It’s day two back in the office for me, and I already feel bloody knackered, so much for the rest and recharging of the Christmas period. I don’t know how these footballers do it, you know. Well, I do, because they get lots of sleep, and they also treat their bodies like temples, not waste disposal units like I do. In fact, I just Googled it and found this; there’s no way I’m getting up at 6am to do light stretching and yoga. Just give me my dressing gown and the gentle tapping of fingers on the keyboard, thank you very much.

All this preamble is to say that, from an Arsenal perspective, thankfully, there isn’t a ton of stuff going on. We’ve got the game on Thursday, for which the build-up probably really only starts tomorrow in the media, but the club and players will have been preparing for that since yesterday I suspect. Light training, followed by video sessions and a look at how Liverpool have been playing, but also how they played against us earlier in the season. I remember watching a video of interviewers outside the ground in the aftermath of that match, and it was Liverpool fans explaining how easy it was, how it was typical negative Arsenal, that they got what they deserved, etc, etc, blah, blah.

The reality was that on that day, both teams really spent a fair bit of time shadow-boxing one another. Liverpool were mindful of our threat and strengths, but we were equally mindful of both our poor record at Anfield, as well as the quality of the opponent. It was so early in the season, too, that nobody could really look at the result and say in what direction the season would unfold. It was still match week three, but that didn’t stop Liverpool fans parroting things like “same old negative and defensive Arsenal”; when in fact their team had been just as defensive. Now, half of them seem to want Slot gone, whereas we’re in a good space – albeit a precarious one with City still on our tails ahead of another set of midweek fixtures.

I guess that’s the thing about this time of the season; larger points leads might feel lovely, but when you are at a stage of the season in which they can be quickly eroded because of the frequency of matches, it can be a bit of a misnomer. We could quite easily drop points to what is still a very good Liverpool side, whilst City will probably still win against a Brighton side who have won just one game (against Burnley) in their last seven. If we lose to Liverpool at home, they beat Brighton at home, suddenly the online and media discourse flips all over again, and City are ‘chasing Arsenal down’ having had two matchweeks in which we’ve gathered a bit of distance whilst they have dropped points. City also plays 24 hours earlier too, so whilst we’ve been able to strike the earlier psychological blow with our wins, the boot will be on the other foot by the time we kick off on Thursday, I suspect.

I’ll start doing the usual stuff ahead of the game on Thursday from tomorrow, but for no,w a quick scan on what else is happening in the Arsenal world doesn’t really bring up too much. I saw that HandOfArsenal has said we’re after some lad from Blackburn, but for me personally, that’s not piquing too much interest because of: 1) his age and ability to impact the first team right now (one for the future), and 2) the depth of the squad we already have. It’s so interesting because I think this is the first ever window – January or summer – in which I’ve genuinely not wanted us to sign a single player. It’s a weird – but good – feeling not to be saying “we’re just short in these one or two areas”, which has felt like something Arsenal fans have been saying since…well…the whole concept of transfer windows was introduced over 20 years ago. Man, that makes me feel old, because I remember when clubs could just sign players whenever they wanted to…

But it’s a nice feeling to know that this squad is stocked with such good talent and with the news of the return of Havertz meaning that I think we might only just have Mosquera and Dowman injured in the squad if Calafiori is back fit, then you look at our strength at the busiest time of the year and it feels one’s heart with glee.

Imagine being able to field a second string against Portsmouth that includes Kepa, White, Hincapie, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Norgaard, Merino, Eze, Madueke, Jesus and Martinelli and STILL be scratching your head about how to fit in a returning Havertz and young prodigy Nwaneri into it. Yes. Please.

And this is all whilst City appear to be having mounting injuries to their team, with Gvardiol confirmed to have had a fractured tibia in his leg, as well as Ruben Dias out too. I’m sure when we were facing the injury crisis that saw us go to Villa without Gabriel or Saliba, the City fans had plenty of sympathy for us (not), so you’ll permit me to hold on to mine, given they will just probably go and spunk £0 – £40million on Guehi to alleviate their problems at the back. When that happens, as I saw somebody suggest, it will mean City will have spent more than £500million in a calendar year on players. I seem to recall plenty of online City fans crowing a year ago about how much Arsenal had spent with Mikel Arteta during his tenure, whereas they’d won their titles having hardly spent a bean in recent years. Arteta has spent £900million+, but he’s done it in six years – an average of £150million per year. Where are you online City fans now, eh? Because your chequebook manager has been flexing his financial muscles, so don’t come to me with your chirping about ‘net spend’ now if City go and drop a wedge of cash for Palace’s captain. I won’t hear any sob stories from 115 FC, that’s for sure.

Ok I think that’ll do it from me for today. I need to get cracking for another day of desk jockeying, so I’ll catch you all tomorrow as we start to look ahead to that big Liverpool game on the horizon. See you then.