So today you and I will be temporary Everton and Sunderland fans, as both of those sides play the Tiny Totts and City. I’m also going to be routing for Hull, because until the walls actually fall off for Leicester, there will remain the questioned to whether they can have another amazing season and prove that it was no fluke. Plus, there are some narratives for Leicester for me to now dislike, included the fact that Vardy rejected us. But also the fact that Ramieri has already made his first stupid comment of the season in an attempt influence officials, by saying that refs need to protect Jamie Vardy. No Claudio, they don’t, your man needs to stop going down under no challenges to cheat to win penalties. He’s a diver. He proved it multiple times last season including against us. There is no such thing as ‘winning’ a penalty. It is cheating and Vardy is a master at it.

So let’s hope for some fun scores today that we can all cheer on.

In the meantime, let’s have a we look at what Arsène said in his presser yesterday, and he spoke about his excitement in the start of the new season but also was careful with his words in making sure that he stressed the importance of not spending the most cash to guarantee the title. In a way, he and Ivan must have been pretty happy that a team like Leicester won the league, because if it’s not Arsenal, then a side who haven’t spent any cash (or very little cash) are the next best thing. It it gives a justification in to their words when quizzed on our lack of activity. I get that, but if really pressed, I’m sure you’d have both admitting that nine out of 10 sides that win the Premier League, buy the best players so by us once again not having ourselves in the right squad preparedness as we should be, we’ve already made our lives harder for the start of this season. Sure, it probably wouldn’t be as bad if we were playing Hull at home or something like that, but the fixtures have been out for a long time and Arsenal and Arsène knew that we should have been ready to go from this weekend. So I’m afraid there ant really be any excuses.

Still, let’s focus on some more positives, which is that Arsene doesn’t feel there is any issues with the Alexis and Özil contracts. The manager has said that the discussions wil take time and whilst I’d like to take comfort in his words, when he says that there is still two years to run on both deals, it does worry me a little bit. If I was in his shoes I’d be very worried about both running down their contracts and us being forced in to moving them on next summer so we don’t lose them on a free. Both of those players were supposed to be the marquee signings for the we world of cash that Arsenal are in, so if we lose those guys, it will feel like a massive bit of Groundhog Day for us next summer, won’t it?

Oh dear, I tried to be more positive and ended up turning that para into a negative one! I guess that’s where we’re at though. The club have pretty much failed to do what is needed this summer and everyone’s feeling a bit down. The only way to arrest the spiralling negativity though, will be a win on Sunday. Beat Liverpool and we’ll all be feeling a little bit better about the club, won’t we?

So that’s all you have to do Arsene, beat the scousers and out everyone’s minds at ease.

Until then.

P.s. I could have talked about Mustafi, but the boss didn’t really give anything away, so until it happens, there’s no point going over old ground, is there?

And to add to the general malaise I have around this holy day, there isn’t even any Arsenal to speak of. We’re slap-bang in the middle of a period of time where we’re all off work/school/uni (or most people are, I’d assume), yet there’s not even an Arsène Wenger press conference to listen to, watch, over-analyse, break down the minutiae of, then accuse the poor old fella of saying something in the wrong way or antagonising the fans. Oh woe is us, eh?

On the press conference thing, that’s one element I’ll miss when he does eventually depart from the Arsenal shores, you know. Arsène is a very erudite speaker and has given years of brilliant soundbites for us to smile and laugh over. When his replacement comes in, will we get the same level of intelligence and verbal jousting with the press?

Possibly. But it’ll be a real challenge to do it with such consistency over such a long period of time. Probably because the next manager will probably only last a maximum of three years in the modern game. Regardless of how successful he is. It’s funny, everyone goes on about how Mourinho can’t stay in a job for more than three seasons, but isn’t it the same for Pep? Or for Ancelotti? I guess the only difference is that those guys don’t try to burn every bridge with every party through their antagonistic style.

Anyway, as I was saying, nothing much on this weekend other than pointless friendlies, one of which is England vs Germany which we all know will end up with Özil clattering in to Welbeck to rule them out for the rest of the season, right? An injury to a key Arsenal player is almost as sure as night following day, so I can only hope that the Arsenal players are doing a ‘Rivaldo in the world cup‘ to get out of playing. Of course they won’t be, but it would be nice.

I wonder if Alexis is going to be playing the piano during his spare time this weekend? Apparently it relaxes me and allows him to get away from football, given that football is his life, which I find interesting. When I first started getting in to football at the age of seven, that was supposed to help me to find a hobby and later on in life allow you a bit of escapism. But to say that it relaxes me would be the polar opposite of what it actually does. In fact, it stresses me out quite a lot, so maybe I should take up a musical instrument to relax me from my hobby. Which is supposed to relax me but in fact worries me on a regular basis.

Look at me, I’m rambling, but what do you expect when I have nothing else Arsenal related to say? I’ve had my drug cut from me and now i’m going in to remission.

Right, that’s it, I need to go for a long walk. I’m doing the three peaks challenge in June and need to ‘train’ for it apparently, which means 15 mile pilgrimages every month until then. Who ever heard of ‘training’ for a walk? Surely you just put one foot in front of the other again and again, no? How hard can that be? For 26 miles. It just takes a little longer than usual. Anyway, I’m doing it for charity and so if you fancy sponsoring me that would be awesome. The link to the JustGiving page is here – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/chrisr3c. Good cause and all that jazz.

Catch y’all tomorrow.

Football is escapism at times. Because it operates within its own bubble, it allows people to melt away from the travesties of life like what happened in Brussels yesterday, so whilst I write this very conscious that there are other things in life more important than the team you and I support (family, friends, happiness in life, etc), it’s important to show to these evil takers of life that they shall not affect anybody. All they do is harden the resolve of people.

So, with that in mind, I turn towards the announcement by Mesut Özil that he was happy at Arsenal and with Wenger and that stories that he wanted the manager gone by the summer were farcical.

Of course the stories were farcical. The very idea that a player can have that much influence over Arsenal Football Club means that this kind of drivel from the Current Bun was always going to be a fabricated concoction from a newspaper desperately trying everything to retain its dwindling circulation figures.

I did find it interesting that he – or the PR company that run his account – felt the need to even respond to the rumours anyway. Most of the time the players can ignore that kind of rubbish. But we’re getting to the end of season number three and our Mesut has not won a league title in any of those. He probably won’t this season, if we’re all honest, so what does that do for our chances to retain him. So whilst publicly he will of course back the manager – which of course he should do – privately I do wonder if there are questions that will be raised.

Özil is 27 going on 28 and I believe he has a contract until 2018. Whilst that gives the club an element of security for the immediate future, Özil may be wondering what lies ahead for him if we continue to fall short, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that the noises have already started. If I was in Özil’s position, I’d want to know what our chances were next season for seriously competing. It’s clear that this season has not gone according to plan, that the squad has not been good enough (and a little too brittle at times) to mount a sustained challenge across multiple fronts, so when your career is short you need to think about being selfish. Ancelotti is in at Bayern in the summer and he has coached Özil. Real Madrid have a buyback clause. These might all sound a little far-fetched, but we only need the noises to start around May time, for them to grow louder and louder over the summer months and escalate into another summer of uncertainty like we thought were all behind us.

That’s the worst case scenario. I get the feeling – from reading some of his interviews and hearing some journos close to the club talk about how happy he is – that it is not as likely to happen as is unlikely to happen. But if we’re in the same position this time next season? Well, that becomes a different matter entirely, one which feels all to familiar with a player reaching the final year of his contract. We need to make sure we surround Özil with world class players and so I hope the club are already sounding out people in key positions for us in the summer. You won’t hear Arsène Wenger talking about it publicly, but there needs to be an army of scouts and analysts building the case for a number of high-profile, world-class signings. Actually, scratch that, they don’t have to be high-profile at all. Just make sure they are quality, that they add value to the playing staff and most importantly that they bring a better balance to our play. Leicester have shown that as long as the sum is greater than the parts, you can be successful, so that’s what we want to see next season.

Right, what else is going on then, eh? Not a lot. Danny Welbeck is apparently doing a specialised England training routine on his own. I hope that involves gently walking on a treadmill, whilst being draped entirely in bubble-wrap, within a padded room. With the way he’s playing at the moment, we could really do without him going down with a serious injury, so I hope Roy sees sense and either doesn’t play him, or just gives him some token time at the end of the game. Roy can run Theo into the ground as much as he likes, but just leave ‘Dat Guy’ alone, will ya Hodge? 

Germany play England on Saturday evening, so at least we’ll get a couple of glimpses of Arsenal players this Easter weekend, but I hope that’s all they are – fleeting glimpses!

Righto, that’s me for another day, so stay safe and have a good Wednesday.

I have been pretty down since pretty much the United game and whilst I’ve tried to get myself up for games since then, the belief has ebbed away from me, due in the most part to the teams pretty atrocious form.

But the players we have are not terrible. They haven’t suddenly turned awful overnight and at some stage they will have to pick up results. As an Arsenal fan I am privileged enough to witness my team – over the course of a season – win more games than they lose, so with that in mind, I’m just going to try my hardest to stay positive ahead of the away trip to Everton this lunch time. This is my game face and it’s one that is a smile through gritted teeth.

Sure our form is woeful. Sure Everton will be on a high since reaching the semi’s at the hands of Chelski. Sure we haven’t won there in our last three attempts. And sure our players might all be cream cracker-ed. But The great thing about football’s short termism is that there’s always another game and so you can try to forget your woes and focus on the hope that lies ahead.

So that’s what I’m going for today. Hope. I am hopeful that today will be a platform for the team to build a winning run. Hey, it’s got to start somewhere, right? So why not here today? Everton have patchy home form and have been beaten by West Ham, Stoke, Swansea and West Brom. Of course we’ve also suffered dropped points against those teams too, but it shows that they aren’t unbeatable. In fact, if we can neutralise the threat of Lukaku, then we’ll go a long way to stopping them completely. He’s the guy with which most of their goals are coming from at the moment and with six goals in the last six games, he’s sure to get a chance and probably a goal today. Which means we’ll have to score at least two I think. That puts a bit of pressure on our strikers, who have all been profligate of late, but there were positive signs in Barcelona on Wednesday. We got in to positions, we just need to take our chances. Alexis and (hopefully) Welbeck will want to finish more chances and with Everton’s approach to defence feeling very similar to Arsenal’s – in that there isn’t really much discipline and structure at times and it all feels a bit haphazard – there will be chances created.

Everton will want to come out of the blocks quickly. On their own patch and with the home fans sure to be in fine voice knowing a date at Wembley lies ahead, Everton will smell blood with our recent form and knowing that when this Arsenal team goes behind it can look a little lost, I think we just need to keep the Toffees quiet for the first ten minutes and then see if we can impose on the game. Everton will sit Besic and McCarthy in front of jagielka and Funes Mori and they will look to use the attacking full backs of Coleman and Baines to drive forward and overlap with Lennon and Cleverley, leaving the centre of the pitch for Barkley and Lukaku to express themselves. That means that we need our full backs to be on top form today, which is the one area of the Arsenal team that has been the most consistent all season, so I’d hope that Bellerin and Monreal can continue to play as well as they have done. But if there are those overlaps, then they’ll need our defensive midfielders to cover ground for them. Elneny and Coquelin will start and they’ll need to cover a lot of ground. Le Coq will have  hopefully have learned a lesson from his red card against the Spuds and so I’m hoping for a disciplined performance, but it is Elneny that I am hoping to see have another good game. He seems to be able to keep us ticking over in the same way Arteta used to do and if he can provide a good outlet for Coquelin to distribute the ball too, perhaps we’ll see an Arsenal team who look like they can control a game a bit more than we have done since the start of 2016.

Arsenal need goals. It’s as simple as that. Ozil, Welbeck, Giroud, Iwobi, Alexis, Campbell; it doesn’t matter which of those four start, we need to see them weigh in and do so now. This is pretty much it now. We’re standing at the precipice in terms of our Premier League title aspirations. We’ve used up any buffers we might have built up and now only flawless results stand us any chance. however unlikely, it is still a possibility and as a result, it would be remiss of any Arsenal fan not to go into this game with as much hope as they can scrape together. After that, it’s down to how much the players want it. Do they want it? Their lives have been made simpler now. It’s Premier League or bust, folks, so if you want it, you need to show the urgency that we seem to have in the last five or ten minutes in a game when we’re behind from the opening exchanges of the game. We need movement, we need fluidity and we need to not give up.

Come on Arsenal!

Indeed, with about 22 minutes to go I looked at the big screen in the corner and wondered whether we might even be able to replicate the Bayern game, nicking a goal from somewhere to take a slender advantage back to Spain. Up until the 70 minute mark we had stayed compact as a unit, repelled Barca’s efforts (although Cech didn’t have to make a catalogue of saves, it must be said), kept our shape and our discipline. Monreal and Bellerin I thought were particularly good. 

Yet, as is the way with this Arsenal team, we still found enough time to brain-fart our way into conceding. The counter attack from a fantastic Barcelona team was lightning quick. The composure in the box from Messi was as expected. But quite what Mertesacker was doing halfway into the Barcelona half is a bit beyond me. Arsène called our performance ‘naïve’ after the game and for a man who is usually a staunch supporter of his players, that was a striking admission, showing just how disappointed he was that they had undone all of their own hard work.

He too, however, must take some of the blame for the result. For it was his decision to replace a fatigued Coquelin with a, quite frankly increasingly redundant Flamini, which has effectively ended this two-legged tie. The Frenchman’s lunch at a theatrical Messi inside the box and the referee – who’ll I’ll come to in a minute – was only happy to oblige the Argentinian in putting this match to bed. But all blame cannot be solely attributed to MatFlam, because Mertesacker’s pathetic touch gave Messi enough of a sniff to get to the ball and he too needs to shoulder the responsibility. Mertesacker and Flamini will no doubt have had nightmares about their overall contributions last night. For players who have many Arsenal fans exhasperated at their continuous appearance in the team already, last night’s result will only further their opinions that neither are good enough for the club, of which I agree to about 50%. Flamini looks ropey, but Big Per still has a role to play. He is probably on the wane as a first teamer, but as a rotated squad player I’d have no problem, but I wonder if Arsène was beginning to instigate that anyway before Gabriel got injured. Another debate for another day perhaps.

As for the refereeing display, well, we’ve got to accept that in Europe I suppose. The decisions that another appalling ref gave to both sides were baffling at times, hilarious at others. What I found particularly amusing – in a really frustrating and infuriating way – was a particular throw in where by the ‘referees assistant’ didn’t actually flag for until after the Barcelona player had picked the ball up, looked for someone to throw the ball to, then released it back in to play. Talk about the tail wagging the dog! Monreal was booked for his first challenge, yet I counted five Rakitic fouls and no yellow whatsoever. There was even an identical foul to Monreal’s in the first half, in the same area of the pitch, from a Barcelona player that drew no yellow at all! I said it last night and I’ll repeat now – the sense of entitlement that is afforded to Barcelona really is quite staggering. They’re one of the best two teams in the world, yet they still get given a helping hand from weak and incompetent officials. Go figure.

I thought our midfield too looked disciplined up until the substitution, but in the second half Ramsey faded and Özil was always going to find it difficult with two and sometimes three players on him. It was a frustrating evening for the German.

As for our attack, well, if I was being kind I’d say that we were up against a great team who didn’t give us many chances. Plus, the fact that we set up to contain, was always going to leave the forward players with slimmer pickings than they’re used to. But actually we still had chances. Ter Stegen made a good save from Giroud and much like Arsène said before the game, Barca let us have a lot more of the ball than we have been used to in the past.

However, Giroud and Alexis both had a pretty poor night overall, with the latter starting brightly but never really getting in to the game. When do we start to worry about Alexis’ form? I mean, really start to worry, because yesterday he once again ran down blind alleys and gave the ball away. A lot. Still, it could have been worse, he could have seen the goal open up inside the box, only to reverse pass the ball to nobody in space. Giroud’s radar for shooting is as off as his radar for passing at the moment it seems.

It’s not just Giroud though. The whole team is in a funk when it comes to finishing. The Ox found himself in a fantastic position in the first half, yet could only dribble the ball straight at the ‘keeper. We’re failing miserably at shot conversion at the moment, choosing to hit whatever goalie we’re up against, with balls that are straight down his throat. Ramsey, Alexis, Walcott and The Ox do not have enough goals between them for us to be a serious threat right now. Our drought is starting to really feel worrying and will completely derail our season unless something changes. 

Perhaps that something is Welbeck. He came on last night and put himself about a bit. I thought he looked quite hungry and if he can contribute to more goals then all the better. He’s never in his career been a prolific goalscorer, but he looks – based on the very short time we’ve seen him since returning – like he’s got a hunger about him, so I’m hoping that he can inject something in to our forward line. He may not be fit enough to last ninety minutes right now, but you’d be mad not to give him plenty of game time against United, because he’ll be massively up for it.

That’s where our attention must now focus: the league. I know Arsène will not throw away the away leg, but it would be amazing to see him rotate in favour of playing a stronger team in whatever the subsequent game is after we’ve visited Catalonia. We’re done in this competition so unless we focus all of our efforts domestically, I can see us falling away in the league too, which none of us want.

It’s going to be a long few days until Sunday.

Catch you tomorrow.

We’ve been pretty poor of late in the league, some of it down to injuries potentially disrupting the flow of the team, some of it due to poor player performance if we’re all honest with ourselves. But with November behind us and on home soil, we simply have to beat Sunderland. No ifs, no buts, just the three, thanks.

Points that is, of course, although with Jermaine Defoe out and Sunderland sure to set up to frustrate, I’d be a wee bit surprised if we didn’t win by scoring three goals, so that would also be nice too. 

We need to get back my on track. We have the Mackems, the Greeks and then some Midlands-based Villans. All games are eminantly winnable, but we would have said the same about our last two away games, showing that with The Arsenal you never quite can call anything a ‘banker’. So we need to get a win today and even with the ever-mounting list looking worse with the news we probably won’t see Santi until March, I’d still like to think we have enough to get a win, even if it is The Walrus managing the opposition today.

If Koscienly is back it would mean our strongest back four and if Flamini can do a decent enough role marshalling the space in front of the back four, that should give us enough cover for the likes of Ramsey and Özil to support the attack a little more. Rambo has the sort of engine that Santi cannot provide and who knows, perhaps with Flamini besides him it will provide a better foil than if Ramsey was lining up alongside Santi. Think about how Cazorla was the string-puller to Coquelin’s ball winner. With Rambo and Flamini, somehow having the two in close proximity to each other doesn’t feel as ‘right’ to my untrained eyes. Maybe Arsène can stumble across something today?

Our opponents will set up with a back five, Cattermole as the clobbermesiter in front of them and look to use the aerial threat of Fletcher to cause us problems. If Koscienly makes it, between him and Big Per we should have enough, of course my emphasis is on the word should, because as I said above, we have the better technical ability even with all of our injuries. 

What we will finally get to see, a good few years after certain Twitter ‘ITK’s prophecised, is the arrival of Yann M’Villa on the Emirates turf. He’s looked OK in patches in what I’ve seen, but strikes me as the type of player who looks alright in a good team and ‘okayish’ in an average one. I know I’ve probably just put the hex on us for him to score a couple of screamers now, but like Catchphrase, I have to ‘say what I see’. He’ll probably slot in alongside Cattermole and be another ball winner. If Sunderland do play with a back five and those two, we’re already up to eight of the 11 who will be defensive-minded players, so scoring early could be a god-send for us. It would force Sunderland to come out a bit more with a collective of defensive-minded footballers set up. 

Last season Sunderland needed a point to effectively stay up and as a result, threw every body part at the ball and also had a bit of luck along the way, so in terms of domination and chances I’d still expect us to get a fair few. The trick will be to put those chances away. 

We’ll just need to make sure we don’t get our noses bloodied by the likes of Johnson on the counter or Lens, who I’ve seen rifle a couple of good ones in since he arrived at the Stadium of Light. If we keep them camped on the edge of their own box though, it’s only our concentration that will let us down, famous last words of course!

We need to have a good December. December could see us top of the league come January if we can avoid defeat and beat City I think, so whilst we’ve been disappointed in November, the festive season could have us full of cheer and good spirits. But Arsenal need to start now.

Come on you reds!

It was a cagey affair from the off. From my position in Block 5 it always feels tense, but pre match I didn’t have the same nerves as usual, perhaps because of the form of the team post Olympiakos. It felt like this was an Arsenal team that had full swagger on and as the game began to grow into life you could tell by the way the players were popping the ball around, that they were full of confidence. Unlike in midweek it was us that controlled possession and perhaps in an attempt to replicate our tactical outmanoeuvring  of Bayern in midweek, Everton were happy to give us the ball and ask us to break them down. And for the first half an hour or so of the match it looked like it was working. We looked frustrated, Everton set up defensively very well and Tim Howard didn’t have to make a barrage of saves. 

But we have to recognise that we have some special players in our team now. Special players like Mesut Özil, who could blindfolded, spun around three times and have one leg in a moon boot and he’d still most likely be able to play an ‘eye of the needle’ pass to his intended target. His ball over to Giroud was sumptuous and it got what it deserved: an excellent run from a player who is amassing plenty of goals already. 

Giroud had been good before that, too, holding the ball up and being a handful for Jagielka and Stones all evening. I do wonder if Martinez had set his team up to sit deep to negate Theo, only to be thrown a French curveball with Giroud, who can operate perfectly well in more confined spaces. In fact, it was because of the deeper lying defence that he was able to make his run into the heart of the six yard box to score his flicked goal to set us on the way to three points. That’s where we’re at now folks; Arsène has options to try and out-think other managers and yesterday it worked.

The second goal – which really should have given us more breathing space than we were to eventually have – came quickly. Those are the best kinds of goals I think. The ball was from Cazorla and the finish Koscienly and we all thought that another rout might be in the offing. 

So did the team, because in true Arsenal fashion, we committed too many men forward and when an Ox shot was blocked on the edge of the Everton box, about eight seconds elapsed before we had conceded, albeit through a fortunate Barkley deflected shot. A minute or two to hold on and we’d have gone in at half time two goals to the good and in a psychologically advantageous position of knowing we had a cushion. 

But the arrears were reduced and as the second half kicked off we could all be forgiven for thinking that this Arsenal team could wilt under the pressure. But we’re made of sterner stuff these days and the second half saw us look a lot more threatening. Certainly for the first 20 minutes Howard was the busier ‘keeper and when he wasn’t, the crossbar was there for Everton. Thereafter, the roles were reversed and Cech made a few smart saves and the one he missed could only miss the top of the bar from Lukaku. Phew.

We’re top of the league folks, we’re top of the league, and thoroughly deserving of it too. Even the card-happy Lee Mason couldn’t put us down. Card happy for Arsenal that is, because even before Barry was sent off in the dying minutes he was happy to let him get away with a shirt pull, whilst Delofeu was allowed multiple opportunities to dive his way around the pitch. Of course Giroud and Coquelin’s first challenges saw a booking. Thanks Lee, you pleb.

I thought the whole performance was solid and sound and the players all played their part in a decent performances. The whole of the back five looked strong – even with the rotation of Gabriel for Koscienly – and in front of them Coquelin and Cazorla continue their brilliant partnership. I thought Alexis looked a bit leggy in the second half, but he was still a handful and on the other flank the Ox put in a couple of decent balls. I would like to see him take on his man a little bit, but I wonder if he’s lacking in a bit of confidence to do that, so hopefully this solid display will only help.

Attentions now turn to Tuesday, in which we play Wednesday, where the manager will need to look at how he shuffles his deck. Alexis is starting to look knackered like he did at the start of the season and the result isn’t so much him not running around as much, but perhaps that his sharpness in front of goal is not as prevalent as it could be. So it will be a chance to see other players and that will be a good thing for us to give some of the first teamsters a week in which to recharge, because from Saturday next week we have three very difficult games in eight days, with the visit to Swansea and Munich being followed by the North London Derby. Imagine the euphoria if we were to pick up seven points from a possible nine in those games? It’s enough to give you goosebumps.

Laters.

Everything was wrong about yesterday. The mangers decision to play Ospina, the lethargy in the team performance, the slow build up, all of it was appalling and I hope the players are having a serious word with themselves today. 

Before a goal was even scored, my colleagues for the evening were recounting how we were yet to put in a good performance – I mean really good performance – at home.

Well, looks like we’ve got some more waiting to do, because that Arsenal team stunk the entire joint out.

Olympiakos are a bang average team. Zagreb are a bang average team. Yet we’re effectively out of the Champions League. We will lose home and away to Bayern and the final two games will be dead rubbers. Defeatist talk? Perhaps I should go and spend some time with the first team, because they clearly don’t believe in themselves, either.

We’re not even in November and I am already able to count the number of poor performances on two hands. It really is outrageous. And the goals we conceded were outrageous too.

Who’s closing down the player on the edge of the box for the first goal? What is Ospina playing at for the second goal? Where frigging heck is Gibbs to cut out the ball across goal for number three? 

It’s an utter disgrace.

And who’s leading this circus of ineptitude? Arsène Wenger. Ringmaster in chief. He has to fall on his sword today, because the decision to give Ospina the start was so tragic it could have been written by Willy S from Stratford himself. We seem a parody of an Arsenal team at times, capable of implosions that simply don’t happen to other top teams. 

We weren’t playing a top team tonight. We were playing a team who “don’t travel well”. There’s a reason for that: they are pretty toilet. But when in Rome, or some sort of metaphor that I can be arsed to elaborate because I’m too bitter at the lack of effort from the players last night, because we looked like we were just waiting for Olympiakos to roll over and have their tummies tickled.

Here’s a f*cking newsflash for you Arsenal: Champions League teams don’t do that, so you need to show them respect. Arsenal showed no such thing against Olympiakos and granted, they had a slice of fortune with some of their goals, but they got what their effort deserved and we got ours.

We’re back to square one again. For the fourth time this season already. It’s pathetic from players who should know better. Our European campaign is in tatters, a crumpled heap upon the floor that needs to be swept aside and binned. That’s how I feel today.

All the good work of some of the squad players was eradicated yesterday. Ospina should be sent to Colney detention facilities and left there for a few weeks after his howler. Gibbs’ lack of concentration for goal number three will hardly have Monreal running for Bilbao anytime soon and the Ox? What is going on? Why isn’t he taking people on? Why isn’t he growing into the star we all thought? Is it a crisis of confidence? Whatever it is, he doesn’t look like he’s anywhere near ready enough to nail down a first team slot. I’ve been talking about Ramsey as a square peg in a round hole for some time now, but the Ox looks like a round peg that’s about five sizes too big for the whole. That’s not a size thing by the way, just another attempt at a metaphorical analysis that he essentially isn’t working as a wide forward.

We’re in trouble folks. Not just in the Champions League, but the season as a whole, because if we’re relying on teams to play open and aggressively against us like Leicester did, each week, we’re going to have a tough season. It won’t happen. Teams will not play us at our own game. They will sit deep and catch us on the counter. They know that Arsenal will give them at least one comical chance every game. It really is shambolic to the ‘nth’ degree. 

Who turned up for yesterday’s game? Alexis? Yep. Gabriel? Probably, yep. Koscienly? Yep, but he’s injured and will be out of the side for a while now, no doubt. The rest of the team played the game of waiting for opponents to press a self destruct button, whilst leaving ours proudly on display.

What has happened to The Ox? There was no taking on of his man yesterday and he looked like he was terrified of being direct, which is the best part of his game, so he was effectively rendered useless. 

Where was Özil? Anonymous for large swathes and never even remotely took the game by the scruff of the neck. 

How about Walcott? Well, had his ‘goal’ not have been entirely of the Olympiakos ‘keepers making, we’d be talking about another ineffective night for our lone front man. 

I don’t even know what else to say. Arsène has had the temerity to suggest that there was ‘bad luck’ that affected tonight’s outcome. I’m sorry Arsène, but all three goals were preventable and so you simply cannot use luck as an excuse. There are no excuses and unfortunately I fear these types of results will continue to happen this season, because this team like previous incarnations, have a fragile mindset at times. We’re the 6ft 7ins boxer with a glass jaw. We’re the modern day Achilles of the football world; 95% of the time we look ok, but we’ll always get results like this.

I’m getting bored of it. I’m bored of repeating the same mistakes year after year and I’m bored of the same excuses.

Please Arsène, for everyone’s sanity, sort it out.

I did follow it via the Arseblog live blog, as well as Twitter and after the initial profanities were uttered in my mother-in-laws kitchen, the afternoon took a turn for the better as Walcott levelled us after a Vardy goal had put the Foxes of Filbert up. I like it when we reply early and quickly after conceding. It agrees with me. It also probably saves days of my life when I eventually come to the end of it. Today I find myself a happy man who has seen his team win in emphatic style and not just that, I’ve also seen the return to form of a certain Chilean who netted his first, second and third goal of the season. 

The drought was always going to be short-lived; you can’t be as good as Alexis is and not net goals. His effort, skill and application dictates that he is eventually rewarded. His first goal was prime poacher. I managed to see all of the goals from gifs on Twitter, so at least that was something, and Alexis’ goals were certainly something. The first was a poachers delight; Walcott’s near post shot decelerated up in the air across the goal and Alexis ghosted in at the back post unmarked to tap in. The second goal was crafted in the mind of Mesut and is the exact reason why he is good dust to our team. Picking the ball up near the D, his flick/chip to a perfectly timed Alexis was something of great beauty. The Chilean has a fantastic leap – we all know this – and showed it by rising ahead of Schmeichel to make it 3-1 and effector finish the game. Goal number three was why we accept his pot shots from everywhere, because he gets his fair share of ones that go in and that was no exception. He’s a joy to watch. An effervescent human who has enriched our team to an extent that he makes you believe we could go places with a match-winner like that in our team.

Giroud finished off the scoring after Vardy pulled back a second, but the game was done by then and we had the points in the bag, much to my happy heart.

This victory not only underlined our ability to score goals – and good ones too – but it showed that we’re capable of syntillating football at times and when the environment and the circumstances are right, we can flourish.

There will be time enough to worry about injuries, but the important thing is that we’ve secured points away from home and also made ground on City, whilst putting a little bit more distance from Chelski. 

A happy Saturday. 

Catch you tomorrow.