We touched on this a bit yesterday in the Same Old Arsenal pod, but I wonder what the psychological impact of the recent results might be for those two respective teams in this title race? When Man City scored those two late goals at Anfield, the prevailing media narrative was that this was the momentum shift. ‘City were coming’, ‘City have done this before’, and ‘this is the moment they crank up the gears’ were what we heard. That match was on February 8th, and since then they’ve beaten Fulham at home, Newcastle at home, Leeds away, drawn with Forest, and drawn with West Ham in the Premier League. That’s not the same City as we’ve been told about, and certainly sides like the one that we faced in 2023/24 wouldn’t be at this stage in the season dropping points. I wonder if the psychology of dropping back-to-back points in the league, whilst we have picked up back-to-back wins, will impact them? Likewise, does a probable exit this week to Real Madrid (barring some almighty Madrid collapse with them 3-0 up) do more damage to them yet as they prep for us on Sunday next week?

Conversely, we have just gone and got a last-minute winner, before seeing City drop those points away. Does that point the dial in a positive direction for the psychological boost of this Arsenal team?

Maybe, maybe not. The fact that City have been patchy since that Liverpool win shows that things can swing very quickly in this league. Arsenal have done nothing yet, they’ve won nothing yet, but we are in a fabulously commanding position from where we sit. We can all continue to hope that this team drags itself over the line.

It’s weird, though, because we’re at the ‘business end’ of the season now, with seven games left to go, and yet we don’t actually play any Premier League football for just under a month. It’s the Champions League tomorrow, the League Cup on Sunday, then an international break, then the weekend after that is Easter, before we kick back up in the League against Bournemouth on 11th April. There’s a lot of football that will be played, but Premier League football takes a bit of a back seat. Which I kind of like, to be honest with you, because it feels like a little bit of a rest. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be nervous again tomorrow, but despite never having won the Champions League, and it being a massive trophy to win, it’s the Premier League that gets me the most. It’s the one I want to win the most, and if that meant sacrificing everything else, I would gladly do it. So whilst I would be sad to go out tomorrow against Leverkusen, whilst I want us to go deep and maybe even win it, I’m kind of looking at everything other than the Premier League as a bit of respite.

Mikel Arteta will have no time to dwell on such things, such is the hectic schedule. He’ll have given the lads yesterday off, then today it will be back in light training as they prep for Leverkusen. He’ll also have his press conference this evening, and I hope that we get some good news on the players who have question marks over them. I think, particularly, I’d like to see Trossard fit, not least because I had a weird dream about Martinelli last night. The Creative Services Manager who works at my company was playing on the opposition side, and Martinelli – clearly rattled by him – decided to come from behind, grab him in a wrestling sleeper hold move, then drag him down to the floor. He got himself sent off, and we were on the back foot from there. I hope that isn’t a weird sign or premonition for tomorrow. Mikel – play Trossard or Eze on the left – trust my spidey sense…

Other than that, I guess there’s not really much else to do today other than re-live that wonderful moment in which Max Dowman scored to secure the win. What a day for him, his family, the Arsenal players, and Arteta. I’ve watched clip after clip of that, with particular rewatching of Peter Drury’s beautifully hyperbolic commentary. When it is for your team, it really does feel like a work of art.

Right, I’m going to call it there, I think. Have yourselves a great day, and I’ll be back tomorrow as we do a match preview ahead of that Leverkusen match-up.

I watched the first part of the Villa v Brentford game before heading off for some dinner, so I didn’t see Villa stumble in the second half, then when I got back I saw that the Scum were rolling over and having their bellies tickled by Man City. I commented on social media that there’s no way in hell they’ll be as bad as that when we play them in a couple of weeks’ time, but I guess City must have felt that in the game as a whole. Because imagine my surprise to see that, once again, we’ve gained ground on those closest to us with both City and Villa dropping points.

Six points clear. Feels good, eh?

And yet, this morning as I was doing my run, I couldn’t help but think about how glorious this could all be if we hadn’t wobbled a little bit in previous weeks. I know, I know, that kind of thinking can send a football fan mad. But I just replayed that 0-0 with Forest and the 3-2 with United in my head again and again and started to dream about the parallel universe in which we’re now 11 points clear with 14 games to go.

But we’re in this one, we’re still six points clear, we’ve restored a bit more distance compared to last weekend, and when next weekend comes around, we play before City to make it nine points. They have a hard game away at Liverpool, so the hope for next weekend will be that the Scousers can at least do something, because I would Kevin Keegan-esque “love it” if we can get a little further ahead again.

We’re going to do it with Merino, though, who the club confirmed yesterday had gone through surgery and will be out for ‘an extended period’. They said that he’d be back to training before the end of the season, but that statement says to me he’d probably be done until at least April, by which time even getting back to full fitness means he’ll most likely only be a bit-part player for us between now and May.

That’s a real blow. He is a scorer of big goals. He scored to equalise against United last weekend. He scored to equalise against Newcastle at St James’ Park, plus the equaliser at Stamford Bridge. He is an aerial presence. He is a guy who is a dual winner, and I think in the fullness of time we’ll look back at him as one of those real unsung players of the Arsenal squad under Arteta. He kind of reminds me a bit of Ray Parlour under Wenger. Ray was never what you’d call a regular; if you think about that XI that was the Invincibles starting XI, we can all reel off the names. But Ray isn’t one of those names. And yet he was a guy who always played plenty of football (he made 37 appearances in 2003/4), always got goals (think the FA Cup final against Chelsea in 2002) – and often big goals too – and we all loved him. Merino feels like that kind of guy who can always be relied upon, and if we win trophies this season, he will absolutely have earned his medals. Mikel Merino has made 33 appearances, scored six goals, and made three assists. He’s a vital cog in Mikel Arteta’s squad, and the manager will be frustrated at yet another injury for us, just when the full bill of health was there for him. There have even been calls to get him playing up top with our other forwards misfiring, such is the value that we, as Arsenal fans, have all started to realise he has. He’s a difficult one to read because he doesn’t fit into a specific ‘style’ (traditional striker, duel-winner, technical passer, etc) but instead kind of does a little bit of everything well. He even filled in at six recently, so you can tell why Arteta absolutely loves him – he’s a ‘plug-and-play’ footballer.

Speedy recovery, Mikel.

The other question we’ll be waiting on – which I’d imagine we’ll find out today when Mikel has his press conference ahead of tomorrow night’s League Cup Semi Final- is the fitness of Bukayo Saka. Arteta described it as a ‘little niggle‘ after the game, and I would hope that ifthat’s still the case, we resist the temptation to play him tomorrow night. He’s not a player – despite his lack of goals of late – who we can afford to have out for too long. Madueke was good on Saturday, it’s great that he has been credited with his goal from a corner, but we’ve all seen his lack of consistency and so I just worry that whilst he will be good over short bursts of matches, to rely on him for any prolonged period of time might cause us issues.

Martinelli could be an option on the right too and he did well with the assist for Big Vik’s goal on Saturday. But he’s flattered to deceive over previous attempts on the right so, again, I’m not sure it’s a viable solution. Hopefully, they were just taking precautions for Saka and he’s good for at least Sunderland next weekend. We need him.

I’ll leave it there for today. I’m on holiday in the Maldives for this week, so I’m going to get out to that beach and cook myself for a bit. Have yourselves a good one, whatever you’re doing, guys and gals.

What might drive any Arsenal fan to drink this summer is protracted transfers and as James pointed out in the Athletic this week, the expectation for financial reporting purposes is that he will not arrive at The Arsenal until 1st July. That’s gonna boil some online piss, for sure, if what I’ve read so far, with the window opened just four whole days. People are getting grumpy and what happens with situations like this, is that they shout into the void that is the internet, which creates an echo chamber of irritation as any slight concern any normal human has, gets amplified when they read other people’s hyperbolic views on t’internet.

The hive mentality kicks in, suddenly you have a whipping up of angst that really ought to not be there.

Most of the self-respecting journos and people who state a career on being ITKs (The Romano’s of this world, the Kike Marin’s of this world, etc) have been pretty consistent with what is happening. Even being away with the national team this week and having Zubimendi say he didn’t want to talk too much about the future, about the comments re: his medical at Arsenal not being true, as well as the fact that he’s had Xabi Alonso as his idol, hasn’t really moved many to suddenly declare Madrid are ‘in for him’.

They could make a late move. They could pay the release clause from Sociedad and we could indeed have a situation where Zubimendi is staring at a choice between Arsenal and Madrid. But even if that happens, I still think we’d be favourites to edge any signature. Hear me out on this one:

1. Arsenal have spent a lot of time on this deal. They’ve been courting him for almost a year it seems, since it became clear he wasn’t going to Liverpool. They will have been whispering sweet nothings into his ears, they will have been very clear that he’s their choice, they will certainly have been making him feel like he’s going to be loved.
2. Arteta effect. Mikel is a Basque boy, which might have a little bit of sway, but not enough perhaps to lure away from the prospect of Real Madrid and his idol Xabi Alonso. But having just arrived at Real Madrid, do you think that Alonso is going to be telling Zubimendi “mate, get your arse over here, you’re my first signing and you’ll play every week”? Of course he won’t. Arteta will have explained in great – and meticulous – detail how he expects to use the player, what his hopes are for the impact on the system. Arteta has had ample time to make this player feel like he will be a vital cog in a midfield that has just got to the semi final of the Champions League.
3. The options at Madrid. Real currently have Tchouameni and Camavinga in their side. They have a fair bit of work to do this summer, so top of their list is surely not going to be a defensive midfielder, is it? That gives us the opportunity to steal a march on any transfer.

I think I’ve said this previously on one of the blogs,  but this kind of noise that comes from transfers like this that don’t come out of the blue, are to be expected. We had it with Declan Rice and Man City, as I’ve previously talked about, but Arsenal had approached that transfer in the same way that they are approaching this one. So for me, personally, I’m not really fussed about any spurious rumours coming from fan accounts of Madrid, Arsenal or football media accounts just trying to hype up potential shifts in expectations just for clicks.

As ol’ Unai used to say:

Calma. Calma.

I think that’s going to be the same for a lot of teams actually. The movement we’re seeing right now are the ‘low hanging fruit’ as I would call it. In other words, deals that are easy to do. It’s easy to sign Frimpong when you’ve been in touch with Leverkusen for months, you know Trent is leaving, he has a release clause (I think) and you just pay it. Then, if you’re already talking to them about that, saying to Leverkusen “do you want £100million+ for Wirtz?” is another easy one to do. Bayer know he’s going, they get the cash, deal can be done. Cunha was already on his way out and had a release clause. Same as the lad from Ipswich who’s just joined Chelsea.

These are all release clause deals. Arsenal are doing the same, it’s why everyone is talking about how Zubi is basically ‘done’, because it is. There are just the formalities. So as long as those are observed and we don’t get any U-turns from the Spanish side (which would also damage a relationship that has been good on both fronts so far), or from the player himself, then this really isn’t something to worry about.

So I think we just need to let this one play out. There will be rumours and counter-rumours, but ultimately we as fans just need to chill a bit, and let the natural process of a transfer play out. If we’d heard nothing until now, we’d all be excited, but because it’s been on the radar for for a while I think that’s colouring people’s judgement on what appears to me like a pretty standard transfer process.

Just food for thought on a Wednesday morning.

I get it to a point though. Until something concrete happens with your own team, you are just projecting what is happening based on what is real, so when other clubs confirm signings or are close to it and your team hasn’t done anything as yet, it can feel a little nervy.

“We are already behind Team X in terms of squad improvements. We need to be smarter than them and we need to buy better to play catch up, yet they are already ahead”

I have these thoughts too, by the way, but I quickly dismiss them and move on. What I don’t do is go on social media and get a bit ranty. But it’s natural to have the human reaction of concern when you see little concrete evidence of movement. Transfers are like a hit of adrenaline; they are a short, sharp, shot of a drug. And so are the rumours of those transfers. Think about what we were all doing a week or so ago when the noises of the Zubimendi ‘medical’ were emerging. Or when Fabrizio Romano said that Arsenal were ‘on the case’ or something similar like that with regards to Sesko. So when you see other fans getting their hit of adrenaline, you naturally feel envy and over the last 24-48 hours I’ve seen a few people talk about Cunha going to Man United, then last night the chatter online was about how Mbuemo was off from Brentford to Man United.

That’s probably a good move for both him and them. United are a massive club, despite the dumpster fire they have been this season, so for Mbuemo it’s obvious that this would appeal. There’s also talk of Thomas Frank going off to The Scum if/when Big Ange is relieved of his duties. Mbuemo also has one year left on his deal, but Brentford can trigger an additional one year option on that deal, which means that United shouldn’t be able to get him on the cheap. At 25 years old and having just bagged 20 goals and eight assists in a season, I think Brentford will certainly be holding out for a big amount of cash and so anything north of £50million must be in their minds as the kind of cash they should be demanding (TransferMarkt has him at €55million).

This has led a few people to question why we aren’t going in for him. He’s proven he can do the business in the Premier League, he is a guy who has shown he has an eye for goal this season and perhaps this was the season that he goes supernova in the Premier League and will continue to be a goal machine. He’s rapid, he works his socks off on the press and I think he would be a good player for Man United.

He’s not Bukayo Saka though.

In Saka we have one of the best elite attackers in world football. Mbuemo had 28 goals and assists last season, but Saka had 17 having not played about a third of the season. Mbuemo does his damage on the right hand side, there’s no way that he’s displacing Saka and so whilst Ornstein has said there was some interest from Arsenal in Mbuemo, there’s no chance we’re pulling the trigger on a big fee for a guy who plays right wing. We want versatility, Mbuemo has played central and on the left, but look at where he spends most of his time. He was never a viable option for us and whilst some might argue that signing him would allow us to rotate Saka, but also give him an opportunity to also play centrally and left wing, when you look at the fact we’re in for Sesko or Gyokeres, why would signing Mbuemo work? He’d probably really only get a sniff at left wing and last season he didn’t play there once. In fact, in his career, he’s played there six times. We’re all talking about either of the aforementioned striker options as being gambles, but they’ve played in the position we’re signing them for. Six appearances in eight years doth not a good sample size make. The last time he played there was in 2020/21 as well, by the way. So you can see why we’re linked with the likes of Williams (plays left wing) and Rodrygo (plays right wing but wants to play left wing).

There are other things happening too, like Wirtz to Liverpool, which I think has people a little concerned, but it’s easy to look at other people’s gardens and feel apprehensive because they’ve been to the garden centre before you have and bought all their potting plants. But just because Arsenal haven’t metaphorically jumped in the car and made their way to the colourful flower aisle just yet, doesn’t mean our garden won’t look the best come the end of the summer.

It’s going to be a long summer, it always is when it comes to the transfer window, but we just need to focus on ourselves and what the team needs to do. As long as Arsenal go out and address the clear areas of the pitch that we all know we need signings – back-up ‘keeper, back-up left back, number six, versatile wide-forward and centre forward, then we can worry about what is going on in our garden come mid-August.

At this stage and with the noises we’re all hearing about what Arsenal want to do and are already looking at, I think it’s positive and I have faith that the ‘big deals’ we will aim to get done sooner rather than later. Don’t worry about what others are doing – let’s just focus on ourselves.

Catch you all tomorrow.

“All on red for us”

“Erm….yeah, i’ll take black please…”

I am, of course, referring to the news that Sami Mokbel broke yesterday about Kai Havertz, who is rumoured to have suffered a hamstring injury whilst on the Dubai trip that the team returned back to England from yesterday. Sami is a respected journo, but I’m not linking to the publication he works for, as I think think it’s a horrible paper – so here’s Arseblog’s reporting on it for more info.

To extend out my metaphor further, if Arsenal were a person, you’d follow them around in the casino to make sure you were there on whatever game they were playing afterwards, because they aren’t winning any cashola on the slots, that’s for sure.

We are just over a week since the transfer window has shut – about nine days – and we’ve lost two players (rumoured) since then. We’ll get confirmation from Mikel when he does his press conference on Friday, but unless he can give us some Lazarus-esque news on both Martinelli and Havertz, then we’re down to one recognised first teamer, one loanee who has looked absolutely turgid so far for us, then a 17-year-old with bags of promise that we’re hanging most of our creative hopes on.

Who could have predicted such ill-fortune for us this season?

Oh, I don’t know, how about every single Arsenal fan on God’s green earth, perhaps? This season has been disruption after disruption, injury scare after injury scare, PGMOL blunder after PGMOL blunder and the second that January window slammed shut and we saw briefings about being “impressed that the club didn’t panic” I think most of us guessed that it would not be long before we ended up with a problem in our attacking end of the pitch. No Saka, no Jesus, no Martinelli and now potentially no Havertz means that the decision to ‘keep the powder dry’ was a sensible as throwing a can of petrol on a bonfire.

I’ve seen some commentary about how Havertz has played similar minutes to Salah and Haaland. But just over a week ago we were seeing the likes of Thierry Henry talk about how Haaland offers little in games. He is a man – like Salah – who is deadline in short bursts. I have not looked at the numbers, but I bet if you looked up distance covered on a football field this season, Havertz’s would be significantly greater than those other two elite forwards. Simply put – he has been ran into the ground and that is why we are where we are. We play players so regularly and we ask them to do so much (remember how many times we’ve all talked about how good we are off the ball, at how quick we are to get back into defensive shape and how difficult it is for teams at times because of our ability to cover so much ground?) as part of their roles, that inevitably they are going to break. You can’t compare apples and pears and talking about some player sin other teams versus Arsenal players just doesn’t work – they aren’t asked to do the same things as ours are.

I put a message on social media last night that this season can get in the bin. I was being flippant, I was being silly, but part of me is kind of just waiting for the inevitable final nail in the season coffin so that we can all start looking at next season and hoping the club addresses it’s failings from the last two windows. I know that sounds defeatist, I know it sounds a little spineless, but I just feel like everything that could have gone wrong this season has, so sometimes you just can’t beat the footballing gods.

I don’t even feel like I can be arsed to apportion blame at this stage either. What’s the point? Arteta isn’t to blame because he was very clear he needed reinforcements. The players aren’t to blame because they’ve run through brick walls (and picked up knocks on the way ). Edu left halfway through the season and whilst I am not wholly convinced whether or not Jason Ayto is the answer, I don’t know enough about him or what he does, or how hard he works to understand or really cast judgement and throw some shade on him. I will admit that I have never trusted KSE and that has remained the case even through these recent periods. But I don’t really feel like turning this into a bashing session on them either; I think they have been very fortunate to have a bunch of football people running the club who have got us in the position we are now that we’ve been challenging for the title – it is not because of them or their money though – the money Arsenal have spent is the money they make. KSE might have acted as signatories, but they haven’t been putting their hands deep into their pockets – any money that came from COVID or the intervening years was in the form of loans I believe. I didn’t heap praise on them when the going was good, I’m not going to go in two-footed because of the two windows we’ve just had.

Maybe there are just season’s like this though? Maybe we are using up all of our bad luck this season so we can be prepped for another assault on the league next season? I’m not a superstitious man in any walk of my life except football, but this Kai news, the Martinelli news, Saka, Jesus, Odegaard (I haven’t even mentioned that it sounds like Tomiyasu is out for the season and will need knee surgery), the red cards, etc, etc, etc – it all just feels a little too much, eh?

So we just have to roll with the punches. I’ll enjoy our wins, i’ll be sad about our defeats, but at this stage in this season, expectations need to be squarely managed I think. Time to focus on the journey a bit more folks, because the destination in May might be a little too much to ask for these fantastic group of footballers we support.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Obviously looking ahead to that game is going to be the thing I focus on today, but before I do that, let’s just reflect on the ludicrous nature of some of the comments in the wake of the game on Wednesday and our first goal. We all know it came off Trossard and it was an error that led to us being given a corner. That’s not in dispute. But what is now suddenly a front-and-centre discussion about whether VAR should be able to intervene with these decisions. I’m sorry, but where was this energy when we’ve seen other such incidents? I have seen countless times where that has happened, yet we’re not given even a sniff of forensic analysis on it. At best there’s a cursory Match of the Day “shouldn’t have been a corner” (which they did to be fair) and that’s it. But when Arsenal are involved it’s a media story, so here we are. The reality is that the corner was taken a solid minute+ after the incident and the Scum should have dealt with Big Gabby better. End of story.

So then, right, let’s get on to Villa, who I see beat Everton in midweek to pick up their first win away from home since October. They’ve been pretty decent on their own patch but less so away, but to get a good feel for where they are at I did my usual snooping on some of their forums to see how they are feeling ahead of this one. As usual it’s a pretty partisan affair for a team that isn’t completely out of form and Villa certainly aren’t out of form, they’re just a bit patchy. When I looked earlier in the season they were very chirpy and last season both home and away they were too. They seem to be leaning in to the fact we played the NLD on Wednesday and that may have taken a lot out of us, which is fair enough, but I think personally that will give the team the kind of adrenaline boost we need.

In terms of what they think this game will go like – and I’m lumping it all together as a rough average based on multiple comments – they think it’ll be a pretty tough one and they’ll need to defend well and try to smash-and-grab us like they did last season. I think that’s fair enough. There’s not tons of smug and cocky Villa fans though like earlier in the season. They are a lot more mellow in their assessment. They apparently weren’t that great against Everton, created little in the second half other than the Watkins goal and Everton’s inability to finish cost them. Sounds a little familiar for us, even if you think about the game on Wednesday; we had a fair few missed chances to kill the Scum off and we didn’t. We’ll need to find more of that end product tomorrow if we want to stand a chance of putting real pressure on Liverpool come the end of the season.

That ability to kill off teams and get those goals will inevitably dominate today’s press conference and we’ll once again get the journo’s asking Arteta questions looking to tease out something more than he’s given them so far. I think to be fair to him on Wednesday night after the game he gave the biggest indication that the team are trying hard, so I suspect that will probably be the most we’ll get i.e. “we’re actively looking”. There were rumours yesterday Of Sesko, which died down almost as quickly as they arrived, then there has been a few murmurings on Vlahovic. I pondered on social media that I had a sneaky suspicion we might go for him given that Kolo Muani has now joined Juve as of yesterday, but when somebody gave me a heads up on the wages he is on (around £350k-per-week!), I think that deal becomes a non-starter. Not unless Juve get desperate in the latter stages of the window and nobody has offered any money for him. It’s a big ask to take on those wages for a player who hasn’t been banging in the goals this season and looks a little out of sorts by the sounds of it. There’s some rumours that he’s not the easiest character to deal with either, so unless we get some kind of last-minute Raheem Sterling-style offer from Arsenal to take him for the remainder of this season on £100k-per-week with no option to buy and Juve foot the bill for the rest of his salary, I just don’t see this becoming a thing. And if you think about the Sterling deal, Chelsea had booted him out of the squad and he was training alone, so we had a much stronger hand than we have in this instance. I suspect there might be some suitors willing to take a punt on Vlahovic, although how many that would pay that salary might narrow the field a bit, methinks.

Other than that there isn’t really loads to go on until Arteta has done his press conference. There were some rumours about Tomiyasu, White and Calafiori all in first team training this week, which is great. I suspect it’ll be a couple before they’re back and able to start for White and Tomi, but it’ll be interesting to see what Arteta says about Calafiori given MLS’ performances in recent days.

Do, I’ll leave it there and catch you both tomorrow. Have a good one folks.

That’s how I was yesterday, but as we approach the double header with Palace over the next few days, it will start to die down and focus will shift on these two games. Arteta will speak to the press again today and I suspect he will be asked questions about how Arsenal break down these stubborn opponents, especially at home, because the blueprint has been set by both Fulham and Everton this week and I suspect that Palace will take a similar view and approach. Whether they do that tomorrow I’m not sure, because it’s a cup game, but on the weekend I suspect we’ll see them set up in an organised fashion, look to give us the ball, frustrate and annoy in a compact shape.

This is not a new phenomenon to Arsenal, or any team operating towards the top of any division. So-called ‘lesser’ teams will always try to stink out a point or smash and grab; Jordon Pickford even used the words ‘smash and grab’ at the weekend. Arsenal have to react. Arteta has to react. We have to find different ways of scoring and different approaches. There’s probably been too much leaning in to the set piece narrative and whilst we can all have a chuckle when we score and chant “Set Piece again, Set Piece again, ole ole”, you do wonder whether it does affect the players’ psyche in some sense. Think about it; if you get so good at something, why do you not just lean in to it more. That’s great, but it also because a psychological crutch and I think Arteta will be looking to find ways in which we can be better in terms of how we operate in front of goal from open play.

I know that sounds really obvious, it is, but if I think about the ways in which you can improve this, I think in simple terms, which could be:

• More emphasis in training on attacking movement
• Shooting practice in training
• Throwing in new personnel from the start in matches
• Buying somebody else in come January

The latter is what everyone is clamouring for, of course, but we can’t do anything about that now. So how do we solve this current issue that we’ve seen in the last two domestic games? We can’t just hope that more teams like Monaco come to town and play. Do we even need to solve this issue? I mean, Martinelli stays onside at Fulham and we scrape a 2-1. Odegaard doesn’t fluff his shooting lines on Saturday and we probably eek out a 1-0. Life then feels very different despite the statistics looking exactly the same.

I was out for a walk yesterday and I was ruminating on this problem and thinking about the 2022/23 season. In that season I remember people talking about how we were ‘running hot’ on our xG. We were very potent in taking chances and to some extent, it seemed a bit of an outlier; teams just don’t do what Fulham did two weekend’s ago and score with their only chances. We were not like Fulham, but perhaps we were taking one in two chances or one in three in games in 2022/23. Things were falling for us and players like Martinelli were outperforming their previous season’s and subsequent season’s that we’ve seen. But this season it seems the opposite; you look at the numbers and stats and we’re getting in to good positions, we’re not giving up many chances, we’re operating as a team in the top of the league should, we’re just not putting the ball in the onion bag.

It all feels very Christmas has come early right now; what I mean by that is Christmas period last year, when we lost of West Ham despite battering them, lost to Fulham and were crap, then lost to Liverpool despite battering them at home. After that game against Liverpool, guess who we played?

Crystal Palace. We won 5-0 at home. I’m not a fan of history repeating itself, but I’d love a dose of that to come early right now, that’s for sure. Now, that was after the Dubai trip I believe and we came back a new team going on to win game after game, which of course can’t happen because of the volume of games. But there needs to be some kind of spark that we need. And we need it quick. Perhaps securing passage to the semi final of a domestic cup can help?

I don’t know. That’s low on the priority list and I don’t think many of us – me included – want to see Arteta put out a full strength team tomorrow night. We looked leggy on Saturday and a week off for most of the first team should probably be in order, regardless of the consequences tomorrow night, but Arteta does occasionally drop in hybrid teams in matches like this. Teams with a smattering of first teamers in them amongst some of the Hale Enders. Could he do that tomorrow? It wouldn’t surprise me.

Catch you all tomorrow.

It’s enough to drive a Gooner crazy, know what I mean?

I suppose we could talk about the upcoming season and some expectations though, right? I mean, it’s interesting to gauge where people’s heads are at. Mine is getting to the point in the summer (in England…ha! what summer?) in which I’m starting to think about best and worst case scenario’s for our season. Right now it looks like we aren’t close to getting anyone in from an attacking sense, but Arteta might be about to solve some of the left sided defensive challenges with that young Italian joining us. And it makes me wonder how we’re going to approach next season. How is Arteta going to evolve his Arsenal team?

They have to be plotting something. It feels like these days you can’t stand still in elite football; and I’m not just talking about signing new players. Tactically it seems that the teams at the top re-invent themselves every year, tweaking their style and approach each time, to keep opponents guessing. The Premier League in itself has a cottage industry of analysts and data nerds who are Moneyballing their way through season’s and as a result Arteta and his coaching staff have to be cooking up something new for the new season, because you can bet your bottom dollar that clubs will already be analysing how to get at us, particularly those we face early on. Wolves, Villa, Brighton and The Scum will all have people right now pouring over footage of us, like they will of all of their opponents and I’m sure that we’ll be doing the same over them. There’s a great line I’ve heard on the Arsenal Vision pod a few times, that “other teams get to do tactics too” and I think that is so spot on; it’s all very well marvelling at the innovations that Arteta has brought to The Arsenal with his team, but if we can see it, other teams with professionally qualified people whose job it is to analyse other teams, will 100% be seeing it too.

Will we see Arsenal cut down on the Arsenal inverting full backs? Will we still see the ‘box’ in the midfield (Rice, Partey, Odegaard, Havertz)? Do we persist with similar patterns with the front three in build up? It’s all unknowns until we start seeing some of the friendly games that get played. And that’s why I think friendlies have started to become more interesting to watch. Five to ten year’s ago I just didn’t bother; it was about fitness, about about getting players up to speed, that was it. Yes, it still is that, but also looking for little signs and patterns on tweaks of tactical set up, are also interesting, in my opinion.

I have also come to realise the importance of having a good pre season. Again, not so much with the results, but if you watch an Arsenal team popping the ball around well, of making connections between pockets of players in the team, of building those automatisms, all adds up and all starts to inform how we think the season is going to go. This summer when pre season starts properly, I’ll be looking to see how we are shaping up because if we look good, then it’ll start to get me properly excited for the season kick off. But as of now, I just have those nervous feelings in my stomach. I think it’s probably because of the start to the season that we have; my Arsenal history PTSD kicks in when I see starts like that where we play Villa, the Scum, Brighton and City all before October is upon us. We’ll be about a fifth of the way through the season and have a bunch of tough games already played, which could either go very well or go horribly wrong. I have faith in the quality of our team, but even at the beginning of the season when it’s all fresh and exciting and has the prospect of hope, if you drop a few games in this league you are basically almost finished with Man City likely to rack up maximum points, I suspect, before they entertain us at The Emptihad on 22nd September.

That’s why we need to absolutely nail pre season. Those players need to essentially be in tip-top shape by the time the Wolves home game comes around.

I also think Arteta is going to need to lean in to his squad more this coming season. We aren’t going to have the fortune of playing the same XI each week, so I suspect he needs to finally migrate to the full-Pep approach of sitting some players down for a few weeks at points in the season. So far he’s been reluctant to do that, but he will need to trust in some of those fringe players more this season, what with the extra Champions League games too. Whether that is with some of the existing players, or whether we do a bit of a fringe clear out of the like of Fabio Vieira, Emile Smith Rowe, Nelson and Nketiah, remains to be seen. He was reluctant to use them towards the end of last season so will it be the same again? Personally, if he was reluctant last season, I’m not really sure what else might change, because each of the aforementioned players are of the age where you start to think that they aren’t young guys who are going to make massive upticks in development for next season. Smith Rowe is 23 but turns 24 in a few weeks, Nelson is 24 until December, Fabio Vieira has just turned 24, Nketiah turned 25 in May – these aren’t really young kids in a footballing term any more. They need to be playing more and it just feels like that has to probably be elsewhere unless Arteta is going to start giving them more minutes, the indication of which is probably not.

So does Arteta need to move all of these guys on and try for players who he will trust a little more? And is that to get in more young talents again? Or does he go a little more experienced that he has more trust in to come in?

It’s a tough one, but it’s one that he probably already needs to have an answer in his head, especially if we’re hoping to compete for the title again this season.

This is a period of the year in which there is still so much ambiguity. It’s a bit like a footballing ‘no mans land’. We’re not really close to the season and knowing how we are going to line up for 2024/25, we haven’t delved very far in to the transfermarket yet so we’re no clearer there, the international tournaments are still ongoing and that’s making the ambiguity all the more…well…ambiguous. I’m a football fan. You’re a football fan. We are impatient.

Let’s hope that patience is rewarded sooner rather than later.

Have a good one folks.

As for The Arsenal, well, the count down begins, guys, and the nerves are already kicking in, I have to say. I’ve been on this blog for a few years now and I’ll be saying it all weekend: I hate this fixture. By far the worst one when it’s at their gaff and already I am dreading it. Which is mad when you think about the difference between the two teams; if we were to somehow get a win on Sunday it would mean St Totteringham’s day and that we are 20 points better than them

20!

That’s the sort of gulf that when we’d see that between us and Liverpool/City we would think they were in another stratosphere to us. And if there wasn’t the same sort of linkages in geography and rivalry between the two sides, I’d be going in to this game saying “we need to get the job done here. We are better than them”. But it’s that NLD vibes that are so nerve racking that are, even now as I type this on a Friday morning, there’s a tension in my fingers. It’s only going to get worse this weekend I suspect. I’m going to need a lot of beer…

At least for now we can look at the table and see us top though. That’s nice. I’m not sure how much it’s gonna last because although Forest are fighting at the bottom for their survival, I’m not expecting them to put up much of a fight against City. It’s good that City played on Thursday and therefore perhaps Forest can be a little fresher and prepared for that game, but let’s not hold our hopes up too much, eh? We have a massive hurdle to overcome ourselves and what’s depressing is that even if we do overcome it, you only have to look at the fact that City winning against Forest will still mean that a win for them at the Scum in a couple of week’s time will put them back on top. I will hold absolutely no hope for Spurs in that game; they’ll be happy to roll over and so it means that we will need to do something special this weekend to maintain any semblance of hope.

But that’s where we’re at now and we’ve known it for some time; this league is relentless and there can be no slip ups. Man City haven’t lost in 18 games, they aren’t losing any more, so we’re down to just hoping that teams can pick up draws against them. I was thinking about that this morning on my run first thing. I thought to myself “if we draw against the Scum, then Man City match that, could we still do it?”. The answer is probably ‘no’, unfortunately, so it shows you the complete lack of margin for error that we have. A draw this weekend puts us on 78 points. City will beat Forest and that’ll be 79 points for them with a game in hand. It means that basically they can afford to cock up in one game and they’d still have enough of a buffer to win the league. See what I mean when I say no margin for error? We’re at the stage where even a draw at your hated rivals can’t be seen as a good point. There is no more ‘good point’ for Arsenal this season. There are only ‘points’. It’s win or bust and that pressure is crazy.

So I have to give props to those Arsenal players, because in the last two games at least, they’ve taken that pressure and they’ve just dealt with it. Wolves was a tough opponent. They dealt with it. Chelsea have some good players and caused City problems last weekend. They dealt with it. And just when you think the pressure can’t be ratcheted up any more, we have the biggest North London Derby that we’ve had in easily 20 years.

It’s all become black and white right now. There will either be jubilation and delight, or sadness and sorrow. There is no “I’ll take that” that we might have had in previous seasons. It’s binary now and that in itself is somewhat terrifying. Like better your house all on red at the casino.

At the end of the season I will try to find some time for reflection because what we do have to recognise is that this team has done really well to adapt to injuries, to chasing, we’ve looked better defensively, we’re on course to be even better offensively, we’ve looked like a really good side and we should all be proud. But right now the nerves ahead of a massive game is outweighing that.

And it’s only Friday!

I’ll catch you all tomorrow. Might do a bit of analysis on the Scum and where they might hurt us. As well as give some thoughts on Arteta’s press conference.

Have a good one peeps.

I tell you what though, I’ve been able to have a bit of a touch with The Arsenal in the next few weeks, eh? This weekend we have the international break which under any other circumstances would be a bad thing and mean a tedious weekend, but it actually means half my holiday I don’t miss The Arsenal. I know, I know, this is a problem isolated to me alone, so apologies for that bit of self-satisfied indulgence, but having been asked about the timings by The Management’s Aunt Val yesterday whilst we were strolling along the beach and not thinking too much about it, I suddenly thought “I’ll have a look at the timings of the games next weekend after this one, because you never know”…and blow me down if I might just get away with the timings too”; Brentford is 5.30pm UK time which is 6.30am in NZ. A 3pm kick off would have pretty much ruled it out for me; I can do early morning, but given all the stuff we have planned at the moment, it just wouldn’t have been feasible. Then in the midweek after that when we play Lens at home, it’s at 9am NZ time. Perfect because I’ve got wine tasting from 11am that time so I might just be able to make this work…

Anyhoo, that’s enough of me prattling on about my movements, because the focus should really be on what’s going on in The Arsenal world right now, right? I missed the whole VAR/Newcastle stuff as I was travelling, but to be honest with you I’m pretty much done with it anyway. We were always going to get an overly sanitised PGMOL excuse-fest and so I haven’t really engaged with it at all. Michael Owen and Howard Webb and their sycophantic fawning over each other isn’t exactly the type of TV that gets me engaged. We have seen how wrong the decision was, we know that the PGMOL are a waste of space, so we just have to live with it.

A bit like how we have to live with the fact that Chelsea have cheated their way to titles under the Ambramovich’s era by paying people extortionate and dodgy amounts of money on agent fees, corrupting the system, all in plain sight of the Premier League, who were just happy drinking at the cash-enabled trough that emerged in the early noughties with the help of the likes of Sky and other broadcasters, all who just want nothing more than to elevate “the product” so they can make more money and get more eyeballs globally, which in turn makes them more money.

We’ve seen it with Chelsea, we’ve seen it with Man City (115 charges, anyone?) and now we’re seeing it with Newcastle with some of the gaming of the structures of football. Ruben Neves to Newcastle in January is laughably transparent in what the Saudi’s are doing. But as long as the money keeps rolling in to promote “the product”, eh?

Sorry, gone on a bit of a rant there, but it just feels like we’ve all been speaking about this for so long and nothing has happened, so it makes it all feel a little forlorn, eh? You call out corruption, it gets dismissed. You speculate that more people should ask questions, it gets dismissed. You say something that doesn’t sound too fishy, you get dismissed, it’s just a little boring and it feels like there’s little you can do about it.

So I think i’ll leave this for today. A short one, but just a quick check in to hope you guys are all good, life is treating you well, then I’ll catch you all tomorrow. I have been thinking about Declan Rice that I fancy doing a bit on.

Kia ora folks – catch you tomorrow.

It’s going to be a scorcher this weekend and so after today’s brain dump I’ll be heading out to the garden to fire up the paddling pool I reckon! Come 2pm there will be a beached whale of a Suburban Gooner who will be partially immersed in hosepipe water. Can’t wait.

I also can’t wait to get back to the proper football. I don’t think I’ll bother with any of the internationals this weekend and I had a few of my non-football friends try to convince me to watch the rugby world cup. Nah. Can’t be having the egg chasers I’m afraid. Oddly I don’t mind watching the six nations when that is out, but I’m not sitting in to watch that nonsense on a weekend like this. Not no way, not no how.

I wonder what Mikel does on these weekend’s? Does he take the time to travel back to see family and friends in San Sebastian? Or will he do as I do and sit in the garden and relax?

I suspect given the personality he is, he will most definitely be dedicating some time to assessing where his team is at, what he needs to do to beat Everton and then after that the Scum at home. My mum was a maths teacher at a secondary school when I was growing up (don’t worry, I am going somewhere with this) and during the school holidays when all of my mates were out riding bikes and generally having a great ol’ time, there was at least a couple of days during the half terms in which my brother Steve and I would have to go in to school with my mum so she could prep for the new term or the second half of the term. The school was always empty so we had the run of the place. I wonder if Mikel does the same during the internationals? I wonder if he tells his wife and kids “come on, we’re heading in to London Colney so I can prep for after the internationals break”. And if that’s the case I wonder if his kids are as bored after three days as Steve and I were!

Then it occurs to me that as football fans we’re pretty lucky to have people who are working extra hard, longer hours, as well as when there could be a little bit of cheeky time off, just to ensure that they deliver the best possible results for us. All of the hard work and preparation that has to go in to the weekend’s 90+ minutes’ worth of action. All for our pleasure. Alright, they get remunerated handsomely and they are doing something that many of us could only dream of, but they still have to put the hard yards in and ultimately if Arsenal are successful and win football matches, we all benefit through much more happiness. As a football fan I rarely think about the work that goes on behind the scenes. I just turn up to the Emirates, or turn on my tv, to see the culmination of an entire week’s (sometimes less with the midweek games) worth of work and I make judgments based on that small pocket of time. If I think about it, the actual match part of a footballers life probably only makes up about 2% of their time. The rest of the time it is about that relentless training and automating of movements – passing, shooting, heading, etc – that they are honing time and time again. That level of repetition takes a lot of concentration I would imagine.

Anyway, I’m rambling, so apologies for that. But there isn’t a lot of Arsenal related stuff going on at the moment due to the internationals, other than the Mail (not linking to that atrocious site, sorry) reporting that Thomas Partey is going to be out for up to six weeks. Arteta had previously said that they needed to do a few more tests but I suspect most of us always thought it would be something around that period. It’s a blow because he’s an important part of the team, but this is where Declan Rice needs to keep doing what he is doing and what he did against Man United last weekend. He’s a different type of player to Partey – probably less of a passer and more of a carrier – but he’s been imperious since signing for us in the summer and the fact that we’re taking the mindset of “that’s a shame Partey’s injured” rather than “holy smokes this could derail our season” is certainly comforting for me and I expect you too. It means we have no other buffer if we get an injury to Rice, but you can’t live your life expecting everyone to get injured, because if that was the case we’d need a squad of about 50 players. Then if that was the case we’d have a bunch of unhappy players who aren’t playing all the time, so you can kind of see why getting the right balance of your squad is important and you also start to realise that the best kind of ability is availability. It’s a cliché I know, but already I look at players like Zinchenko and Tomi and you start to wonder if Arteta is going to be ruthless in the near future if either of those players lose much more game time this season through any length of injury. When the margins are as fine as they are with the objectives and aspirations Arteta has, it wouldn’t surprise me for him to start to phase out players who lack the ability to stay fully fit for a full season. Just look at how much he loved KT when he arrived; I know part of the reason he was phased out was stylistic, but I also just have a feeling that Arteta made a conscious decision to find somebody else after KT broke down in Arteta’s first season. I have no evidence to back that up of course, just a feeling, because Mikel is a ruthless man that wants to win all the time and I feel like he will have no sentiment in his pursuit of glory.

Right, I’m going to leave it there for today. You have yourselves a good one and I’ll catch you all tomorrow. IN the evening I’ll be talking to Charles Watts about his book on the Same Old Arsenal pod, so if you want to tune in here’s the link where you can watch it.

Catch you all tomorrow!

From  an Arsenal perspective it would be lovely if they just cut it now. I know what you’re thinking; “yeah, but we still need a winger and a central midfielder!” and yes, I agree that would be preferable. But we feel like we are in a much better position than so many other sides in and around us that it would absolutely be an advantage if they suddenly decided that the window had to close and close right this second.

It’s kind of a moot point; that is never going to happen and so even hoping for it to happen would be folly, but I guess I’m just highlighting it this morning to show the benefits of having a plan, executing a plan, then just focusing on the football and shape of the team and getting on with it. That’s what we’ve done so far this season and the results are there for all to see.

Unless of course you’re part of the ‘yeah but…’ caveat brigade. Those people will have looked at our first three fixtures and said we should have won those games. Maybe they are right. But there is winning and then there is winning with style and we’ve certainly done that so far. And whilst winning and winning with style have the same ultimate end point, nobody should underestimate the value of doing the business in a way that builds confidence and momentum. That’s what it feels like this Arsenal team has at the moment and that – I hope – is something we can perpetuate in to the next couple of games, because if we do, then we’ll officially be ‘on a roll’ in my book. Three wins out of three is a decent patch of form. Five out of five is when you are on a roll and that is what I have my fingers crossed for in terms of Fulham  and Villa at home in the next two games.

Will we be seeing some different players after that Villa game, having made a few signings, spent a few quid? Maybe. But probably not Tielemans if the rumours of Leicester wanting £50million for him are true. Sorry guys, he may be that valuation of a player with a few years on his contract and playing the form of his life when you ready him for sale, but neither of those are true right now. I have seen people say that he’s been playing poorly this season and a few question whether we really want or need him now, but I always think that these types of things like form at a period of the season like this when there is uncertainty, can all play a part and shouldn’t really be taken with too much consternation. We spend so much of our time talking about how elite football is about ‘marginal gains’,  about getting that extra percent to give you an advantage, so if you’re going to talk about those small things that can make a big difference in elite-level football, you can’t discount things like players being unsettled or wanting to move as a minor factor that shouldn’t impact their form.

The reality is that it probably isn’t his form that is the problem, it’ll be Leicester’s valuation. Strikers are more expensive than midfielders, who are more expensive than defenders, who are more expensive than ‘keepers. That’s not a universal ‘rule of thumb’, but it’s pretty close.  So if you’re going to loosely apply that logic , you can’t look at the fact that we pay £45million for Gabriel Jesus to play as our main man striker, then look at Leicester supposedly asking for £50million for one of their midfielders, as something that feels about right for the player. If it is true then it goes a long way to explain why Arsenal haven’t made a bid; why even bother going official if you’ve had a chat with Leicester’s representatives and they’ve quoted you a price that is way over what you value. I had an incidence in my working life once; one of my team had another offer on the table from another employer. The employee was fantastic, I loved working with her and would have loved to have counter offered them to keep her. I think that is what she wanted too, to be honest, but the money that was on the table from the other company was just so much that I knew my company could not even get near. I knew I could convince the owners to increase her salary somewhat as she was a valued member of the team, but I couldn’t go to the levels that this company were matching. The result was that we didn’t even make a counter offer because we knew we  couldn’t compete.

This scenario feels similar – in a way – to Tielemans. IF Leicester were asking for £50million maybe Arsenal just said “ok, that’s way more than we thought so we’ll ‘cool’ our interest and not even bother offering you £30million, because it’s nowhere near your valuation. Thanks and bye”. Even If Leicester were thinking they’d take £30million, if they really are going in that high, it might explain why Arsenal haven’t had a nibble  at the deal. It might also explain why we haven’t heard other clubs sniffing around for the player. If the clubs are all being briefed on £50million for a player with one year left on his deal, there are probably a fair few who have been put off by that.

Of course I’m dealing a bit in the ‘grey’ here and this is all speculation, but given we don’t get access to the inner workings of these types of deals, as fans we are left to ourselves to try to put two and two together. And in this instance that feels to me like a plausible reason as to why there has been no movement on the player.

There was talk about Tielemans being open to signing a one year extension but if the above is true about Leicester’s high valuation of the player, I don’t know why he would do that. Let’s make the assumption he wants to move, hence why he hasn’t signed a new deal at Leicester yet; it doesn’t have to be Arsenal we’re speculating about but any unnamed club. So I want to move and my club is putting a value on my services so high that nobody has bothered to bid for me all summer. Clubs know I have a year left and they are happy to just wait and see. Why on earth would I want to sign a one year extension so that the same can happen next summer? Wouldn’t I just be better off just sitting on my contract and waiting until next summer? Then I can probably have my pick on a  number of clubs from across Europe, I’d get a nice big fat signing on fee and bigger wages. Again, I’m trying not to make this about Tielemans, Leicester or Arsenal, but just thinking about any scenario. I just don’t know why a player would do that.

So if that is the case, will we see a dramatic change of heart from the selling club at the end of the window? Maybe. Or maybe they want to just gamble and risk losing for nothing next summer? I guess it is all about that ‘opportunity cost’ that Leicester are gambling on. Are they gambling that somebody gets desperate at the end of the window? Are they asking whether low ball offers like £15 – £20million are so low you might as well keep him for the value he brings to your team. Could Youri Tielemans be the difference between an extra five points at Leicester and therefore give them an extra £20million in terms of prize money when they finish a few higher places up the table than if they didn’t have him?

Who knows. What we do know,  however, is that by this time next week (roughly), we’ll start to find out the answers on  where all parties are at.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I bring this up mainly because of what I’ve been speaking to older friends about. Friends who did experience that, as well as the 87 League Cup final having spent so many years without any trophies. And i bring this up because when I speak to those same people about the team we have today, they talk about it like when George Graham first joined the club. He signed for us and began disassembling the existing squad of established players, then bringing in younger players as well as some of those from the academy. Adams, Rocastle, Davis, Thomas et al being brought through, then complimented by shrewd signings like Dixon and Winterburn, etc, etc. When I started to properly get obsessed with The Arsenal was probably around 90/91 when I was taken to my first game and by then those players were more established in the side and so were familiar faces, but I never ‘got in on the ground floor’ with George’s Arsenal, so to speak. I got in to The Arsenal when this team had already won things, they’d already built their mentality for winning things, they were already a polished unit.

So I often to defer to friends who remember the start of that Graham era. I ask them to regale me on what it felt like and I’ve had a few already – including a mate of mine Merv who you should follow – tell me that it felt a lot like what a lot of us are feeling right now. We’re hearing the players say things like “I’ve never felt a unity like I feel in the dressing room now” and fans having been saying for much of this season “there’s something happening here”, so maybe we are starting to feel it and see it and maybe there are some parallels to be drawn.

The parallels between the start of the Graham era, the way he built the team from the back, the young players that were promoted from the academy, coupled with shrewd signings who are starting to gel, all feels very familiar to what we’re all talking about right now. Merv and I were talking about this similarity recently when we had picked up that 0-0 at Anfield and had the second leg of the league cup ahead of us. It was through listening to Merv, hearing him talk of the similarities, that I found myself convinced by fate. If this really was to be history repeating itself, then we were going to overcome Liverpool, then do the same to Chelski, which would be the validation and kick start that this young team needs to go on and compete for major honours. That win in 1987 was – what many Arsenal fans who remember that era say – the catalyst for the subsequent successes in the League in 1989, 1991, as well as FA and League Cup in 1993, followed by Cup Winners Cup in 1994. The fires of success were forged from that initial League Cup spark and I convinced myself that the same fires were being forged in January.

So when we lost to Liverpool in January this year I think it dented my belief a little. Suddenly fate wasn’t falling how I wanted it to be. Could this just be another false dawn? These are the sort of things that run through my head when we face defeats like the won to them in January and it fuelled a rage in me that I directed towards Liverpool and their gaming of the system. It felt like a double blow; not only was this Graham-era Arsenal from 1987 not going to see history repeat itself, but the team that would go on to win the competition would effectively cheat the system to their advantage.

But perhaps I’ve been looking at it all wrong. After all whilst there may not be a shiny silver trinket at the end of the season if we somehow manage to get top four and secure Champions League football for next season, that doesn’t mean that a top four finish can’t act as the same catalyst for success that Graham’s 87 Arsenal had. Perhaps because of the financial consequences of finishing fourth and the way it will enable Arteta to build the team even quicker with that extra cash, it can act as a trophy of sort.

We’ve been told for years that top four isn’t a trophy. It certainly isn’t. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be a catalyst.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I’ve made it clear that I didn’t think it looked great that we were gaming the system, but more that it was the system itself that was there to be gamed in the first place that was the problem. But to have seen people talking about the Lasgagne-gate game in 2006 as justification as to why this is all so terribly unfair is genuinely hilarious. To see people talking about replaying the Leeds game because they were missing players when they played us in December, to see ‘journalists’ getting on their high horses, then in some instances responding with messages about how they should not be spoken to in a certain way because they expressed ‘an opinion’, has completely swung me the other way. It’s actually really funny to see this outrage. To read the quotes from some people without a hint of irony in what they are saying is really quite amazing stuff. People like Jamie Carragher saying “ok to play on Thursday though” in response to Arsenal’s statement is genuinely amazing. Why are Arsenal playing on Thursday, Jamie? Is it perhaps because Liverpool lied about false positives and got a game postponed they could play? But now it is suddenly an issue? Pull the other one son, it’s got bells on.

The Arsenal fanbase has rallied and honestly it feels brilliant right now. It’s like everyone has circled us and we’ve pulled up the drawbridge, told them we’ve got enough supplies to last us through winter, then let them come at us. The in-fighting that we often see amongst Arsenal fans has – at least for now – subsided and we have all aimed our pitchforks and arrows at the external threat that has rounded on our club. After the battling 0-0 draw against Liverpool I heard some speak of how important that kind of suffering was for a young team like ours; it helps band these players together and they will have come out of it feeling more together, which can only be beneficial for us. Well, as a result of the rounding on Arsenal by the media and some fans of other teams, it feels – even if only temporarily – that the fanbase is becoming more together too. My hope is we can hold this unity together long enough for it to have a positive impact on the club itself.

We are The Arsenal, we are together, we are united and we are back, baby!

Of course in terms of what happens on the pitch, there are still question marks over who is fit and ready for this coming Thursday. The club have not released any ore information, but noises coming out of the Arsenal press over the weekend suggested that Arsenal had received a second positive COVID case amongst the team. That is slightly worrying and you have to hope that we’re not going to get hit with a bunch of absentees over the next few days. We’ll probably also not find out until the day of the game who that person is, but if true then it will mean we’ll be short of another player for that game. Odegaard should be out of his isolation by then but the questions still remain about our midfield whatever happens. Partey and Elneny are still at the AFCON, Xhaka is suspended and so Lokonga remains the only first team midfielder with any real minutes this season. It does make you wonder about why we’re halfway through the window and we’ve not made more concrete moves and with noises coming out of Italy saying that the Arthur Melo loan deal is set to be stopped because Juve can’t find a replacement, I hope Arsenal can move quickly for Plan B. Quite why Juve are briefing that they will keep a player who has barely featured for them this season is a bit weird, but perhaps it is just a briefing to the media to either try to force Arsenal into an ‘obligation’ loan to purchase rather than an ‘option’.

Personally I hope we start looking at other options and I’ve seen Tielemans from Leicester mentioned once or twice. That would be a fantastic move if possible. In the summer he has a year left on his deal apparently and I think he is a splendid player. Scores goals, good with the ball at his feet, covers distances but also is a decent passer of the ball. He’s been a fantastic player for Leicester and at 24-years-old he’d be within the profile of players we have been looking at. The down side would be any January move would probably cost the earth but if we’re looking at him for the summer then I’d be very keen on that indeed. I doubt it could happen in this window though so that doesn’t really solve our very real shortages we have as it stands.

Quite what Arsenal are going to do is beyond me but I do hope they move quickly. We need players in and we need to hear noises now id we’re going to have them ready for the Burnley game at the weekend. There’s the Liverpool match on Thursday too but I just don’t see anything happening by then. Of course if Gabon can beat Morocco tomorrow then it would send Ghana home from the AFCON and we’d be looking at being able to get Partey back probably from Thursday at the earliest, although I doubt he’ll be able to play on Thursday. But it should mean he would be fit for Sunday’s game against Burnley. That would be a big boost to us. So, y’know, come on Gabon and all that. The down side is that Morocco are ranked as number 23 in the FIFA rankings and Gabon are 89, so the chances of a victory are probably quite slim. Whether Auba is fit to help them tomorrow remains to be seen, after his ‘cardiac lesions’ were found. Let’s hope he is.

And that’s probably about all there is for today. No doubt the day will bring up more rumour and media outrage from the weekend, but we’ll deal with that, because we are The Arsenal.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Can I tell you something? I am. I really am. You know how commentators often mention that ‘this could be a welcome distraction from the league’ when talking about teams fighting relegation but still in the cup? Well that’s probably why I’m a little more excited for this weekend’s game,  because it represents a welcome distraction from our league woes and above all, it could be a chance for me to get myself to Wembley for a semi final. That would certainly be something to perk me up, I can tell you, so for this weekend, I’m hoping to have a good footballing one.

As for the team news, it seems there’s a bit of a bug going around, because Iwobi, Welbeck and Özil are still not quite right, according to the manager. I suspect that giving the opposition this weekend we might find those players missing from the starting XI on Saturday evening, but that might not be a bad thing given the form of a couple of them.

Arsène’s press conference chugged along as you’d expect it would yesterday. He was asked about his future and gave no response. He was asked about the Ox supposedly fed up and said he was surprised to hear that. It was interesting that the journo actually asked the question, given that there have been no actual quotes from the player. I get that sometimes these journos have to have a speculative punt, but they usually do it off the back of a proper bit of publicised intel, so I do wonder if the hyenas are starting to get bolder with their approach to the ageing boar. It feels as though they can sense that he’s a little fragile – he certainly looked a bit guarded to me yesterday – and so are now trying longer range efforts with more spurious stories that haven’t had any real public foundation to them. I mean I’m sure they’ve probably got decent enough noises from the agent of the player himself, but still, we’ve tended not to see Arsène asked a question unless a player has been public with his words. Kind of like the Koscielny comments a month or so back. Arsène was asked a question based on actual quotes from the player – misinterpreted or not – and he gave a response. 

Now it seems that journos can ask questions about players as if the players themselves are asking the questions. It’s an interesting turn of style.

Of course the manager dismissed it and said that he wanted the Ox to stay, but I didn’t really get any conviction in his voice, so that doesn’t exactly fill me with joy. It’s a shame really because he looks like he’s starting to find his place in the team and I would love for him to be given the chance in that central role between now and the end of the season to see if he can perform on a regular basis. That has been his biggest issue in his Arsenal career to date, so what we need to see is an Ox that gets his head down and performs every week, then we can all start worrying about his contract in the summer.

I’d like to talk about how Lincoln will approach the game in the manager’s eyes, but of the 12 or so minutes that Arsène was interviewed with the cameras on, the only question he was asked about tomorrow’s opponents was that he’s in a lose-lose situation with tomorrow’s game. Hard to disagree really, but despite my personal issues with the way he’s managing the team right now and him potentially staying beyond the end of the season, I still would have liked to have heard some words from him about the opposition tomorrow. 

I guess that’s just where we are at the moment. The football is just a sideshow to the drama and uncertainty surrounding Arsène and his future. It is odd though. Surely Arsène himself must see that this is all affecting the club in a way that it shouldn’t? For a man who always talks about stability, he’s doing the exact opposite of what he says, which is a bit baffling really. It’s having the same effect as the Pellegrini situation last season and that’s why I hope the club and he wakes up and smells the coffee soon, because this season may still get worse.

You can tell that the club is starting to realise that it’s in damage limitation mode at the moment and when they’re wheeling out the chairman to say things like this, at least I guess we can say that they are not so blinded that they can’t see fan sentiment at the moment. Arsène himself said he would take the considerations of the fans in to account. Let’s just see if that happens.

Righto, I’ve rabbited on long enough. I’m going to go now and have a happy Friday, so you make sure you do too. Adios amigos.

As for Arsenal, well as you’d expect, it’s been a quiet weekend. All except the financial results on Friday. I didn’t bother talking about them on Friday or Saturday’s blog because at the time there were other things on my mind that I could talk about, like Santi, but given the dearth of anything interesting coming out at the moment I guess I could pen one or two thoughts.

The thing is, as a club we seem to be the only ones who really get any kind of major media coverage when it comes to financial results. Nobody ever really talks about Liverpool, Chelski, The Totts or City. United get mentioned but that’s because in comparison with every other football team on the planet, they are a massive corporate juggernaut, so nobody’s ever really going to avoid the news when they release results.

But Arsenal get a lot of attention. That’s probably because Arsenal have always paid a lot of attention to it as a club. The club has historically – recent history in talking about here – been seen as one in which the bank balance is more important than the pitch performance. For years the question was whether Arsène has truly been given the resources to really have a proper go at the league title. Some have said that’s why he hasn’t won more titles and for a time that’s what it felt like. We were always ‘just a couple of players’ away from a fantastic squad that can do the business. Just one or two additions in key positions. That’s what we had been told and in fairness that’s what I believed too.

This season has been different though. The financial results show this. More cash spent last summer than ever before. More investment by the team (in the end) than we’d been used to and if I’m completely honest, I looked at that squad once the Lucas Perez deal was done and thought, “yep, that’s enough. We have a squad that can compete”. 

I suspect that is also what has turned many people from fence-sitters on Arsène’s future position as manager, to those that think his time has come. This time round he’s had the cash, spent the cash, assembled the squad and yet the same problems persist. We still make the same mistakes. We still find ourselves in the same position of being nowhere near the league and chasing down a top four spot come March. 

People have been hit in the same spot too many times for it not to cause a bit of bruising. So they’re turning on the manager and the belief is gone.

Shame really. He loves the club, we all loved him for a time, but the failure to evolve has cost him. I have no doubt that every day when he wakes up he wants to do the best for Arsenal and every decision he makes is what he believes is the best for the club. But if you put me in charge of the team I’d have exactly the same approach. I’d give my all to try to make Arsenal great. But that wouldn’t be enough and I’d probably be terrible at it. Just because you love Arsenal and you’d do anything for Arsenal, it doesn’t mean you should be guaranteed a job there.

Will you look at that. I started off talking about the financial figures being released, yet it quickly escalated in to a comment on the manager’s position. I guess that’s because it’s such a centralised point of topic for Arsenal these days. Just like the way the club is run, everything is centred around Arsène and no matter what you try to talk about, it all comes back to that one man. Even the words of Sir Chips talking about making the end of the season great for the fans pretty much fell on deaf ears to me when I read the statement; the comment on player spending meant only that this time the manager had been backed and yet again we had seen a similar outcome to the last four or five years. 

Ultimately, I just don’t believe the club hierarchy any more, including Arsène but especially that board. They’re so out of touch with the real people who are Arsenal FC that their words are of little meaning or consolation. They’re just PR fluff that fall on deaf ears.

Arsenal need a spark. They need something new to get out of the current funk. The malaise at the club that is felt by most fans needs to be given a metaphorical electric shock. We’ve tried more player investment and that hasn’t seemed to work. Which really leaves us with one more card to play. One more put down and pick up to do: the new manager card.

It could completely bugger up our hand. We all know that. But equally it could deliver us a full house. We’ve played it ‘safe’ for too long. Now we need to have a gamble. 

That won’t happen with this board. Sadly their hand has to be forced. And it will have to be forced by the manager. For us to move forward, Arsène will need to willingly dive on to his own sword. He needs to be like Arnie in Terminator 2 and press the button himself to descend in to the lava. And John ‘Gazidis’ Connor will have to watch with Sarah ‘Chips’ Connor as he slowly disappears. We all knew it had to happen. Even those who still believe Arsène is a man who could deliver success, must know that it isn’t working at Arsenal and therefore the change is probably best for all involved. 

Hopefully that change is coming in the summer. I won’t be doing any jigs of delight though. I’ll just be sad that it has had to end the way it has. Hopefully there will be a positive ending with an FA Cup for the manager to say goodbye, but you can’t exactly say that’s a likelihood at the moment with the way we’re playing. 

Right, I’m off until tomorrow, so Enjoy your Monday. Peace out peeps.

“Here it is Mr Hotelier. Here’s my fifty. Say ‘bye-bye fifty’…….(puts on baby’s voice) ‘bye-bye Mr Hotelier. Oh how I wish y0u would take me”

Or something like that. The reality is probably that I’ll get nowhere near the super-awesome-mega deal that I’m after. But might as well try.

As for Arsenal, the only trying they’ll be doing today is trying not to watch any TV i’d imagine, because by the end of this weekend’s fixtures I think we’re going to be playing catch up along with United. Usually I don’t mind having the old ‘game in hand’, but when you think that ours was due to be against Southampton away in which – recent FA Cup game aside – we have a terrible record at, it’s not exactly one i’m looking forward to. And seeing Stoke and Mark Hughes roll over and having their bellies tickled by a Tiny Totts side who are sure to want to bounce back from their humiliating Europa League Cup exit isn’t exactly my idea of fun.

Chelsea will smash the living hell out of Swansea at home and Leicester are in disarray after the Ranieri sacking, so Liverpool will be quite happy to play them at the King Power right now, so I’m hardly holding out for some kind of miracle that doesn’t see us playing catch up this time next week. And with the game we’ve got next week it hardly fills you with uber delight, does it?

Sorry, the tone of my blogs over the last few months been a bit like the team, drab, of late. Perhaps that’s just the mood of the fanbase at the moment. But these things never last forever, do they? I’ve felt a bit down on the team before and i’ve felt up on the team before, and i’ll probably feel down about the team again in the future. Football is as cyclical as the little round thing they boot in between those posts. Well, not enough times for our liking!

So what’s the best we can hope for this weekend? Ignore Chelski, because they’re running away with it and have the league sewn up, but if Charlie Adam could just force Deli Alli in to some kind of rage spiral for which he could never come out, that would be nice. Or if Jamie Vardy could dive in the box to incense Matip/Lovren so much that they combine to double drop kick him and therefore face a suspension, where upon Coutinho and Lallana both bundle on top of Vardy afterwards to also miss out when we play them next weekend, that would be a happy ending to the weekend’s footballing festivities.

Heck, at this stage i’ll just take anything that clings on to the hope that the remainder of the season isn’t going to be a slow and depressing march in to mediocrity as the manager finally sails off in to the sunset. If he could just come out, announce that he’s thinking about calling it a day, so everybody could just get behind the team and hopefully give him one final hurrah of finishing in the top four and an FA Cup, I would bite yer hand off for that all day long. And yer arm. And yer other arm. And both yer legs. In fact, just stick yer whole self in the oven and let me chow down, because right now that seems like most utopian outcome for the season.

Right, that’s enough from me for one day, and i’ll possibly hold fire on another set of mind-numbing ramblings tomorrow too. I’m sure you’re all the gladder for it!!

Laters.

Sound familiar? 

It should. As an Arsenal fan you’ll be painfully aware of that kind of scenario, not just this weekend, but in the last eight to 10 years. I wonder if Spieth has a soft spot for The Arsenal?

I have to talk about golf you see, because as I explained to my father yesterday as we went out for a bike ride, I was on media lock down when it came to football. Just the Sunday morning blog of my own thoughts, then a quick check in on the football at around 6pm to confirm that both Leicester and the Spuds had dispatched their opposition, then that was it for me. Of course both teams did. Because they are both exhibiting the hallmarks of two teams who are going for the title: consistency.

Arsenal know nothing of consistency this season. I’m not sure if you’re the same as me, but if Arsenal lose of play particularly poorly, that’s Match of the Day pretty much off limits for me. I like seeing the goals from other teams, but if Arsenal have…well, been Arsenal…the I simply don’t want to know. I’d rather distract myself by doing other things. Yesterday was a family bike ride, roast dinner and The Masters, which worked a treat.

This season is probably the least I’ve watched the BBC programme to be honest with you. Sometimes even when we were winning earlier in the season I didn’t always watch. Because it’s hardly been entertaining, has it? The football has been pretty average, which I guess has been reflected in some of the performances. I bet if I thought back, I could find at least two games each month from August to now, in which Arsenal have looked pretty average. That’s a sad reflection on our season and when the final ball is kicked in May, I can’t say I’ll look back on 2015/16 with many happy memories. 

It’s weird though, because if you take the season in isolation, we’ve definitely had worse. Remember when we couldn’t win at home at The Emirates when we first moved in? I seem to recall there was a load of draws and it was pretty poor. Or the 2010/11 season, in which we finished on 68 points, fourth, got 11 draws and eight defeats, never even coming close to winning the league. That team in comparison was nowhere near as good as this Arsenal team is supposed to be. Certainly from a squad perspective. I certainly don’t think it was as good. Yet I feel more battered by this season than I recall feeling back then. Why?

Is it expectation? Is it because this collective of players had broken the trophy barrier, which many of us including myself, thought was the last psychological barrier to overcome? Obviously not, because from a league perspective the players have nowhere near delivered the consistency they should have. But I had hope that it was. Moneychester City followed up their first FA Cup win with a Premier League title. Pundits and ‘experts’ alike spoke about how that cup win instilled the belief in the City players that they could win the league. Well, we won the cup two years running, yet find ourselves in a very familiar place with very familiar failings from when we hadn’t won the cup.

So what is it? Is it the manager? I have to assume, given that he is the constant at the club, that he is one of – if not the – correlating factor between the same mistakes that are being made. What hurts more is that I’m seeing situations which back up that argument more and more and quite frankly, I don’t like it. The way he was out-thought at the weekend depressed me. It depresses me because this great man who I hoped would stay at Arsenal forever ten years ago, has become a flawed character who doesn’t seem to have all the answers, not to the questions that need answering anyway. It’s like when you realise your dad doesn’t know everything and isn’t the fountain of knowledge for all. It can be a crushing revelation. That’s what this season has done to me when it comes to Arsène.

In previous seasons I’ve cocooned myself around the excuses like lack of money, competition against financially doped clubs, injuries, etc. But the last of those excuses has been wiped away this season and all that is left is Arsène. Out there on his own, looking more flawed than ever, which is heartbreaking for somebody who has done so much for us as Arsenal fans.

But it is now time for change. Few disagree that I talk to and the ones that do disagree, deep down must be suppressing their own internal strife, because surely nobody can say that this season has been a success. Ignore who the eventual Premier League winners will probably be, just look at Arsenal’s performances. West Ham at home, Norwich away, West Brom away, United away, West Ham away, Swansea at home. The list feels endless. This keeps happening and the only way to change that has to be to change something at the club. We’ve already overhauled the playing staff in the last four years. We’ve already changed the infrastructure of the backroon staff. There’s only one constant that is left. Sadly, we need to change that, to see if it was the real reason after all. 

I’m sorry for all the negativity on a Monday, but all I can do is tell you what I’m thinking about at the moment, which is this. I don’t want to think this, but it’s all I’ve got. 

Back tomorrow.

In the space of about 26 hours we went from “we can do it!”, to “it’s not going to happen, is it?”, as a result of the points gained by the two main teams duking it out at the top.

I too was a little bit despondent that we’ve not got closer to both of those teams, but I suppose I needn’t be, not when you look at who they were up against and who they’ve played recently. The Spuds played against a pretty diabolical Villa side last week and then a Bournemouth side that probably feel they’ve done enough for their season, so they’re quite happy to knock the ball around a bit, not really needing a result. On paper Leicester had harder games with Newcastle scrapping at the bottom and Palace away, but Newcastle away from home couldn’t buy a win, whilst Palace’s form both home and away is atrocious in the league. So perhaps it’s understandable that both teams picked up points. 

What Arsenal need to do, as clichéd as it sounds, is to just focus on winning the remaining games this season. Five at home and three away is the challenge and with United winning away at City yesterday, that game on the penultimate part of the season might not have as much significance on the league as many would have though, which I’m hoping will play in to our hands.

It did feel like the players had suddenly been released from some pressure on Saturday, didn’t it? Almost as if Arsène has had somebody in the Art Department mock up a league table that shows Arsenal mathematically unable to win the league, yet close to being knocked out of the Champions League spots. So as is the players’ annual ‘step it up for the fourth place trophy’ run in, the shackles came off and they were able to express themselves.

Or, if you want to look at it with a less psychological hat on, Wenger has finally found the mobility in his forward line to trouble teams. With movement in front of him Özil becomes even more deadly. With pace and good ball retention either side of him, Welbeck can make those clever runs in to the channels, or interchange with Alexis and Iwobi in the middle of the pitch. With players who know that a quick one two will result in the second player moving into another position as soon as he has released the ball, it creates more space by spreading defenders. Imagine being a defender and knowing that in a one-two build up only one player will be making a move – how we play when Giroud is up top – you only have to worry about one runner. But if the second player also makes a move, you either try to win the ball quick in the tackle, or you drop off, which leaves more space for the second player to make a decision.

It’s a shame that we haven’t seen that kind of movement a month earlier; we’d be probably six points off Leicester with a game in hand.

Perhaps the simplicity of the task ahead – win every game you play once a week – the team can get close. 79 points would be the maximum points we can pick up and to me that sounds like it could be close to the league. It’s normally won at the 80+ mark, but this season could be different, however unlikely it feels at the moment with Leicester winning away. We just have to keep doing our bit. Best Watford at home in two weekends time (I know – ha! Right?) and it’s Tottenham away to Liverpool in the evening gameand Leicester at home to Southampton on the Sunday. Who says we can’t make up ground there? 

But we do need those two teams to be dropping points now. As every game goes by and they win, our chances become all the more unlikely, so somethings got to give. I just hope it’s the nerve of those two teams. 

It’s the hope that kills ya, eh?

It has hit me pretty bad to be honest, not because of the fact we lost in itself, but by the manner of the defeat and what I think it could mean for us as the season plays out. We’ve lost football games before, we’ll lose them again, but Sunday lunchtime felt like it was a team with no direction. With no ideas and devoid of the right level of motivation and, possibly not for the first time in the last few years, I question whether Arsène really has it in him any more. To do the neccessary and win the league, I mean, because he’s shown that we have the ability to maintain Champions League status, to win silverware and to give us great days out (albeit sporadically and feeling in quite short supply at the moment), but I am fully questioning whether he can motivate, cajole, drive and push his squad on a consistent enough basis for an entire season. I don’t believe he can and I’m not sure that we really have any major hope of capturing the league at all this season. This may sound defeatist and I’m sorry about that, but by this time next week I have a feeling you might have the same perspective as me.

It makes me sad, because the legacy that Arsène has built is a great one, anybody who argues against this is too invested in their own emotional hatred of a man. An irrational hatred which stems from a stubbornness that you have to have one set of beliefs and not change or deviate from that (i.e. ‘Wenger Out’) regardless of what happens with Arsenal. Those are the people who say they’d rather we finished 10th in the league so it would end his reign. They scorn at supporters of the manager and accuse them of calling the club ‘Arsène FC’, when the irony is that when you want your team to perform badly as an Arsenal fan, then you’re ‘anti-Arsenal FC’. 

But I digress.

I want to talk to you about how I’m feeling about Arsène and his legacy. It’s a legacy that will always remain in my eyes. Whatever happens he has still won us a glut of trophies and when the empire finally collapses, I will take from it the good times rather than the bad.

But it does feel like the empire is crumbling. 

I watched a programme last week which was about Buckingham Palace. It spoke of its grandeur, of its status as a symbol of hope and the gravitas of the British Empire during its glory years. It painted a wonderful picture of an iconic building that had a legacy. But towards the end of the programme, the reality of running the palace started to set in. Behind all the splendour stood an old building that is falling apart. It needs repairs. Expensive repairs that need funding. But the programme makers intimated that it wasn’t really something the Queen wanted to action at the present time. She’s in her eighties, she doesn’t want to have to undertake or oversee the renovation on the scale that the palace needs. The feeling is that Charles will probably move to Clarence House when he becomes king, opening it up to the public to pay for the renovations.

What’s the point of this analogy? It feels like Arsène’s time at the club, in a way, to me. A once proud career and legacy, successful and a beacon of hope for trophies and glory, now looks like its crumbling a bit. The wallpaper is curling at the edges and the gold leaf patterned effect woodwork is all peeling and looking a little bit ropey. The person in charge doesn’t quite seem to have the appetite to make the changes needed though, which means that the legacy will be like this until the change finally does come. 

That’s the saddness I feel. That the empire is crumbling. Sure, I have my fond memories and I’ll always keep them positive, but to see the guy suffering, not having any new ideas, or stumbling upon ideas rather than adapting his style and approach to deliver success, leaves me heavy of heart. But perhaps it is time for something new. Some fresh ideas from somebody who has the drive and desire to experiment? It’s not something I want to properly think about until the end of the season, but the capitulation on Sunday has brought that thinking to the forefront of my mind.

I’m actually dreading the NLD you know. Dreading it because I fear that Arsène will once again be let down by the players, but that will not tell the full story, because he is the one that has to prepare the players. He is the one responsible for motivating and putting them in a position where they are mentally as well as physically prepared. But I ask you this: do you truly believe Arsène can do that this Sunday?

Once I would have been sure. That’s not so any more.

Back tomorrow with a match preview.

It has hit me pretty bad to be honest, not because of the fact we lost in itself, but by the manner of the defeat and what I think it could mean for us as the season plays out. We’ve lost football games before, we’ll lose them again, but Sunday lunchtime felt like it was a team with no direction. With no ideas and devoid of the right level of motivation and, possibly not for the first time in the last few years, I question whether Arsène really has it in him any more. To do the neccessary and win the league, I mean, because he’s shown that we have the ability to maintain Champions League status, to win silverware and to give us great days out (albeit sporadically and feeling in quite short supply at the moment), but I am fully questioning whether he can motivate, cajole, drive and push his squad on a consistent enough basis for an entire season. I don’t believe he can and I’m not sure that we really have any major hope of capturing the league at all this season. This may sound defeatist and I’m sorry about that, but by this time next week I have a feeling you might have the same perspective as me.

It makes me sad, because the legacy that Arsène has built is a great one, anybody who argues against this is too invested in their own emotional hatred of a man. An irrational hatred which stems from a stubbornness that you have to have one set of beliefs and not change or deviate from that (i.e. ‘Wenger Out’) regardless of what happens with Arsenal. Those are the people who say they’d rather we finished 10th in the league so it would end his reign. They scorn at supporters of the manager and accuse them of calling the club ‘Arsène FC’, when the irony is that when you want your team to perform badly as an Arsenal fan, then you’re ‘anti-Arsenal FC’. 

But I digress.

I want to talk to you about how I’m feeling about Arsène and his legacy. It’s a legacy that will always remain in my eyes. Whatever happens he has still won us a glut of trophies and when the empire finally collapses, I will take from it the good times rather than the bad.

But it does feel like the empire is crumbling. 

I watched a programme last week which was about Buckingham Palace. It spoke of its grandeur, of its status as a symbol of hope and the gravitas of the British Empire during its glory years. It painted a wonderful picture of an iconic building that had a legacy. But towards the end of the programme, the reality of running the palace started to set in. Behind all the splendour stood an old building that is falling apart. It needs repairs. Expensive repairs that need funding. But the programme makers intimated that it wasn’t really something the Queen wanted to action at the present time. She’s in her eighties, she doesn’t want to have to undertake or oversee the renovation on the scale that the palace needs. The feeling is that Charles will probably move to Clarence House when he becomes king, opening it up to the public to pay for the renovations.

What’s the point of this analogy? It feels like Arsène’s time at the club, in a way, to me. A once proud career and legacy, successful and a beacon of hope for trophies and glory, now looks like its crumbling a bit. The wallpaper is curling at the edges and the gold leaf patterned effect woodwork is all peeling and looking a little bit ropey. The person in charge doesn’t quite seem to have the appetite to make the changes needed though, which means that the legacy will be like this until the change finally does come. 

That’s the saddness I feel. That the empire is crumbling. Sure, I have my fond memories and I’ll always keep them positive, but to see the guy suffering, not having any new ideas, or stumbling upon ideas rather than adapting his style and approach to deliver success, leaves me heavy of heart. But perhaps it is time for something new. Some fresh ideas from somebody who has the drive and desire to experiment? It’s not something I want to properly think about until the end of the season, but the capitulation on Sunday has brought that thinking to the forefront of my mind.

I’m actually dreading the NLD you know. Dreading it because I fear that Arsène will once again be let down by the players, but that will not tell the full story, because he is the one that has to prepare the players. He is the one responsible for motivating and putting them in a position where they are mentally as well as physically prepared. But I ask you this: do you truly believe Arsène can do that this Sunday?

Once I would have been sure. That’s not so any more.

Back tomorrow with a match preview.

It has hit me pretty bad to be honest, not because of the fact we lost in itself, but by the manner of the defeat and what I think it could mean for us as the season plays out. We’ve lost football games before, we’ll lose them again, but Sunday lunchtime felt like it was a team with no direction. With no ideas and devoid of the right level of motivation and, possibly not for the first time in the last few years, I question whether Arsène really has it in him any more. To do the neccessary and win the league, I mean, because he’s shown that we have the ability to maintain Champions League status, to win silverware and to give us great days out (albeit sporadically and feeling in quite short supply at the moment), but I am fully questioning whether he can motivate, cajole, drive and push his squad on a consistent enough basis for an entire season. I don’t believe he can and I’m not sure that we really have any major hope of capturing the league at all this season. This may sound defeatist and I’m sorry about that, but by this time next week I have a feeling you might have the same perspective as me.

It makes me sad, because the legacy that Arsène has built is a great one, anybody who argues against this is too invested in their own emotional hatred of a man. An irrational hatred which stems from a stubbornness that you have to have one set of beliefs and not change or deviate from that (i.e. ‘Wenger Out’) regardless of what happens with Arsenal. Those are the people who say they’d rather we finished 10th in the league so it would end his reign. They scorn at supporters of the manager and accuse them of calling the club ‘Arsène FC’, when the irony is that when you want your team to perform badly as an Arsenal fan, then you’re ‘anti-Arsenal FC’. 

But I digress.

I want to talk to you about how I’m feeling about Arsène and his legacy. It’s a legacy that will always remain in my eyes. Whatever happens he has still won us a glut of trophies and when the empire finally collapses, I will take from it the good times rather than the bad.

But it does feel like the empire is crumbling. 

I watched a programme last week which was about Buckingham Palace. It spoke of its grandeur, of its status as a symbol of hope and the gravitas of the British Empire during its glory years. It painted a wonderful picture of an iconic building that had a legacy. But towards the end of the programme, the reality of running the palace started to set in. Behind all the splendour stood an old building that is falling apart. It needs repairs. Expensive repairs that need funding. But the programme makers intimated that it wasn’t really something the Queen wanted to action at the present time. She’s in her eighties, she doesn’t want to have to undertake or oversee the renovation on the scale that the palace needs. The feeling is that Charles will probably move to Clarence House when he becomes king, opening it up to the public to pay for the renovations.

What’s the point of this analogy? It feels like Arsène’s time at the club, in a way, to me. A once proud career and legacy, successful and a beacon of hope for trophies and glory, now looks like its crumbling a bit. The wallpaper is curling at the edges and the gold leaf patterned effect woodwork is all peeling and looking a little bit ropey. The person in charge doesn’t quite seem to have the appetite to make the changes needed though, which means that the legacy will be like this until the change finally does come. 

That’s the saddness I feel. That the empire is crumbling. Sure, I have my fond memories and I’ll always keep them positive, but to see the guy suffering, not having any new ideas, or stumbling upon ideas rather than adapting his style and approach to deliver success, leaves me heavy of heart. But perhaps it is time for something new. Some fresh ideas from somebody who has the drive and desire to experiment? It’s not something I want to properly think about until the end of the season, but the capitulation on Sunday has brought that thinking to the forefront of my mind.

I’m actually dreading the NLD you know. Dreading it because I fear that Arsène will once again be let down by the players, but that will not tell the full story, because he is the one that has to prepare the players. He is the one responsible for motivating and putting them in a position where they are mentally as well as physically prepared. But I ask you this: do you truly believe Arsène can do that this Sunday?

Once I would have been sure. That’s not so any more.

Back tomorrow with a match preview.

For those of you that are unaware, season ticket holders pay for all 19 Premier League games, receiving seven ‘cup credits’ which allow us to attend the first seven Champions League or FA Cup games that take place during Arsenal’s season. Thereafter, you are charged for additional games if Arsenal make it to the latter stages of both competitions, playing mostly home games.

Arsenal categorise the importance of their games into three bands: A, B and C. Category C games on my season ticket are worth £25, Category B is just over £40 and Category A is around the £65 mark. But I pay little attention to those categorie, because I get an annual price so for me, each game works out at just over £40 a ticket. 

Football is expensive to watch. I pay for my tube fare, some food pre game (a sandwich normally at £2), some beers (for around £15) and a programme (£3.50). So I think I spend my fair share. I also occasionally buy things from the club shop. Every odd week I help to contribute towards that massive matchday revenue that we saw in the papers and online a couple of weeks ago. So I think I am doing my bit for Arsenal.

So to receive an email from the club saying that they’ll need another £16.11 from me at the end of the season, because the Barcelona game is a Category A fixture, I find, quite frankly, abhorrent. The club – in a long winded email designed to drive as much apathy as they can from supporters – explains their reasoning by saying that it depends on the types of cup games that are played and sometimes fans are given refunds if the cup games played are in category C mostly, but that argument is completely flawed. It’s flawed because if that is the logic that the club choose to enforce, why do season ticket holders not receive a bigger refund if all seven cup game allocations are not taken up? Having been a season ticket holder for about seven years now, I can assure you that it has not happened during my time as a season ticket holder, but being charged extra has.

I am making this post about the money, when actually it’s not, because I can afford to spend an extra £16.11 on Arsenal. It’s my passion and I want to go and see my football club play on the biggest stage. This is about the way we, as fans, are being increasingly marginalised in terms of our importance to the club. Or at least that’s how it feels.

I feel like I am non-longer seen as an emotional stakeholder in the football club. I am not part of its tapestry, it’s fabric, its core of what it makes it great. I am a commodity. I am a number to be cross-sold to, a revenue generating customer. I am not important. If I disappear from the clubs records, someone else will take my place, so what does it matter?

I am a currency. The Arsenal pound is one of the strongest in the world. It has to be to charge fans some of the highest prices, as well as adding more on top like this yesterday, yet not really fear the consequences because there is enough demand there to get people like me replaced if I don’t like it. The Arsenal pound is stronger than the Leicester Dollar, or the Manchester Yen, so the club can continue to do what they like with their currency because they know that there’s plenty more where that came from.

Except there isn’t. The currency analogy probably isn’t the most accurate. An oil or coal analogy probably is. Natural resources are being used up across the globe and everybody knows that there is a finite amount, eventually it will run out, yet still people continue to consume it. The problem is, people don’t care enough because ‘there’s plenty of that where it came from’ at the moment. It’s the future that will see the repurcussions, but we people in the now are fine. It’s the same with the club. They are driving fans away and right now, the season ticket waiting list is long and the demand is there for people like me to be replaced. But if the club keep pushing, keep driving hard at people’s pockets, there will come a time where a breaking point is met. 

But the club don’t really care about that at the moment because they have a nice big pipeline of fanbase ‘natural resources’ to consume in the now.

People have been talking about the extortionate prices for years. Campaigns have been going for years. I’m not early to the party on this topic. But I am here and I’m not liking what I see on the horizon. It’s not about the money, it’s about the way we are treated, which Tim Stillman gave on an insight to on his Twitter timeline yesterday. The club are slowly eradicating the small gestures and things that made me to write in the matchday programme a few years ago that we are a big ‘family club’. At the time I meant it, because the club listened to fans, engaged with them and even though we had little say on the running of the club, it still felt like they listened.

I feel more distant now than ever before. I feel like the American’s model of how he would want one of his ‘franchises’ to be run is now coming to fruition. Maximise revenues, minimise any influence outside of the board, drive numbers as hard as possible and pay out dividends to those who have enough money in the form of ‘Management fees’ or whatever they called it.

I should be looking forward to a weekend of football, not feeling sad that my club no longer gives two sh*ts about who I am, as long as I cough up my own cash.

Sorry. Not really a football related blog today, which is what I usually try and focus on, but something I feel I needed to say.

Back tomorrow with some thoughts on Arsène’s presser.

The Cazorla injury will also be a blow. Particularly if ‘Project Central Ramsey’ doesn’t come off alongside Flamini. I’m not writing it off before its had the chance to get off the ground though. I don’t think anybody thought Cazorla and Flamini could be as effective as Cazorla and Coquelin, so perhaps there is an alternate pairing who will bring a different dynamic to the midfield. The only worrying thing is that in terms of first team midfielders, we really are skating on thin ice now, because it’s those two and Arteta who are pretty much the only bodies left, worrying also because Ramsey and Arteta are a little bit too injury prone for all of our likings.

The Ox has played centrally, but with Alexis missing he’ll be needed out wide, so you can see why Chambers is being fast tracked. Perhaps if our injured players were all relatively short term, that would make a difference to the nervousness we all have, but all of our injuries are long term now. Wilshere, Welbeck, Coquelin, Rosicky, Cazorla – all are players who we can’t exactly console ourselves by telling each other in the pub “it’s just this week or next, then he’ll be back, so we just need to cope”. 

The problem is, when you are going for a title, you can’t “just cope”, you have a tiny margin for error and you need to be winning games. We’re not doing that at the moment and at a time in which we should be squirrelling away our league points, saving them for potential rainy days at Christmas and in January, we’ve already gorged ourselves on nuts and have very little left in the tree stored away. We now can’t afford any slip ups at home to Sunderland, away to Villa and probably at home to City, because we at some stage need to try and break free of the chasing pack if we want to win the title. So games like that one need to be won, not drawn with comments of “oh well, at least we haven’t dropped points against them”. Sooner or later we will need to get our noses in front, because the rest of the chasing teams aren’t all going to balls up as we have done with such regularity in November.

Anyway, let’s talk about something nice, shall we? Mesut Özil has been November’s player of the month and if ever there was a more obvious choice right now for that accolade, it’s for the German, a rare positive point in a month that could really get right in the bin for us, if we’re all honest. November’s the month of my birthday too, so I feel personally a little bit more aggrieved that every season we seem to be done over, just as I’m celebrating my slow creep towards death. Oh bloody hell, so much for positivity! Ahh well, Arsenal can put an end to that on Saturday, hopefully…

Anyway, at least Gabriel is happy, as we approach the anniversary of his arrival in January this year. His highlight was the semi final and with that memory of us winning the FA Cup with such ease against Villa, I’d like to wrap up today, close my eyes and dream of pulling ourselves together and winning the Premier League in May. Have a go yourself. You might like it.

I took the horrendous decision to watch the majority of a disjointed and unimportant dead rubber between England and the might that is Lithuania, which is two hours of my life I’ll never get back, as I saw white shirted player after white shirted player try their best “Me sir! Pick me above any of these other players!” schoolboy football attempts to earn a place on the plane for next summers tournament. I’m not sure a single player really stood out and that was a direct consequence of some of the “me-me”-ing going on yesterday evening.

From an Arsenal perspective we had The Ox and Gibbs playing and whilst Alex did get a pretty well taken goal, he had one of those nights that are becoming a little bit too familiar for my liking. He seems to have developed – and I’m sure you will correct me if I’m wrong – a recent habit of losing possession in dangerous areas for his team. Perhaps this is not something that is new, but I have only found myself noticing this season, so to me it is a fresh flaw in his game that has emerged. 

He’s still a precocious young talent for us, but at times he seems to not quite find the right pass, or dwell on the ball a little too long. Perhaps it’s because he is shorn of confidence and it is manifesting itself in a way in which he is over-thinking and over playing. The Ox is a playing who always looks happiest when the ball is at his feet and he’s driving at players, so perhaps rather than some players short of form where they tend to release the ball as quickly as possible, he is trying to do that little bit too much with it and as a result often runs in to opposition traffic. 

It’s a shame because I tipped him for a big season and whilst it is still relatively early in the proceedings, he’s not going to be afforded lots of time to get back on track, certainly not at The Arsenal and certainly not if the team is in form and challenging for the league. I’m not in the slightest suggesting that his card has been marked at the club, just that I am not sure how he’s going to get enough games to play himself back in to form. 

I can only hope that what he really needs is just a goal and one really big game for us, which kick-starts a confidence spurt and we start to see The Ox we all know and love.

Gibbs did well I thought and got in to good positions, but given Nacho has weirdly had a week off (why he’s not in the national team is a mystery), I can’t see Gibbs getting the opportunity to build any kind of momentum against Watford. I just hope that he doesn’t get all ‘Lassana Diarra’ impatient with not playing, because he will get his chances and I’m convinced that were Nacho to pick up even a slight knock that keeps him out for a few weeks, Gibbs will win his place back and keep it. That’s what healthy competition is all about and that is what Gibbs has to realise. It’s odd really, because as a fan I don’t want to see Gibbs not playing, but equally I don’t want to see Nacho pick up a knock. Is that a footballing Catch 22?

Anyway, we’ll start to see the players trickle in from their respective international detentions over the next couple of games and Arsène will get to assess the damage. There’s no noises about any players picking up any knocks and Walcott was rested yesterday, so hopefully he’ll be fresh, as will Santi who I don’t think played last night either. Giroud bagged a brace for France and hopefully that will soothe his melancholy soul, because I think he’ll get used in some capacity against Watford on Saturday evening. 

Other than that, there’s not really a lot on, unless you count Arsène Wenger’s “EVERYTHING’S OK” alarm, also known as the “stating the obvious” soundwave of telling the official site that fans make an impact when you win at home. It’s filled stuff really, which I don’t blame the guys at the official site for doing, not when they have content starved Gooners everywhere like you and I, just desperate for the return of The Arsenal and needing a quick fix. For some that news item might have worked, but for me I’m just getting more and more desperate for Saturday, and those filled stories don’t quench my thirst. Think Louis from Interview with a Vampire when he drinks the blood of rats so he doesn’t have to go after humans. It sustains him, but not enough for him to do anything other than exist.

Righto, I’m done for another day, so I’ll see you when we’re 24 hours closer to the good stuff.

It was bliss. There was also just one Chelski fan in my large collective of Uni mates, as well as no City fans whatsoever. 

I took it for granted that we were the best team – arguably in the world at that stage – and when one guy said to me “your team won’t be that good forever. One day you’ll be like me and have to endure finishing a few places below first”, I mocked him with a “nah, not under Arsène mate” retort that in hindsight might have been steeped in fate and karma now that we look at the subsequent decade after The Invincibles.

But hey, when you’re young and impetuous, you think you’re team is indestructible and you say things that you look back on and think are naive. It happens.

Why do I bring all this up? Well, it’s Arsène again, really. If you read my utterances more regularly (firstly, more fool you, because most of what I say is drivel. But thanks anyway) you’ll know I’ve hardly been a complete Wenger convert since I started this blog, but the respect for the man and his achievements have always been there. However, having read his comments on the increased stability in the playing staff at the club which have appeared on the official site, I am once again reminded of the younger and more dynamic version of Le Boss who guided us to victory in those early years.

That Arsène was a ahead of his time. That Arsène was full of quips and there was something about him. He just seemed more effervescent. There was something in his eyes, a glint, something that made a younger incarnation of myself comforted that “it’s okay, he got this”. That Arsène seemed to have slowly eroded away over time, as he was weighed down by fan expectation for a reunification with the “good old days”, whilst struggling with the self-imposed Arsenal austerity.

What I’m saying is nothing new to you. You’ve read it all before on countless other blogs and from far more eloquent people than myself. But with the shackles now off and him in a position to build a squad bigger and deeper than ever before, I am starting to get the comfort back, which is pleasing me no end I can tell you. 

Perhaps it’s that pre-season excitement that is acting as an anaesthetic, but I feel like finally Arsène believes himself that we can compete. We’ve had sporadic campaigns in which we’ve competed, like in 2007/8 and 2013/14, but the depth of the squad has always lacked in that one position in which we needed it. This upcoming season, I don’t think we’re lacking in any position in order to compete, I really don’t. I’m not saying getting a Karim Benzema or super-mega-awesome-ball-busting-DM wouldn’t improve us further – you can always get better – but based on what I saw last season towards the second half of it, we should have enough to at least compete.

That’s what we’ve always wanted. To have the team compete. I mean really compete. Taking a challenge all the way to the final weeks. And we’re there now. We’re there because we have stability. We swat away rumours about players like Özil with a simple wave of our collective hands. We talk about not being 100% sure what our best team is and, even if you think you know what the best Arsenal team is, I bet you that I could find at least half a dozen other Arsenal fans instantly who would disagree with you. 

That’s what stability brings. It brings consistency. Of personnel, of confidence in the players, of team unity and of belief. By not offloading our star players for at least the previous two summers, the squad strength has been slowly built up, brick-by-brick. No more Jenga-style pulling away of a supporting block and seeing the whole thing wobble/collapse. Nope, we’ve build ourselves quite a wall and it’s strong. Let’s just hope it’s strong enough to keep the others away from that Premier League trophy. 

I think – nay, believe – it is. It could be even stronger with additions, but I believe it’ll hold, so too does Arsène I suspect. If he finds a stronger brick – probably a breeze block or something sharp to put on top like barbed wire – then he may top up the wall. But let’s just be happy that we have a decent looking one without any holes in, eh?

I am. And I hope to be telling a certain scouser (if I can find him), that it turns out he was right, I was wrong, but I’m right again now. Some people will never learn their lesson you know.

I tell you, It’s that desperate that I’d welcome a European Championships or World Cup. I have avoid the Copa America though – it’s on too late for my liking.

Anyway, Sky Sports and their ‘Transfer dragging storytelling 101’ have truly played it remarkably, with us now into the final stages of the saga:

• Club express interest
• Player and people close express interest in transfer
• Clubs discuss possibility of transfer to work out if it can happen
• Player agrees terms
• Club agrees fees
• Player signed

Then as an Arsenal fan, you’ll be aware of the next two stages:

• Photographs taken of player
• Wee bit of teasing from the club before official announcement on the Arsenal website

So we’ve still got a smidge of time to go through before we get the confirmation. It’s all very frustrating and whilst I am guilty of eeking this out because of the lack of other news available and on my doorstep that I can blog about, I like to be on the cynical “yeah, but all of the football websites are doing it for clicks” side of the fence, because I make the square root of naff all on this website. So In my strange and illogical mind, that makes my hands a little bit cleaner when it comes to getting you to read my waffle.

Anyway, I have been thinking about avoiding any more talk of the Cech transfer until it happens. Might mean my thoughts start to veer into the non-footballing world, so prepare yourself for it, that’s all I’m saying.

Oh, wait, no, I’ve just come across a signing! Under 16 Romanian Captain Vlad Dragonmir! What a name. Please let the guy turn out to be brilliant. Imagine having a name like that in your line up. It sounds like something from Thor and would strike terror into opponents. I wonder if Vlad carries a spear and a shield on to the pitch before battle. I wonder if he dreams of a glorious death and ride on the Valkyries into Asgaard?

One things for sure, with a name like that, he’s going to get a heck of a lot of stick so let’s hope he lives up to the billing of his name. And when I say ‘lives up to’, I mean that I don’t want to see him coming on as a sub unless he has a huge helmet with wings on and is carried on to the field by a chariot, before slaying the opposition and declaring the Emirates Stadium as Vlad Country. Vince McMahon will appear to add a bit of drama at halftime, but he’ll receive a chair to the back of the head by the Undertaker, who will then call Vlad out for a ‘winner takes all’ cage match to determine the future of the Premier League trophy in a fight to the death. Or at least until somebody taps out.

On the bench, an astounded Petr Cech watches on, having second thoughts about whether he should sign for Arsenal, having spent the previous four years ‘locked in negotiations.

Sky have the whole story covered in a series of articles on their website dating back years.

Krystian Bielik wonders what he could have become, had he had a name with which fantastical stories can be written about for him.

In August 2009 a penalty awarded to Arsenal after Eduardo went down inside the box was greeted with a campaign from the media with almost universal disdain. Calls for Eduardo to be banned for going down too easily after anticipated contact were heard and Eduardo was initially banned from European competition. That was until an appeal was successful and the ban lifted because it could not be conclusively proven that Boruc – the Celtic ‘keeper at the time – had not touched him.

The debate raged as to whether ‘anticipating contact’ was part of this elaborate con that Eduardo had embarked upon, with most of what I read falling completely in favour of chastising the Crozillian as a cheat.

Now let’s fast forward to 16th February 2015. Man United play Preston and Wayne Rooney – not for the first time in his life – goes down ‘anticipating contact’ that was not there. Cue the dismay of commentary at the time? Post-match dismay at an English player going down when he was clearly not touched by the German ‘keeper? Heck no. We even had the ‘experts’ trying to justify the decision, calling it ‘evasive action’.

These two examples I’ve given aren’t design to outline that Arsenal get pilloried whilst United (and more notably Liverpool) get heralded, but more to highlight this perpetual myth that never seems to die that English players are honest.

They are not. They are the same as the foreign players. The only difference is the rough ride they seem to avoid from the press. Steven Gerrard has a history of going down easily, yet nobody ever seems to recall it. Paul Scholes would make reckless challenges that sometimes looked like they could do severe damage, yet his actions were dismissed with a chuckle and a ‘oh look, Paul Scholes has scythed down someone again *chortle chortle*’.

It’s farcical and I should probably just forget about it too, because nothing will ever change. Foreigners will always be divers and English players will always take ‘evasive action’.

Anyway, moving on to more pressing Arsenal matters and as expected, we face off away from home against Man United. You knew that was going to happen, right? I mean, this FA Cup has been rigged to give Liverpool the safest possible passage to the cup final, so the media can build ‘Stevie Me’ as this god-like creature that deserves a fitting send off. You know that, right?

We had a 12.5% chance of getting an away tie to Liverpool or United, so of course we were drawn against United away in the sixth round, it was fate. What it means is that if we are to retain our trophy, we’ll need to do it the hard way, the REALLY hard way. Because let’s face it, we haven’t exactly got the most amazing record at Old Trafford, have we? It’s probably one of the worst in the division actually, where you have to go back to a controversial Emmanuel Adebayor handballed goal to see a game in which we vanquished the Red Devils. So if we are going to see Wembley again, we’re going to need to do it by unpicking the form of the last nine years and setting it on fire, with napalm.

It’s not that we’ve got an inferior team that has wound me up with this draw, it’s actually quite the opposite, because we have a better and more balanced squad than United’s. But they have the benefit of no European football, plus some very fortunate results this season, that is leading me to believe that we’re going to get skan-diddly-anked when we go up there. Like, royally. Like, 25 shots for us, two for United and we lose 2-0 through a Phil Jones ball-smashed-in-his-face goal and an Antony Taylor penalty against us when the ball is being stroked around on the centre spot.

It feels like no matter how much better we play, they seem to be able to scab a result.

But that has to change some time, right? RIGHT? RIGHT???

I mean, we have to go up there and win at some stage, so why can’t it be now, why can’t it be in the FA Cup? So what if we’ve lost the last three cup games against them, they’ve had better teams than this in the past and having looked how they’ve struggled all season against teams, surely this is as good a time as any to win up there?

Are you buying this? I’m not sure I am, and I’m the one writing it!

Perhaps I should just stop for the day and leave you all in peace so I can save everyone from my self-imposed morose bubble that I’ve cocooned myself in after the draw. Maybe you could tell me reasons to be cheerful in the comments or on Twitter?

Catch Ya laters.

Of course, we still have to navigate Middlesborough and they will be very tough to break down, as well as full of confidence and fancying an upset. But at this moment in time, before a game is kicked, we are apparently favourites and I like that. I like that because on paper – again, at this moment in time – there is nobody that I would fear us playing either home or away in the competition. Obviously United or Liverpool away will be two of the toughest games, but hopefully we won’t have to face them if we can knock out Boro *touches wood for Boro win and not facing the aforementioned teams away*

Yesterday Arsène faced the media and thankfully, after hearing that Karanka has said that Boro won’t be a surprise, he was equally expressive in assuring the assembled hacks that we won’t be taking the Teesiders likely. There’ll be more on thoughts of how we’ll line up tomorrow, but with injury news confirmed today as Alexis, Ramsey, Ox, Diaby (!?!), Arteta and Debuchy still the major absentees, I think we’ll see Arsène not take too many chances with the first XI tomorrow. He did confirm that Gabriel was close to his debut and one would expect that to be tomorrow too.

What I did think was interesting yesterday, was the way in which Arsène talked up Szczesny, confirming he’d start tomorrow. Of course, you’re you always expect him to be uber positive about his players, but he seemed to my untrained eyes to be especially so with the Pole. I can’t give you any real insight other than gut feel, but I just wonder if this little spell out of the side has been Wenger’s way of motivating Wojciech again like he did with Fabianski previously, which will inevitably lead to Szczesny’s return to the side. The only probably Woj has, however, is that if tomorrow’s game goes how we all want it to go, he won’t have very much to do, so he won’t be able to force himself back into the first team. That said, I think Ospina will be one fatal mistake away from losing his place in the side, where as I think Szczesny would need a couple before being given the boot. Many will argue the Southampton game showed otherwise (he was good against West Ham only a few days earlier), but I think that omission from the team had more to do with his puffing than his ‘keeping.

So he might have to wait a little longer before he gets his chance again after this weekend methinks.

The other major talking point from the presser yesterday was the bumper TV deal. Arsène rightly said that it will improve the strength of the league because teams will be able to pay more to players, as the Premier League passes on the most of the revenue hike on to the clubs. But whilst I can agree with the manager that it will increase the global brand of the competition, as well as the desire of players to play in this league, I can never see such massive figures as a good thing for the long term future of the game.

This deal feels like it has nothing but bad omens about it. For one thing, the TV companies are not going to pay such vast sums for the rights to show football, only to absorb those extra costs and not pass them on to the consumer. It’s just not going to happen. There might be a price freeze for a year, but that will be an exercise in PR, rather than a genuine desire to keep the cost of watching football so low.

It means that as a season ticket holder, I’ll probably be paying upwards of £2,500 per year for a combination of Sky, BT and my season ticket. That’s a massive chunk of my disposable income and means I have to make sacrifices in other parts of my life just to be able to watch my team. The alternative is streaming, which I haven’t done to date because I have the world’s worst personal laptop, but it will probably become something I have to consider more and more as time goes on.

Should some of the cash be passed on to consumers in the form of reducing Matchday ticket prices? Of course. But whilst the clubs already have customers paying for tickets at the moment, why would they reduce them? The answer is of course that they wouldn’t. So the Matchday experience will remain an expensive day out. I dread to think what it would be if I had a couple of sons who had season tickets.

Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about this any more, because it’s depressing me. Let’s hope Palace can cheer me up later today. Cheerio folks.

But, like many of you I’m sure, I know nothing of this young 17-year-old and so I thought I would bring about a public service to you. Like I said, I don’t know anything about this player and rather than doing some actual research on the phone internet, I thought I would completely make up his origin story for you today. So, here it is:

Krystian ‘Treebeard’ Bielik (nicknamed by his teammates because of his size and unhealthy obsession for the halflings leaf) was born in 1998 in a quiet suburb of Warsaw, to parents Penelope and Pietre who upon receiving young Krystian into the world, were immediately thrust into the public eye.

Having given birth to a 6ft baby and spending 682 hours in labour, Penelope was revered as a modern day marvel and Krystian was hailed as something of a marvel by the local people of Warsaw. Penelope – being only 3ft 6inches herself, was said to have shunned daylight in the months leading up to the pregnancy due to her near tripling of size in the final few months of labour.

Pietre – a natural showman and giant strongman for the local circus – was obviously delighted that his son had picked up his genes and was known at the time to remark to the local press in Poland that his son would “travel as the newest of the wonders of the world”. It was no secret that Pietre saw his sons life in the circus, following in the footsteps of giant strongmen that went back in the Bielik family as far as the early 19th century.

So the career path his son was to take, would certainly be a surprising one for Pietre, that’s for sure.

Krystian had a challenging childhood. Being so much more obviously taller than the other children in his school, Bielik found time in class an uncomfortable one, almost literally as his school could not afford any more full adult chairs than the ones the teachers had. So Krystian had to kneel for hours at a time on a typical school day. It was here that the beginnings of his combative defensive midfielder roots were formed.

Building on his obvious size, Krystian used an outlet for which he could be championed by his school and fellow students: sport. Beginning with single handedly winning the Polish under-8s national basketball championship, Bielik was able to secure funding for his small school to receive a Government grant that afforded them full sized equipment to accommodate their giant child. In addition, the school managed to upgrade all computer systems and even build a basketball court to hone young Krystian’s skills.

But although he enjoyed the adulation and continued to play basketball until he was 13, Kyrstian never truly fell in love with the game nor any sport, until a chance meeting with a travelling leper just after his 12th birthday. So local legend goes in Warsaw, that the leper only appears to those who appear to have everything but who harbour a deep-seated longing for something more. Named ‘Larry’ by the locals, the leper is said to be able to reach into ones heart and pull out the longing that the individual wants the most in the world, showing it to said individual and giving them purpose to achieve that goal buried deep in their subconscious.

For you see, at such a young age, poor Krystian just wanted to be like the other boys. He wanted to play the game the other boys played. He wanted to play football. That fateful day, Larry gave Krystian a golden football, telling him to practice with it alone every day for five hours. The leper told Krystian that his dreams could come true, but only if he practiced hard, by kicking the golden ball against a concrete wall and ensuring that wherever the ball rebounded, it would never fall behind him. “You must be like the wall Krystian”, said Larry. “You must be as unwavering and obstructive as the wall. Then, you will see your dreams come true.”

So Kyrstian did as Larry said. For three years. Every day. He mastered the art of stopping the ball get beyond him. He became as one with the wall. So much so, that the he local passers by used to remark that at times they could not recognise who was the human and who was the wall. So too did a scout out for a morning jog with his St Bernard one day. The scout was a former player from Legia Warsaw, who has always refused to be named in public. But this scout saw in Krystian the potential he has and reported back to his superiors of a boy with a golden ball in the suburbs of Warsaw who could match any of the other defensive midfielders the club could have.

The scout returned the next day, took Krystian back to Pietre and told him of his vision for his son: to become the greatest (and tallest) central defensive midfielder the world has ever seen.

“Will be travel the world and become one of its great wonders?” asked Pietre.

“He will” said the scout.

The rest, as they say, is history.