I’ve already spoken about that gnawing frustration I felt after Saturday evening’s disappointing 0-0 draw to Forest. I know I am not alone. Even Declan Rice had been snapped mouthing expletives at the final whistle, which I think we can all understand, because that’s what a lot of us were feeling at the time. City slip up, we can’t capitalise, then suddenly we realise that Villa would take it to just four points with a win against Everton on their own ground. This was a Villa side who were unbeaten at home since August, so I don’t think many Arsenal fans expected anything other than a home win, and suddenly we’re all back to metaphorically all biting our fingernails after our second 0-0 draw in a row.

James and I spoke about that on the Same Old Arsenal podcast yesterday. We were both a little down, a little frustrated, both feeling that we were seeing worrying signs from an attacking perspective. And I think we’re right to have concerns, as many of us Arsenal fans have already voiced, across multiple different platforms – both online and offline. We’ve had three seasons of finishing second. We’ve been one of the best teams for a while now, but the reasoning has always been that we’re still a young team, we’re still a little too emotional, and the squad may not be as deep, which means we can’t handle an injury crisis. Yet this season, most of those…well, let’s call them for what they are…’excuses’ have been wiped away. This isn’t a ‘young’ team anymore. It’sa ‘prime’ one. Trossard, Norgaard, Kepa are all 31. Raya is 30. Merino is 29. Big Gabi and Gabby Jesus are 28. Bik Vik, Eze, Odegaard and Rice are all 27. Zubimendi and Havertz are 26. This is a group of players who are all in the place where they have played enough football, they are experienced enough, they need to be winning – just ask William Saliba after his post-match Chelsea comments.

The emotional aspects have been wiped away, and this season has been some of the most emotionally free from a game perspective. Just look at how we win games. We usually go ahead. We usually ‘shut down’ games by not allowing teams any goal attempts. We’re all emotional in the stands, for sure, but the actual games that Arsenal play have the extreme moments taken out in the large part. You can’t do that all the time, but the margins are very much managed by Arteta and his team, so as an ‘excuse’ on the pitch, the emotional side of it has been taken out. Compare that to somebody like Chelsea, who have a young team that picks up red cards like they are going out of fashion.

The injuries have been countered by making this squad deep. Very deep. We had no room for talented players like Nwaneri or Norgaard. These guys were left at home on Saturday.

So imagine my surprise to watch the second half of the Villa game and see Everton overcome a Villa side with their own few injuries, followed by a visibly perturbed Unai Emery absolutely lose his sh*t in the post-match interview by declaring Villa aren’t even top-five contenders. Maybe that got lost in translation a bit (although he’s been in this country long enough, I think, for that to be less the case these days), but that assertion from the Spaniard seems mad to me when they’re third and level on points with City. But what that result did do, madly, is mean that our disappointing draw away at Forest, was suddenly a point gained. Heck, even Liverpool in fourth only picked up a point, which means we’re still 14 points clear of them!

I think it’s situations like this that, as an Arsenal fanbase, are why we are all getting very antsy. Because if you’re looking at this Premier League title race and you’re not an Arsenal fan, you’re seeing things open up like we saw things open up for Liverpool last season. I remember blogging about it on multiple occasions; Liverpool were having all the luck with injuries, they were seeing rivals fall down with injuries, then poor form, just at the moments in which they would slip up. In December 2024 they had back-to-back draws against Newcastle and then Fulham. At the same time, Arsenal had back-to-back draws with Fulham and Everton. In January Liverpool drew to Man United and Forest for matchweeks 20 and 21. We beat the Scum in one of those matches, but the other? A 1-1 draw with Brighton. We made up ground, but only by two points, whilst losing at other points in which Liverpool won.

I remember reading the odd Liverpool fan forum at the time and seeing the odd fan show – they were the same last season. “Still a long way to go” was also followed by “we’ve seen us slip up before”. They were feeling the same as we were this season, but from afar, I think all of us Arsenal fans knew it was their season from January/February time. But when you’re in the position we’re in, you are not allowed to utter those words, for fear of some kind of Footballing Gods-style lightning bolt hitting us. We saw an Arsenal team in 2007/8 fall apart after the Eduardo leg break. We saw Arsena; beat Leicester at home on 14th January 2016 to go a couple of points clear to them, only to lose our next two and also draw to the Scum to open it up for Leicester to leapfrog us. We were all there in 2022/3 where we led up until we ran out of gas in March. We’re all feeling those pains right now and it is intensifying this fear in us all. What we all want is for Arsenal beat Liverpool at home and lay down a marker, then go to a struggling Forest side and do the same again, which we’re all now sat here on a Monday morning thinking about how we could have an 11-point lead and really start to feel like we can start to ice the champagne. But the quality of all of the teams in this league – evidenced by the fact that Wolves, West Ham, Forest, Burnley and Leeds all picked up points – shows that you just aren’t going to get that. Very rarely does a Premier League season become a procession for any team. I think maybe in the 33 years that the Premier League has existed, there’s probably been five or six times – max – that it has happened like that. And when that has happened, it has been from about February/March time, not in January.

All of this spiel probably sounds as though I’m giving you some sage counsel, to ‘chill out’ a bit, that I’m ‘calma’ and am thinking that ‘we got this’. But in truth, this is a letter to myself, to remind myself that we’re in a battle for a title. Nothing is won. Everything can be lost. But what you want at times like this is to be in our position.

We’re seven points clear. There’s more work to do. Let’s go do it.

Back tomorrow as we look at the game away at Inter in the Champions League. Catch you then.