None of us really and truly started supporting The Arsenal because we were interested in how the club was run. But because of the impact it has on how we progress as a club, how we can potentially improve the squad, inevitably, when the financial results announcement for the previous year comes along, we all take notice.

Of course, with the Champions League semi-final run and money in there, Arsenal’s fortunes were improved on the previous seasons, but ultimately, the club is still making a small loss. I’m no finance expert, so I’m not going to go into the details of it, but I can talk about how it makes me feel overall, which is that a small loss of £1.4million before tax is pretty decent. I’m also not a tax expert, but I suspect the club’s aim is to get as close to break even as possible each year, and even a small loss isn’t that bad, because they can still avoid paying Corporation Tax, and can even apply for a tax refund I think – if I’ve read the stuff right on the UK Government website. What’s the point in making £500k profit if the Government is going to take a chunk of it, eh?

Anyway, the most important news is that this Arsenal team has turned winning, with investment, into hopefully a relatively sustainable enterprise and as long as we can keep doing it, then as a fan who is not that invested (pun intended) on the financial side, what you want to hear is that the club is in a decent position and we aren’t going to have to send round donation buckets in the North Bank any time soon.

The Champions League is part of that cash bump we’ve had, as I talked about yesterday. We’ll find out about who we have in the draw tomorrow. But it has, at least, been narrowed down. It’s Leverkusen or Atalanta in the next round of the competition, and I have to declare my interest right now. If Arsenal get Leverkusen, I’d really love to go to that one away. I have an aunt in Koln, which is 10 miles away from the centre of Leverkusen, and it is my favourite City in Germany. I’d love to be able to get my arse over to Koln and then do a long weekend over there for sure. Atalanta, I have no such ties, plus it’s a bit of a longer trip, so I wouldn’t be making much effort to go there. They also gave us a little bit of an awkward time last season in the group stages, so I’d be a little more wary of them, plus we haven’t played Leverkusen in an official game since 2002, where we beat them over two legs with a draw away and a win at home 4-1. I’d take a repeat of that again this time, thank ye kindly.

So that’s me declaring our hand, but we’ll find out the reality on Friday, for which we can all start making our arrangements.

As for the here and now, well, it’s Chelsea that is starting to loom on the horizon, so I guess the build-up for that really starts today. And as I usually like to do, the first question I asked myself as I started to think ahead of that massive game, was:

How many in uries and suspensions do Chelsea have?

There are people in this world who say things like “I want to play against their best team” or “I don’t want that team relegated because it diminishes our achievement” or “I don’t want them to get points deductions – I want us to win it fair and square”.

I am not one of those people.

I want to take any – and every – tactical advantage that is humanly possible. Give me rivals relegated. Give me points deductions for everyone except us. Give me suspensions. Give me injuries. I want them all. Last weekend, we played a shocking Spurs side, but they were also shocking because they were decimated by injuries. I cared not. In fact, I didn’t say anything to anyone, but before the game I was worried, I feared a backlash, but the rational side of my brain did tell the emotional side that this team were not good and they were missing most of their best players, so we should surely have the better of them. I want that for every future game between now and the end of the season, please.

We’ll find out for definite their situation tomorrow when Liam Rosenior gives his team update, but without knowing everything there is to know about that horrendous football club (why would I?), I would think that their best back line includes Cucurella, Colwill and Fofana. Perhaps a Chelsea fan would tell me differently, but those three are – I think – going to be missing on Sunday. Colwill has a long-term injury. Last weekend, Rosenior said Cucurella had a hamstring injury (so that should be a few weeks out), and Fofana is suspended because of the sending off (another one!) against Burnley. I hope that it certainly gives us an advantage from an attacking point of view. They still have that combative midfield of Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez, who will be there for them, but hopefully our attackers can have the upper hand against a weakened Chelsea defensive line. They will have Gusto, Adarabaiyo and Chalobah (who scored against us in the reverse fixture) available, I suspect, which is still a collective of decent players, but maybe we can get at them a little more than we might have with those other guys in the team. We’ll see. I’ll do more of a tactical look at how they might play against us either tomorrow or Sunday, I think.

And so until then, I hope you have a grand day, and I hope you enjoy your Thursday, whatever you decide to do with it.

Catch you all tomorrow.