Perhaps it is because we’re in to this winter break period and that means a fair bit of introspection and over thinking, but when I was out on my morning run in the cold suburbs of West London this morning, I started thinking to myself about our current position in the league and started to wonder:

What if it is actually better that we have to chase for the top spot, rather than lead from it? 

Hear me out here….

Maybe I’m just desperately fumbling around in the dark for a metaphorical light switch to illuminate the remainder of our season, but as I was running I started to think about last season and how we were all so upbeat, but in reality we all knew we had the spectre of Man City and their inevitable second half of the season drive. The expectations were essentially low in the Arsenal fanbase until we got to about February/March time. When we hit that time suddenly we realised that we were going to go all the way to the end of the season competing. There were little signs of excitement like the Man United winner from Nketiah, the Nelson moment against Bournemouth, it just felt like something was happening. We all know that eventually we ran out of steam and one too many injuries set in that ultimately derailed the season. So in effect we’ve seen the ‘lead from the front’ story before. We’ve done that, we know that the team didn’t have the depth to do it, I would imagine none of you are keen to repeat the feat.

But this season it is different. We’re not playing as well, as gung-ho, as fluid as last season and we are all getting a little concerned with the lack of goals, but what you cannot now say is that the spotlight is completely on us. We’re five points off the top, we’re struggling for goals of late and the media’s proverbial Eye of Sauron is turning to the likes of City and Liverpool. Maybe that can be a good thing for us?

At the beginning of last season everyone told us that “Arsenal will fall away. They haven’t got the squad”. We got told that for half the season. And amongst most of the Arsenal fans I spoke to all felt the same; let’s keep it low-key, let’s be excited where we are, but let’s manage our own expectations here, guys. We were top, but nobody treat us like contenders and maybe for the team, the manager, as well as us, that suited us. It kept the pressure down.

This season things are different. It is different everywhere; the media are saying we should be contenders, other fans were saying that about us and heck, in the stadium and online discourse the conversation was about how we should be. We spent £100million on Declan Rice.

“Adding him to a team that finished just behind City last season absolutely makes them contenders”

Football is rarely so linear. A + B doesn’t always + C. Injuries, the miss of players like Xhaka and longer term injuries to the likes of Partey (say what you like about his injury record, but he made 33 Premier League appearances for us out of 38 last season), plus a change in system and approach as we’ve all talked about ad nauseum (how many times have you heard the word ‘control’ amongst Arsenal fans this season?) has meant that we were never just going to be able to take last season, add a couple of players in and suddenly magically be guaranteed of 90+ points. So whilst that is the expectation from media, journalists, other fans and to some extent us as Arsenal fans, the reality was probably always going to be quite different.

But expectation is expectation and that is what has happened this season and as I said right at the top of this blog, maybe that expectation perhaps being re-calibrated after three defeats in a row is a good thing. Again, I’m caveating that maybe I’m clutching at straws; an Arsenal fan that has woken up on the right side of the bed and suddenly wants to ‘think happy thoughts’ like a full-on Lost Boy. But that’s where my mind is at this morning.

I’m hoping that the team is in Dubai right now and that the healing and problem solving on our goal profligacy is underway. I am hoping that solutions are found and I am hoping that a real hunger is being forged in the Middle Eastern heat. My hopes are that this team are better at chasing than they are leading. As we found out last season, leading for three-quarters of a season is great fun until it’s not. So let’s see how this team gets on when it has to chase for the points and the team at the top. You never know, it might suit us. I remember in 1998 when we won the league, that came from an Arsenal team that embraced the chase. We were miles behind Man United at Christmas I think it was, but then they turned on the after burners and we smashed our way to the title. Maybe this Arsenal team can take some inspiration from that. Five points feels like quite a gap right now, but I wonder if this team can see it as a realistic goal to shoot for. Let Liverpool have the limelight; let’s just get back on track with winning and slowly creep up on them until we get to the latter stages in the season.

Of course this is probably all just me talking myself in to positivity. But given there is no football for me to worry about in the immediate future, can you blame me?

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a pleasant day y’all.