After the final results from yesterday’s 2pm kick offs was confirmed, I had a quick check in to see what the ‘vibes’ were like and to my surprise, there was a lot of doom and gloom going on amongst some corners of The Arsenal fanbase. I saw people saying it’s City’s title, that they’d win the league by ten points, that Villa were also ‘coming for us’ and alike.

I watched a few bits of the City versus Palace game (although I mainly watched the Tyne-Wear Derby) and from the 20 – 30 minutes that I saw, I didn’t see a City side that ‘blew away’ Palace. In the cold light of day and looking only at the result you’ll see that 3-0 victory and say they are looking imperious, but I saw a Palace side who couldn’t finish their dinner, perhaps because they’d played in Dublin on Thursday night. I didn’t watch any of the West Ham v Villa game, but I looked at the data and it looked to me like Unai Emery doing ‘Unai things’ and we’ve all seen that before as Arsenal fans; the 22-game unbeaten run in his first season was littered with alarm bells and whilst Villa have been on a superb run and you have to give them credit for it, you cannot sustain your form with scoring three goings from your four shots in a match. Football just doesn’t work like that.

That’s the problem I think I have with in particular some sections of the football media – the results-based analysis that exists these days. People look at the results on paper and make sweeping statements. I haven’t had a look at the media narratives this morning (and I probably won’t) but I suspect there will be some corners of the press who will now have them as favourites. But against Fulham, against Leeds, then again yesterday against Palace, this City side were hanging on. Conversely this weekend, Arsenal delivered their worst performance of the year against a terrible Wolves side and that has led to a little bit of fretting amongst some of us Gooners. For me though, I’ve been a little more sanguine yesterday evening as I reflected, because I don’t believe that what we saw on Saturday night is reflective of this Arsenal team.

Heck, the data tells us otherwise, as well as the eye test on how we have been through over 20+ games so far this season and given it is that time of year, why note quote a bit of Marley from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

My senses tell me that Saturday was a terrible day at the office. It tells me that although we’ve had back-to-back of those if you include Villa in the league, this isn’t the Arsenal that I usually expect, whilst also telling me that we have been patching this team together for the best part of a month – maybe even two – now as we try to get over a perpetual injury crisis. I alluded to that ‘bad day at the office’ vibe on our early morning Same Old Arsenal pod yesterday morning when we were talking about why it went wrong and although I saw a few articles (including one from Football365 which suggested it was certainly NOT hallmark of champions with what we did this weekend) that were chastising us, I am prepared to let this slide because I think we have seen a more accurate representation of The Arsenal this season and it doesn’t look like Saturday’s hot mess.

A ‘hot mess’, by the way, that resulted in us still winning and still sitting top of the league by two points.

I also think that the manner of the results this weekend have impacted some of the psyche of the Arsenal fanbase. Hypothetically speaking, imagine if we’d have scored our two goals early, dominated the game against Wolves, then conceded in the last second to make it closer than it was. I think most Arsenals would shrug, say “meh, three points is all that matter” and then even with the City result yesterday, it would be ‘move on’ and away we go. But because of the manner of how the game unfolded, coupled with the fact we came a-cropper late against Villa, I think there’s some results-based analysis (as well as timing of goals-based analysis) that is going on with some of us, forgetting how controlled we’ve been and forgetting that sometimes these types of results just happen. I remember a 0-0 draw at home to Fulham during the Invincibles season that was a bit like that. And we didn’t have the level of injuries we had that day.

Let’s remind ourselves here about who we have been missing from the weekend:

  1. Gabriel
  2. Mosquera
  3. Havertz

We had Calafiori suspended and Arteta said that Saliba probably shouldn’t have done the 90. We lost Ben White who was clearly not fit to play but was wheeled out in the absence of others. That’s a waaaay better injury list than we’ve had, but it is still key players out. City meanwhile this weekend missed Rodri (big blow), Kovacic (squad player) and the perpetually injured (although again admittedly very god player) John Stones. They have had some injuries but are over them, we are just getting to the tail end of ours and Arteta has even spoken about how the lack of ability to rotate has caused us more problems.

A lot of what we have seen in recent weeks can possibly be put down to some of that I believe.

Villa were missing Martinez in goal yesterday, but aside from Mings and Barkley (another squad player) they’re in pretty decent health. They also played a pretty terrible West Ham away (I know, I know, Wolves, etc, etc – but I think Wolves away this weekend would have been easier than at home because they ain’t parking the bus against us on their own ground) and only just scraped by too.

I realise that so far this might all sound like an Arsenal fan clutching at straws and doing the whole “I’m not nervous, you’re nervous!” thing, but honestly I promise you, I don’t feel like that this morning. Now, if we are pants against Everton next weekend, or drop points at home to Brighton or Villa, then I will 100% start to probably have a little wobble. But as it stands, knowing that Arsenal and Arteta have a solid few days on the training ground from tomorrow to address some of the issues we’ve had, I am feeling pretty chipper and hopeful that we can tackle this Christmas period with Gusto and come out the other side of it in good shape. If we pick up three wins in a row in the Premier League, I think a lot of what a few people are feeling right now goes away.

So I’m calm, we have a week now to hopefully start having some drip-fed information about potential return of players, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for some of that before the build up to Everton away.

Catch you all tomorrow.