunday evening, could be the most fragile of leads. We’ve knocked down every single obstacle since that blip of Everton, Brentford (cough, PGMOL, cough) and losing to City at home. We’ve shown amazing resilience to come from two goals down against Bournemouth, we’ve bagged goal after goal in games against Fulham, Palace and Leeds.
And yet…
And yet we still find ourselves in a position where defeat on Sunday leaves the title race ‘in City’s hands’ as Neville said.
Which of course is true because if we lose on Sunday the lead gets cut to five points with them having a game in hand and there’s no way City don’t pick up a comfortable three points away to the current worst team in the league Southampton. Then if they beat us (which they do home and away – 14 games in the Premier League without defeat stretching back over seven-and-a-half years) then the gap is down to two points and they have a game in hand. Now, what I should say is that I’ve already had some people say “yeah, but City will drop points too. They won’t go the whole season from now until the end winning all of them”.
That is true. But you can’t tell me they aren’t capable of it. They absolutely are. Last season from match week 11 when they beat United 2-0 at Old Trafford, they went on a 12 game winning streak until match day 26, where they lost to The Scum at home. But after that they had 12 games to play, won nine and drew three to pip the Scousers to the title. That is what they are capable of and having just dispatched Liverpool with consummate ease, I am going to admit to you, my fellow Arsenal friend, that I am having a little bit of what they call “the wobble”. We have won our last seven in a row, but City have just won their last four in the league and are looking like they have hit their top form at just the wrong time from an Arsenal perspective. They dismantled Liverpool without their cheat code of a robot centre forward who has 28 goals this season and will absolutely break 30 and probably get close to 40 goals. The most goals scored by any Premier League player was Andy Cole for Newcastle in 93/94, but that was with a 22 team season. Haaland will equal Cole’s record with SIX games LESS to play for.
That is what we are up against. We have been phenomenal all season. We have deserved to be where we are. We have been more than I could of hoped for and ultimately for most of this season I have just enjoyed how fantastic we have been playing and been pleased that Arteta has turned us in to a serious team again. But despite all of that, City have just chugged along winning football matches and now could find themselves in a position – despite playing a bunch of games more than us – where they just trot up alongside us and potentially overtake us in a matter of weeks. Forgive me for sounding like a cry baby but that is going to feel massively unfair if it happens.
But if it does happen then it is because they have been the best team in the league for the season because they will have picked up more points. I have to hope that they drop some points somewhere as I think we will, but we’ll just have to hope that they don’t just saunter past us on the way to the League title.
It really is squeaky bum time right now.
Catch you all tomorrow.
“The party line has been towed since August” the phrase is “toe the line”. Not tow.