It’s Wednesday. We still have five full days before the game at home against Chelsea. But this morning I went for a run and listened to another podcast about the North London Derby. I’m liking this. We have loads of time still to absorb as much of the post-NLD content as possible. I still have a few more pods and thinkpieces to get through, so I feel like I can still do a bit more basking.

In many ways, this break has been one of the most delicious of all. If you’re a regular reader, you will know that I absolutely detest international football with every fibre of my being (except maybe during the international tournaments, but even then, they’re just sort of ‘there’ more than any real desire to become fully immersed), so when we win and then the players go away on international duty, I like basking in the glow, but it’s still a bit “meh” knowing there’s a break from The Arsenal. This time, the only break is a natural one because we qualified for the next round of the Champions League without having to do what Newcastle did last week. I hope that those two extra games tire them out for when we play them in about six weeks, but not before they have hopefully expended all of their energy in knocking Man City out of the FA Cup.

Actually, that’s a point…do we want City out of the Cup at this stage? I mean, if they were, it gives them a little more rest time when the sixth round comes along. Perhaps what we actually want is Newcastle knocked out, then City to play either Chelsea or Liverpool in the sixth round, away from home, so they are pretty much forced to play their full squad to get over the line.

Anyway, let’s not think about that right now; let’s go back to the discussion about basking in the glorious glow of the NLD win. I think I said this yesterday, but I’d love to be somebody who works at London Colney this week. I mean, I’d love it most of the time because I’d get to work for The Arsenal, but I would just love it especially right now. I bet the place is buzzing. But at what point does the fun, games and general frivolity change for the players? I suspect Arteta will have said, “Enough, time for some game faces on now,” from at least today. The two games we have coming up are really hard. Chelsea at home and Brighton away; two very good teams, who have been tough for us for many seasons. Brighton away, especially, so there needs to be a focus from those players. Because we need six points. There is zero chance in hell that City drop points in their next two away to 15th in the league, Leeds and then 17th in the League Forest at home. It’s funny, though, because you look at where Brighton are at the moment, they are only three points off Leeds in 14th, so I guess you’ve probably got City fans looking at that game and saying the same as us. It’s always easier to project invulnerability from other teams than it is your own. They certainly have an easier one at home to Forest than we do this weekend to Chelsea, but if we play to our full potential, then it shouldn’t matter. In the coming days, I’ll probably start looking ahead at that game, what those scummy Chelsea fans are saying, as well as their vibes and who is fit, but as it stands, I don’t feel like I want to start doing that just yet. It just kind of takes away the thinking and basking from the NLD, you know?

Instead, I think I’ll continue to soak up more content like the lovely Bench Cam that the official site posted yesterday. Yes, please, Arsenal, let’s have more of that content to digest over the next 24 hours, eh? The players need to put their game faces on, but we fans, we just need a little longer soaking it all up, yeah?

Maybe we could have a look at who we might want in the Champions League phase? Now we’re starting to see some of the decisions being made with players ahead of the draw on Friday, and I didn’t realise that our path has kind of already been laid out before us, so we’ll get one of the following:

  • Olympiakos
  • Borussia Dortmund
  • Bayer Leverkusen
  • Atalanta

Olympiakos makes me go “oh FFS, again?” – we seem to get them a minimum of once every three years and, frankly, I just don’t want to do this dance again. Even though I’d be pretty confident that over two legs we’d progress.

Dortmund, too, kind of gives me some PTSD vibes following years under Wenger in which it felt like, more often than not, we’d lose to them. However, they got beaten by the Scum at the Toilet Bowl, so perhaps there’s not as much to be worried about as I feared.

Leverkusen were former Bundesliga champions, but with European elite clubs (and Sunderland) picking at the carcass of Leverkusen last summer, it’s not quite the same side it was last season I don’t think.

Then there’s Atalanta, who sit seventh in Serie A and without one of their stars Lookman who joined Atletico Madrid this season and perhaps that’s impacting them. We picked up a 0-0 against them last season and it wasn’t the best of games, but again, I’d fancy us against them too.

So It’s not too bad in the Round of 16 and by Friday we’ll know which side of the draw we are on and whether we get what feels like an inevitable double-legged tie against City if we progress to the other rounds.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today, and be back tomorrow as we have to say goodbye to the basking and hello to the apprehension ahead of Chelsea on Sunday.

Catch you then.