But what I do care about is making Arsenal better and should this transfer go through it will certainly do that.

It’s interesting though; in the summer it was Arsène and Ivan being snapped together in Nice, when everyone wondered who they were after that turned out to be MBappe and then latterly Lacazette, but now it appears Ivan has a new partner in crime and it’s the chief scout who’s now accompanying the Chief Exec on his business trips.

Maybe Ivan just fancied a different face at breakfast? Maybe Arsène told him it was his day off and to find somebody else? Maybe Sven has a better playlist on his iPhone and Ivan wanted somebody to share their headphones with?

Or maybe, just maybe, this is the first visible sign of changes happening at Arsenal to remove all control from one man. That’s certainly what I’d like to believe.

What I’d also like to believe is that with all of this extra free time being gifted to Arsène, he’s decided to spend it looking at opponents and trying to suss our how to exploit weaknesses rather than focusing solely on his own team. That’s what I’d love to think though. I’d love to think that he’s spent yesterday having a look at Chelski’s game against Brighton, the first leg against them at Stamford Bridge, the 2-2 home draw at the Emirates, and is hatching a plan as to how we can beat last years Premier League Champions. That’s what I’d hope, anyway. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest a leopard doesn’t change its spots though, so I guess we’ll just have to see.

What is most important is that the wheels are turning for the evolution of how Arsenal FC are run and by all accounts it’s happening now rather than all at once when Wenger does finally leave. There can be very few – even those die hard Wenger acolytes – who don’t see what is happening as a good thing.

We’re moving on and it looks like we’re getting the gradual evolution we all wanted.

Whether or not we’ll be seeing Aubameyang in the squad for next weekend against Swansea remains to be seen but hopefully some news can emerge within the next 48 hours.

What will most certainly emerge will be the Alexis/Mkhitaryan swap deal after somebody snapped the Chilean at Old Trafford in a United shirt and I won’t lie, my heart sank a little bit, I’m sad to say. I don’t know what it is about having to physically see the player in another teams shirt, despite the fact we’ve all known it for over a week now, but it just makes your heart sink a little.

He’ll be a good player for them. He’s a world class player. But I have a hope. The hope is that United have got a guy in like they did with Berbatov, like van Persie and like Michael Owen to a lesser extent – a man on big wages who is giving them a maximum of a year and a half at his peak before injuries and form start to dip. After two seasons van Persie was pretty much tossed by United and Berbatov was the same. They then became expensive people to have around and I can only wish Alexis the same fate. Sadly though, I suspect we’ll have at least the rest of this season and next season in its entirety, before that might happen.

We must move on, must now look to Mkhitaryan to be a more selfless team player than Alexis was, who will link up the team rather than be an explosive individual.

The good news is that we’ve seen this before. When Henry left we lost a talisman. Adebayor stepped up. When Adebayor left van Persie got out of his injury-prone ways and stepped up. When van Persie left Giroud, Podolski and Cazorla came in and between them stepped up and shared the goals amongst themselves. Now we find Alexis gone we need to have the same from the rest of the team.

That means more goals and assists from Özil. More from Ramsey. More from Iwobi. More from Welbeck, Lacazette and the new man Mkhitaryan. If all of the players unit together, if they use Alexis’ departure as a positive influencer on their own game as a collective, then we’ll be alright. But now is the time they have to do it.

We may have lost our individual spark and match winner, but the team need to show that they are a collective of match winners now.

That’s what I want to see.

Catch you all tomorrow.

The League Cup draw away to Chelski helped a little bit, but it’s nothing compared to what a win would do and so when we play Bournemouth this weekend, I’ll be crossing everything in hope that Arsenal actually do the business.

It should be press conference day today and once more I suspect the conference will be dominated by talk of Alexis. That is surely inevitable given that it appears the inevitable has taken its latest twist with Sky Sports reporting that Henrikh Mkhitaryan could be used as a juicy carrot to dangle in front of Arsenal to do a deal.

Perhaps that one is just a bit of agent or media bluster – especially given that swap deals never usually pan out – but it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s something in this you know. Mkhitaryan is clearly not wanted by Jose, we know Arsène fancied a bit of him at Dortmund, a deal that involves us also getting a bit of cash too would probably allow Arsenal to save some face, plus it means we have a replacement who is knowledgable in the Premier League.

If it could be done then I say screw it; make it happen and let everyone else move on with their lives. But as was very passionately put to myself and others on the Gooner Ramble podcast last night, let us not use any potential incoming of a player as any kind of excuse or reasoning to exonerate Arsenal from the fact that despite we were told these days of selling our best players are over, we’re repeating the same mistakes we always do by selling them to another English club. Once again.

It shows that Arsenal’s long term player recruitment and retention strategies are woeful at best, deliberately negligent at worst and we have to be honest, with these same mistakes does anybody believe we won’t have the same problems again with a player in the next five years?

I have no faith that it won’t happen again.

Of course should it not happen and Alexis dig his heels in for a Man City move, then we have to look at alternatives and with Mustafi, Monreal and Kolasinac spending the evening together in London I’m sure they had nice things to say about Arsenal. Whether or not they believe them themselves given all of the perceived turmoil at the club is one thing, but we could do a lot worse than have a chat with his people and PSG and see if he’d be interested in making his time in London a little more permanent. Given that it looks like there’s a spot free for a wide forward it seems to me like an obvious discussion to have at least, but that will probably be ruled out by Arsène at today’s press conference. The man does like to pour cold water over any transfer tittle-tattle that we have as fans so I expect him to tell us that Joel Campbell could always be recalled from his loan spell…

Flippant remarks aside, I really hope Arsenal realise that the best way to manage this sh*t situation they are in is to get somebody in first rather than sell Alexis and then go looking for somebody. This about the way Liverpool played out the Coutinho deal. They got the excitement of the fans stirred up a week or two before with the arrival of a big money centre half, then sold a player and made some cash from a replacement. That’s how I hope we move when the Alexis deal goes through.

Get somebody in, give us some relief, then ship Alexis out and acknowledge that you f*cked up the whole situation and should have sold him towards the beginning of last summer.

Finally from me before I depart for the day, a word on Francis Coquelin, who joined Valencia for £12million. Firstly, the transfer feee which I’m sorry, but that is a joke. There’s talk of ‘add ons’ in the deal but unless those ‘add ons’ are “is seen in Valencia shirt” or “plays one single game” then once again we’ve had our pants pulled down. Everyone acknowledges that this market is farcical, but when you’ve got players like Bentaleb going for £18million, or the Ox for £40million, a defensive midfielder with three and a half years left on his contract at £12million is peanuts. I don’t know who does the transfer nuts and bolts but it’s a joke given that we gave Valencia £35million for Mustafi. It feels like we’re the only club in Europe still playing by 2005 transfer fees. Which probably explains why we haven’t had any decent money for players – and we baulk at some player fees – because we’re just completely out of our comfort zone.

But secondly, in terms of the player, you have to wish him well because he didn’t fuss or feud and despite his limitations you always knew what you were getting. Valencia will see that soon enough and I hope he does well there.

That’s about yer lot from me today. Thank goodness it’s Friday. Catch you all tomorrow.

On the 28th in the main Arsenal played well but still contrived to make life see as difficult as possible for ourselves by conceding two goals against a motivated Palace side, but in that first half I saw what I always assume is the ‘proper’ Arsenal. We controlled possession, dictated movement across the pitch, created chances and probably should have been more than one up. A repeat of that first half today and you’d hope that we could very well make it a happy New Year’s Eve.

West Brom are bottom in the league. Alan Pardew hasn’t tasted victory for the Baggies yet. He’s even confessed that he thinks the team are lacking creativity in attack. So we all know this is pointing towards the exact opposite of what should happen and what we’ll see come 4.30pm is a team who look like the Barcelona of the Midlands suddenly show up. It feels almost inevitable, right?

The challenge our team has is to get the home crowd turning on them quickly, to ensure that any drive and intensity that they have is snuffed out early, which is why I hope we see the same first half intensity that we did but a few days ago. Playing Jack might be a bit of a stretch too far but heehawed that little bit of energy in the midfield and drive with the ball that had many recognising that it was his best performance in an Arsenal shirt for some time. But can his body withstand what will inevitably be a physical display when we line up against West Brom?

I guess the challenge Arsene has is who rotates in though. Coquelin, Elneny, or perhaps Maitland-Niles? The latter would be my choice. He’s excited at full back and i’d be seriously tempted to see if he can combine what Coquelin offers in terms of a defensive breaker down of play for the opposition, with somebody who is more composed on the ball and can move it from back to front with more accuracy. If he can, then you wonder if a midfield base of Maitland-Niles and Xhaka could offer enough protection for our back three.

If they can, it gives the full backs more of a licence to get forward and we’ve seen better displays from Bellerin in the last couple of matches, whilst Kolasinac always looks better when he’s going forward instead of backwards. So for me it’s what i’d go with along with a back three of Chambers, Koscielny, Mustafi, who are our preferred back line (although I do have a wondering about Big Per – mainly because I’m not sure how much pace West Brom have).

In attack I think it’s fairly obvious who starts in the three, with Ozil, Alexis and Lacazette all looking like they trained without any problems, but if Arsene does play this team then it’s hardly left any room for rotation in the side and the manager has previously intimated he would do that. But who could he rotate? I suppose you could play Holding or as I mentioned in the brackets above Big Per, but I suspect Chambers might be off the naughty step now and so we’ll see Arsene give him a few games whilst Nacho is out. The injury to Rambo forced his hand in midfield and Jack might not be able to play so many games in such a short space of time, but there are options. I guess he could think about Debuchy given how well he has played when given the opportunity, but I doubt that will be a realistic move if you think about what Arsene normally does with players that are on their way out like Debuchy is.

He’s loved to play Iwobi despite his shocking form at times this season, so that could be an opportunity for the young Nigerian, but why would you when the three best players in the squad are all available and all contributed against Palace?

So in short, I’m just not sure how he’s going to rotate the team, or if he will at all. If this was a home game I suspect he might, but it’s not and with Chelski on the horizon after today, it means there might be some players who are asked to play more football than they have at any time this season.

West Brom will look to be hard to break down. If I had to guess I’d think that they would look to hit us on the counter with Rondon, McClean, etc, so whilst the onus will be on us with the ball, we also need to have full concentration on counters and set pieces. As always with Arsenal, there’s no real way of telling which team shows up, until we see the first 10 – 15 minutes unfold.

Cross everything and hope that we can keep up with the rest of the top sides, because although United slipped up, you can bet your bottom dollar that nobody else will over this set of matches.

Catch you all tomorrow.

If there is I can’t think of any.

So yesterday’s game – which felt hard fought against a dogged and determined Burnley team who were very well drilled – went from begrudging acceptance of a draw to the thrill of victory. And it was wonderful.

Let’s address the games key incident first. It was a penalty. The Burnley player put his hands up on Ramsey, inside the box, and gave him an admittedly light nudge. But it was a nudge itself. We have fallen foul of it when Raheem Sterling did the same and all I heard from all corners of the press was how it was a penalty and Arsenal can have no complaints.

Much like we’d have had no cause for complaint had Barnes not been offside in the first half when Monreal gave an almost identical level of pushage on the Burnley forward. But the lino had his flag up and we were lucky.

Let’s also not pretend that Arsenal have been granted the freedom of Burnley from Lee Mason, who gave foul after foul on an Ashley Barnes who fell to the floor easily on each touch from an Arsenal defender, or the clear penalty that was not given to Bellerin when Brady slid in and got nothing of the ball and just the man inside the box.

So this morning I can’t be having any talk of a ‘big club bias’ I’m afraid. I can understand the frustration at having lost in the last few seconds, but it’s hard not to argue that Arsenal had been the better team in the second half and had a few dodgy decisions already go against them in this match alone.

But let’s rewind to the first half that saw an Özilless Arsenal get pinned back at times to an impressive Burnley side who fought hard and probably should have been in front by halftime. Gudmonssen – or however the devil you say his name – was a Cech save and post combo away from putting them in front and for large parts of the first half we found it difficult to find our rhythm. I’m pretty sure the number of times we strung more than five passes together in a row could be counted on one hand. Burnley were winning the second balls, battling hard and making life difficult for us.

But the second half was a different story. The Arsenal players began to exert more pressure on the ball and perhaps having realised that we were sitting too deep and inviting long diagonals, the manager/players realised that a higher press would be the best option and so it clearly showed after the halftime kick off.

Burnley didn’t have counter attacking pace in their front line and so it afforded our back three to push up closer towards the halfway line, which also resulted in Burnley’s long ball tactics going in behind for us to mop up and build possession again.

We saw more of Ramsey, of Bellerin and of Kolasinac in that second half and suddenly Xhaka, who for me had been a ghost in the first, began getting the ball and pinging it to players.

We created chances but Pope in Burnley’s goal was hardly massively troubled as we seemed to be intent on taking more pot shots from distance. When you’ve got Alexis and Rambo in your team though I guess that’s always going to happen.

But what didn’t happen yesterday was a good performance from Alexis. His name may be on the scoresheet from yesterday, but these are the kinds of performances that are really starting to wind me up, because he’s becoming demonstrably more critical of his teammates and there was at least one occasion when he had a go at a player on his own team for not getting on to a quite frankly terrible pass from the Chilean in the first place.

Perhaps he’s just making it easier for us when he buggers off to City in the summer??

Alex Iwobi showed us why he’s not anywhere near the level of Özil with a pretty bang average performance and for a guy who has so much ability with the ball at his feet, I’m starting to get worried that we’re going to see him decline unless he can arrest his form somehow. I don’t know how he does that exactly, but something needs to change if he wants to be a first team regular, because it ain’t happening for him at the moment.

But let’s not have the end to a blog after a weekend victory finishing on a negative. Defensively I thought we were ace. Mustafi looks like his injury has given him a chance to have a proper talking to and we’ve seen back-to-back performances that make you think that there’s a good defender in there after all. If he can keep that going then it will be quite some decision to keep him in the summer. I hope that proves to be the case.

So it’s a happy Monday and then in just over 50 odd hours we’re up again against a Huddersfield side who are no mugs.

Onwards and upwards.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I wonder if my situation is a metaphor for the pre season we’re now in and when Arsene and Ivan will be ‘full’ when it comes to player acquisition, because it seems they’re after Thomas Lemar to add to the squad and if some are to be believed, the Mahrez and Lemar situation are not linked and it could be that Arsenal could be interested in both. I can understand that to be fair, because Mahrez is predominantly a right winger and Lemar operated mainly on the left next season. So i’m wondering what Arsene and Ivan are going to do when the squad belly is full. But more than that, I’m starting to wondering if there will be a reverting back to the 4-2-3-1 of last season, especially if some of these changes happen. I can only hope that is not the case, because we’ve seen how effective three at the back can be and the defensive stability it gives us was a fine thing to see, so my hope is that the first pre season game in Australia sees us line up with three central defenders.

We’ve also got the numbers to cope with three at the back. When you look at the season as a whole I reckon you probably need six centre halves to cope with the rigors of multiple domestic and European competition. We have Koscielny, Mustafi, Gabriel, Big Per, Holding and Chambers. That’s six and even if you’re sixth choice in that team with three at the back, I bet you can make at least 15 appearances in a season. It’s not exactly what somebody like Chambers would want, but it is what Arsenal need, so I think the decisions in the transfer market at the back will also determine how we’re going to line up next season. If we see Chambers pushing for a move because we’ve started pre season with two central defenders, then we can pretty much guess that Arsene is reverting back to the formation he started last season with. But if we see Chambers, Gabriel and Big Per on a couple of occasions this summer, I reckon we’ll go in to the new season with a back three.

That makes sense, because if Arsene’s only looking to get Lemar as a probable replacement for Alexis, then the players we already have at the club are more suited to a 3-4-3 formation. We have Ramsey, Ox, Xhaka and I thibnk Elneny who are all best placed to operate with three centre backs behind them. We have inside forwards in the shape of Alexis/Lemar, Iwobi, Ozil, the Ox, Lacazette (although that won’t be his position but he can play there) and Welbeck, as well as Giroud, Lacazette and Welbeck who can spearhead the attack. The squad feels geared up for that formation rather than a 4-2-3-1 and if they are going for that formation, you’d need to see more changes like a central midfielder coming in and i’m not sure Arsenal will be looking to hard if they get Lemar. Arsene said at the end of last season two or three signings and we’ve already got two, but with one as a ‘if Alexis goes’ possibility and I don’t think that means we’re after an all-rounder in midfield. Because that’s what we’ll need if we revert to the old formation. We’ll need a player who covers ground when we concede possession high up the pitch, but who can also be that guy who can receive the ball from Xhaka in both close quarters and from distance. Ramsey will run the distance but he’s not a defensive midfielder that can do that. Coquelin is a tackling destructive force, but has as much creativity as an old dog on a warm summers afternoon, so we can’t expect him to perform like that. No, if we’re going to revert back to the old formation we need a DNA merge of Ramsey and Coquelin I think, so the club will need to look for a new player to deliver on that.

So that’s why I’ll be interested to see what happens in the next few pre season games. I think that will also tell us what Arsene’s thinking is when it comes to transfers for the rest of the summer and formation for next season.

Catch you all tomorrow.

The Lacazette deal seems decent enough too, if we’re all honest. Talk of it being between €60 – €70million made all of the amateur accountants in the Arsenal fan base wince a little; but Talky Talkerson, the third Earl of Talkshire, Jean-Michel Aulas, confirmed yesterday that the figures quoted by the gutter press in the UK were wide of the mark and so it seems we’re looking at a total of €50million which includes add-ons.

I do wonder whether Arsenal will even bother with their trademark ‘undisclosed fee’ approach, given that we’re negotiating with a man who probably narrates his own life as he walks down the street, but I guess we have standards to abide by and I don’t see us changing any time soon.

I mentioned the ‘amateur accountants’ but above because I do find it funny how much importance is placed on the price of a player, especially by us Arsenal fans, because the reality is that it doesn’t really mean a thing to us as fans. 

It’s not going to affect how much better he’s going to be and likewise it shouldn’t make a blind bit of difference that Arsenal are getting ‘value’. But I suppose it’s a fan bragging thing. Like how we scoffed at Rebrov back in the day, or Schevchenko, or even Pogba last season. It becomes an opportunity to score points against fans if their team overpaid and so perhaps that’s why there’s a few people saying that £43.5million initial fee isn’t so bad. Me included.

And it isn’t so bad I don’t think. It’s a fee that seems about right in the current going market and what it should also mean is that there’s still plenty of cash in the kitty to go big once again.

Perhaps that is the reason behind the millions of amateur accountants in the Arsenal fanbase also though. We’ve had so many years of football austerity before the Özil deal, that we’re all now wondering how much more Arsenal will drop to land a player. Last season it was £100million and you wonder whether it’ll be a similar figure again this year, although I suspect that isn’t a net figure, because there’ll be some outgoings for sure. The number of incomings will also depend on who’s going out too, including I suspect Ox and Alexis, both of whom would 100% need to be replaced if they don’t sign extensions soon. 

But this deal being done now is exactly what we wanted and if it happens before they all take the trip overseas for the pre season tour then we can all be buoyed by a new arrival.

The other talked about person is Riyad Mahrez who I think would be a good signing, but not at the expense of us potentially stopping our pursuit of Thomas Lemar, I hope. I wonder if that’s the play here from Arsenal though: Lemar first choice, then if it becomes clear that’s getting too pricy, then have a go for Mahrez. The worry is that if we’re talking about Lemar for an extra £10million, Arsène and Arsenal balk and take the slightly easier option, in the shape of a player who has already handed in a transfer request and who knows the Premier League.

That he does. But to me, it feels like Lemar has a higher ceiling, and at 21 he’s got a whole career ahead of him that he could develop. Mahrez isn’t old at 26, but he’s not going to have the same level of potential as a guy who is knocking on the door of the French national team. So whilst a move for Mahrez would still please me, I guess it would be a bit like us not getting Mbappe because we’ve gone for Lacazette, in that there’d be a little bit of ‘if only’.

I guess we’ll just have to waiting and see how it all unfolds in the coming weeks. But the positive is that movement is happening, the club are addressing the deficiencies, doing it quicker than usual and that can only be seen as a good thing.

Right, that’s me done, so peace out and have a good Monday. 

Laters y’all.

A win will have seen this shambles of a season end with some semblance of positivity about it. A win would give us a trophy to cheer. A win shows that this team does actually have it in them to be successful and there is something for us to go in to the summer for feeling happy.

A defeat hands Chelski a double. A defeat means this dogs dinner of a campaign ends on yet more disappointment. A defeat means failure by the team and a look of regression in the side that finished runners up to Leicester last season.

Never has one game felt like it had so much riding on it.

Except we already know that isn’t true, because this all feels very similar to what happened in 2014, when Arsène’s contract was up for renewal then too. A win will almost certainly spark an immediate announcement of him signing a contract extension. I personally think it’s the wrong decision but I think if we win today he will feel he can still do it and will start the propaganda for next season. A defeat muddies the waters a little bit because it makes his justification for staying all the harder. Much like in 2014 when a win means he could still prove he could win trophies at Arsenal, so used that as a justification for another three years, it feels like the same reasonings will occur today.

The only problem we’ve got is that the odds are more stacked against us today tha they were in 2014. We aren’t playing a team towards the foot of the table, we’re playing the newly elected champions, who have been better than us all season and have been revolutionised under the 3-5-2 with Conte. We’re playing a relentless juggernaught that gets ahead in games and just wears down the opposition. If we’re two down within ten minutes against the Chavs, we ain’t coming back like in 2014 folks, sorry as I am to say that.

Chelski have a fully fit compliment of players to choose from today. They have a fresh squad who have had a season of injury-freeness and the reduction in the number of games they’ve played has enabled them to storm to the title. They’ve choked the life out of games and teams and like I said above if they go ahead, I don’t much fancy our chances. When you compare their freshness and lack of injuries to our list of absentees, it starts to get scary and with the likelihood that Mustafi is out today and Cech has picked up a ‘knock’, we’re essentially down five of the nine defensive players who have been playing recently. It’s a wicked twist of fate and especially given that we’ve already got a hard enough game if we were fully fit, so now it really does feel like this team has a mountain to climb.

But climb they must if they want to lift that big eared jug. And perform to their optimum they must too. We need ‘game of your life’ stuff from nearly all of our players and I’m interested to see how we cope with Hazard today. He’s the one I fear the most. He’s the one that will pick up the ball in those pockets of space and will run at our back line again and again. Costa scores goals and I’m sure he’ll be a threat too (and will probably score), but it’s Hazard who I think will do the most damage, because he’s their superstar.

There’s not really anybody in our team who is in a position to pick him up all game either. If we had a Kante or Matic in our side, then perhaps you could argue the point, but Ramsey and Xhaka just aren’t the type of players who can do a marshalling job. That’s why I’m a little more worried than I even thought I would be, because I fear that we don’t have the sort of person who can shut Hazard down higher up the pitch.

But this is FA Cup final day and I should have a little more positivity, at least now whilst I can, because we have some game changers in our side. Game-changer-in-chief Alexis for one and I want to see him at his mercurial best today. I want him running at Luiz, Cahill or Azpilicueta because through him I think we have the most effective player in the league and if anybody can pull something out of a magic bag of tricks, it’s Sanchez. 

He can’t do it on his own though. We need the Özil with vision who can see a ball, who can split defences and who won’t go missing in a big game, which is also why I hope Welbeck plays, because I think if he does then he will create more space in his runs for Özil to look for. I suspect today – despite our problems at the back – Arsène goes for a back three and that just doesn’t work further up the pitch when it comes to the static Ollie G, so Welbeck running the channels is a must for me this afternoon. 

That will hopefully give Özil the opportunity to have more space and he’s going to have to give us the Özil versus Chelski at the Emirates against Kante, rather than the Özil versus Chelski at Stamford Bridge, because we need the French midfielder to be chasing shadows and dropped shoulders, not breaking up play for Hazard and Costa to counter us at pace.

This game is probably easier to call if you’re a Chelski fan, because you know you’ll get a level of consistency from your team, rather than us. We know the boys have it in them to beat this side, but injuries and suspensions mean it becomes less likely; but we need to hope that the players are spending today excited and not fearful, and in about 12 hours time we’ll know if they’ve risen to the challenge.

Come on you reds.

I thought that I’d just have to get used to it, but it turns out that it was an imposter and as a result, I’m one happy Gooner this morning. I feel like I’ve been Gift Aided my football team back.

Stoke are a thorn in an Arsenal side. Every season they show intensity, drive and purpose against us, regardless of where they are in the league and if I’m honest I couldn’t see such an emphatic result as I witnessed yesterday. I just didn’t see how it would happen. But after five minutes of the game yesterday, I could feel like there was something like that on the cards, because every single Arsenal player looked switched on and up for it.

Arsène rotated. The team looked strong and well balanced, but if I’m honest I didn’t think that playing Ollie G against a physical pairing of Martins Indy and Shawcross would work. And for the first 15minutes I’m not sure that it did. Stoke sat off and let us have the ball, content to see Arsenal suffocate possession from them and when they got their first scary chance via a free kick after a rash Mustafi challenge, I have to admit that I feared the worst. But as it sailed over the bar, I should have realised at the time that this wasnan Arsenal team that knew exactly what it needed to do, and would execute its plan to the letter.

So from the moment the first goal I should have realised we weren’t going to let this game get away from us. Coquelin – in for a probably fatigued Ramsey – turned pre-assist extraordinaire to put Bellerin in behind and Ollie G was there the tap home. And from that moment on we were probably destined for victory. I liked that goal and not for the fact it was the first, but because of the fact it came from us penetrating in behind a back line, which I’d wondered whether we’d forgotten to do. 

We haven’t. Monreal had laid the groundwork by hitting the post, which was unfortunate for him because he had a blinder yesterday. At the time I wondered if this was going to be ‘one of those games’ but hindsight is a wonderful thing and with that in mind I can say I needn’t have worried. We dominated from start to finish and goals from Özil, Alexis and then Ollie G made the result sound as dominant  as it was. No Stoke mocking, no chants of ‘do the Wenger’, no singing up about a Rugby team, just an Arsenal side that had a job to do and did it. Well.

The second goal was a thing of beauty, wasn’t it? A perfectly weighted Alexis ball, the majesty of Özil’s first touch, then a flick over Butland that shows just how special the German can be. I thought he was superb yesterday. He looked like his old self. Pinging balls around, finding space and owning the whole pitch, whilst also cropping up with his 12th goal of the season. It was the Özil of the beginning of this season and I for one am glad to see him back. And guess what? It was another ball in behind that did it. I love those. It’s what Arsenal do and when we’re finding that space we look like a different team.

Even the cheating of Peter Crouch couldn’t bring them back into the game. I guess something like that was always going to happen, after all we were being reffed by Mike Dean, which means something bad always has to happen to us, but we just need to make sure the badness is mitigated by being better.

And we were. Alexis saw to that with the third goal and from the moment it went in we looked like we could run riot. Ollie G stepped up to add the fourth with help from a resurgent Rambo, but we could and should have had more, because suddenly we were creating chances at will. 

This morning I am well happy. But not because I think we’ll make the top four. I suspect that hope will disapate in East London after lunch. No, I am happy because it seems like this formation is clicking and that’s just what we need ahead of the cup final, because that’s what this season is no riding on. If we can beat Sunderland and Everton we’ll go in to the cup final on a winning streak and that’s all that I’ve wanted for the last few weeks so it’s fair to say I’m a happy bunny this Sunday. Perhaps a little bit overly happy given we’re still in fifth but as I get older I’m realising just how important memories like cup finals are so if we can make another one in a couple of weekends time, then I’ll say ‘screw it’ to this season and be thankful that I get to see The Arsenal in the cup final.

The formation appears to be working. That back five looked really good and if they can get another couple of games in the bag like that one yesterday, then this temporary formation might be something to consider for next season. We can’t forget the horror-show that has been this season at times, but seeing Arsenal win and win comfortably is why we’re football fans and when it happens we can all be happy. Even those with the banner. In the summer we need a change, but right now we need results, so at least we’re getting them.

Up the Arsenal.

At times this season Arsenal have looked rudderless. We’ve lurched from one bad performance to another and here we stand on the brink of a semblance of an almost acceptable season, which will all boil down to the next seven days. Two wins in our next two games and at least we’ll add a trophy gloss to our season. It’s a think layer of gloss because I don’t see any way for Liverpool to not win today against relegated Boro team that are pretty hopeless if we’re all honest. They can’t score goals, they can’t really defend that well and with Liverpool sure to pepper their goal I suspect the ripples and murmurs of disappointment to permeate through the Emirates during the first half today. The odds are pretty stacked against us and if you fancy a flutter you can check out Betting Top Ten for odds on us getting both the top four and the FA Cup.

Perhaps we should at least be somewhat pleased that we’re even in this situation, because six weeks ago it all looked a little grim. Our performances have still been unacceptable at times this season but if the team can end on a high today and more importantly next weekend at least we will have a good memory to take in to the summer.

Then we can deal with the storm that will inevitably come with regards to transfers and the usual farce from the club that we endure as we underbid for summers until the last days of August when we make a late raid on players.

As for the game itself, who knows what team Arsene will opt for, but I suspect he’ll pick his strongest side possible. The worry will be on players like Ramsey, Koscielny and Alexis, the former two being injury prone or just coming back from injury with the latter just being our best player by a mile and the last person you’d want to see pick up an injury with a week to go before the cup final. So if it was me I’d be opting for a back four which has Mustafi, Holding and Gabriel – on the premise that I think Everton will go with the big threat in Lukaku and Barkley supporting him and trying to hit us on the counter and therefore we should be able to cope without Kos – whilst the wing backs would inevitably have to be Bellerin and Monreal, although I wouldn’t be too sad to see Monreal in the centre and Gibbs out wide. The Englishman has done ok of late, getting in behind and my only hope is that his shocking final ball is down more to rustiness at not having played, rather than the fact he just can’t put a good ball back in. I’m trying to remember last time he was first choice at Arsenal and what his final ball was like then, but I suspect my mind is playing tricks on me because I have a feeling that he’s always been a bit average when it comes to getting decent balls in to the box.

The midfield will need to have Xhaka in it, but who he partners is a conundrum, because I wouldn’t be risking Ramsey today. I’d be giving Elneny the role alongside the Swiss and effectively tell him that he needs to pick up any loose balls and be the mobile unit to Xhaka’s polished passing performance.

In front of them will be Ozil and Alexis, but I wonder if Welbeck comes in or if Arsene sticks with Giroud. The Frenchman may have played well against Stoke and got a decent assist against Sunderland, but it has to be Welbeck for the final and given there’s a week between games, Danny can afford to play both. Let’s hope that Arsene sees it that way too.

As for Everton, well, we all know Koeman likes to spoil a party and so it really wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the Dutchman came with the full intention of ruining Arsene’s attempt at top four. The Everton fans would probably not mind if they lost and we managed to finish above Liverpool, but Koeman himself will not see that as an option. He’ll play his strongest team and for us that means we’ll have to marshal Lukaku well, whilst ensuring Barkley doesn’t pick up space in the pocket in between our defence and midfield. The back three can help in that regard, but with Elneny in the side he’ll also close down any space, which would mean Barkley being forced in to errors. If you give him time and space he can be a threat but Elneny is the kind of busy bee that can be a real pain in the arse for players like Barkley. You can see how both teams will probably line up here.

They will look to win the midfield battle with Schneiderlin and Gueye, but I suspect we’ll see those two sitting more in front of the back four as a protection option, rather than impacting the play further cup the pitch.

Form wise this game is important for us in prep for the cup final and Everton’s form is pretty poor so we should expect to win today. But football rarely goes to plan, especially with Arsenal and especially this season, son we can’t take anything for granted. So the players just need to go out there, get the job done, then focus on the cup final next weekend.

Catch you tomorrow.

I say oddly because quite frankly, it is, as we don’t really share anything in common with the Potters other than a mutual dislike of them. They hate us because we had the temerity to be angry at one of their thugs breaking one of our players legs, then claiming ignorance for a few seasons afterwards, even continuing to go heavy-handed (and sometimes illegally in the laws of the game – yet getting away with it) in subsequent seasons. I’m thinking a particularly nasty challenge on Greedybayor a few years back by Shawcross, or pretty much any time Charlie Adam has stepped on to the pitch to play us. I’d be shocked if the Scottish poisoned dwarf isn’t playing today, just because Hughes knows he’s good for a few nasty challenges that for some reason he often gets away with.

We’ve got a good record against Stoke at home, but when it comes to their gaff, we’re horrendous. I have no idea why. We’ve gone to other more difficult places than Stoke and still come away with victories, so quite why we’ve only managed one win since they came to the Premier League – and that was when they were down to ten men after the Ramsey/Shawcross incident – is a bit of a mystery to me. But Stoke have always seemed to have had our number at the Brittania, so quite why all the pundits are chalking this up as a comfortable win is a bit beyond me, if i’m honest with you.

There’s no doubt Stoke will be up for it. Their Orclings in the crowd will be baying for the usual blood and they’ll be revelling in derailing our attempt at houdini’ing our way in to the top four, so I’m expecting nothing other than a really difficult game for us. They will start fast, they will press us and with the players having already played two games since Stoke’s last match, there will be more tired legs on the Arsenal side than the Stoke one.

That’s why I’m expecting some rotation from Arsene today. I suspect he’ll keep Koscielny out as a precaution, which means Mustafi stays at the heart of the tam, whilst Monreal has been very good. Holding might be the one to step out in favour of Gabriel but if I had my choice, he’d still be in the team. He has hardly played 50 games this season and therefore is suffering from fatigue, so his young body should have recovered sufficiently for the visit to Mordor today. When i was 21 I used to play five-a-side four times a week, so Holding will be fine. I hope.

If those three remain at the back, it pretty much forces Gibbs and Bellerin in to the wing back positions. But again, Bellerin hasn’t played as much lately and Gibbs has hardly played all season, so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem from a fatigue perspective. It is quite obvious now that this formation has a reliance on the wing backs getting forward and tucking in when defending, so by having two guys who should be well rested enough to play with the intensity that is required of the game and the position, it’s a positive point for us going in to the game today.

Midfield should continue with Xhaka and Ramsey I think, because it’s ben working so well but not only that, because other variations haven’t really worked. Coquelin is budget and we all know it. Elneny gets across the pitch and is a bit more polished than the French midfielder, but he doesn’t really do what Xhaka or Ramsey does, so if either of those players start then we won’t get the same dynamism that we do from the Swiss/Welsh axis in our midfield. The hope is that the team, stadium and the fact he’s had plenty of time injured this season, galvanises Ramsey in to another good game. Chaka will certainly have his back if there’s a ruck or two, that’s for sure.

The three in front of them will most like involve Ozil and Alexis, but I wonder who will be up top. I have a feeling that Welbeck doesn’t start today. Arsene has been managing him well in terms of fitness since he returns and he’ll be mindful that three games in a week might be too much. So I think Giroud will make the starting line up. It’s the wrong call for me. Gird is clearly a fantastic impact player and having him on from the start will be meat and drink for Shawcross et al; a non-mobile striker in our formation doesn’t work, which is why i’d love to see Perez and Alexis rotating in that central position. But Perez is clearly somebody Arsene doesn’t fancy and whilst we can all argue at how Arsene’s foolish pride and stubbornness is depriving us of a good player who could help, there’s not really a lot we can do, so the only other option would be Theo or Iwobi with Alexis up top.

I just pray it isn’t Theo. His form has nose dived when he’s played recently and in a game where you need your players to front up, Walcott is exactly the type of player who goes totally AWOL in a game like this. He wouldn’t even be on the bus for an away trip to Stoke for me. But he will be. More fool Arsene.

Stoke’s threats are clear: Arnautovich is a powerful handful. Shaquiri has that bit of guile from their right hand side, whilst Berahino will be looking to re-establish his goalscoring touch from the front. We know about his pace so it will be important that he isn’t left isolated with any of out back three. If he is, I fear he could skin us a few times, so Petr Cech might need to continue his good form in between the sticks.

Nothing other than a win today keeps hope alive. A draw will almost certainly mean we’re out of the top four race. A defeat renders the final two games dead rubbers. A victory may at least give us hope until West Ham lose to Liverpool tomorrow, but at least it would give that hope and hopefully lay to rest the demon that is our form away to Stoke.

Come on you rip roaring gunners.

I had hope ahead of yesterday’s game. I believed the players we had were capable of getting a result from a technical ability point of view, but they were not there from a mental point of view. To use a colloquialism of the modern game, that their ‘heads had gone’ when it comes to this season and certainly this manager and whilst I still think change is needed and I’m still not convinced the players are 100% in his corner, it’s clear that we’ve managed to cobble together some form. And to be honest with you, ahead of the FA Cup final, that’s all I’ve really ever wanted over the last few weeks, because that is all we’re really now playing for. 

The line up was the same as the weekend’s victory against United, with only the injured Koscielny being replaced by Mustafi, but the continuity in the side didn’t stop Southampton having the better of the first half. Indeed, it took a couple of fine stops from Cech to keep us level and thankfully, the Czech ‘keeper seems to have suddenly found his form. His kicking still leaves a lot to be desired of but that’s just an affliction that affects all Arsenal ‘keepers, so we’ve just gotten used to that over the years at The Arsenal, haven’t we?

So that first half then. Blimey. It didn’t half have the feeling of a pre-season friendly. The muted atmosphere, the lack of any real energy and drive from either side until about 30 minutes, with the occasional transition of possession from both sides to give the hint of something happening. To me it felt like we started how we’ve started all of our games with this new formation; we seem to be tepid and apprehensive of our opposition, preferring to keep defensive shape and not really throw any initial jabs at our opponents to test out their proverbial jaw. That happened for Boro, City, West Ham, certainly Spurs and it felt like last night against Southampton. Yet when we do decide to throw a metaphorical fist in anger and land a decent punch/chance, we seem to grow in to games a bit more. 

In that first half we had few chances and the injury to Ox was the only bit of news we could take. Wenger confirmed it’s his hammy that’s gone twangy and if that’s the case it might be a race against time for the cup final for him. It’s a shame but none of us should be surprised. I saw a Tweet last night that said he’s only ever started seven games in row for Arsenal since he joined the club, which gives an indication on his fitness levels and probably why he isn’t one of our best players by now. Fingers crossed it was a precaution though and he’s back in time for the cup final at the end of May.

It’ll give Hector a chance in this formation though and let’s be honest it’s not the worst back up we could have hoped for. He had a good game I thought, which is unsurprising because this formation allows the wing backs to take more of a pivotal position in the side getting in behind defences and I thought he and Gibbs did that well all night. Gibbs needs to sort out his end product because he seems to have trouble picking the right option all of the time, but at least we’re getting players in to those positions.

The goal coming on 60 minutes was handy though, because I was watching the game on a dodgy stream and starting to get a little agitated with the possibility of our season petering out, with me confined to watch it on a small iPhone screen. Alexis had been shocking all night again. Were he not the man that pops up with important goals for us, there wouldn’t be many calling for a renewal I don’t think. He’s looked like he’s giving the ball away even more than he’s ever done in the tail end of this season and up until his goal I was certainly quite frustrated with his play. Gesticulating all the time, yet he gives the ball away – or hangs on to it too long – more than anyone in this team sometimes. I haven’t quite reached Diaby levels of shouting “RELEASE THE EFFING BALL!” yet, but I felt it coming on as the game went on. 

But he does what Alexis does. He scored a vital goal that enabled Southampton to press forward and space to open up across the pitch, which gave us opportunities like the second goal. Ramsey’s header after Alexis’ chip was perfectly weighted for Ollie G and I found myself fist pumping the air again. I like that feeling. I like feeling joy rather than relief, or despair, when it comes to The Arsenal.

In that second half, after we’d thrown a few initial punches and realised we were in a match, we looked more like a side that could go on and win the match, I thought. We’re still a little disjointed going forward and Welbeck and Özil did okayish, but the defensive solidity does afford us the ability to have a slower build up in games. We haven’t been conceding early and giving ourselves mountains to climb in matches and that’s allowing us to grow in to games and kick on and get results. That’s a decent foundation to build on and whilst I still think fourth is beyond us – West Ham won’t do us any favours at the weekend – as I’ve been saying for some weeks this is about momentum for the cup final and the players are at least allowing us hope that we can go in to that game with a bit of form in this formation.

It would be a lengthy blog if I went in to detail on all of the players’ individual performances last night, but it’s fair to say that all of them had good games at St Mary’s. Mustafi was very good, as was Monreal and Holding, and the Xhaka/Ramsey partnership is finally looking like it’s clicking as we all thought it would at the beginning of the season. We still need to get Özil back to his best, because I think there are passes he’s not trying at the moment, possibly due to his confidence. But he’s still contributing enough to justify his inclusion in the team.

Saturday evening sees us play Stoke away at a ground we never seem to get a result at. West Ham vs Liverpool is a 2.15pm kick off on Sunday and so if by some manner of small miracle we actually get a result in Mordor, at least it puts the pressure on for them lot in Scouse Land.

And at this stage, that’s all we could ask for. 

Catch you tomorrow.

The line up was probably as you’d expect – plenty of rotation after 120 minutes of football on Sunday – but when the Sky Sports ticker appeared initially in the pub there were certainly a few raised eyebrows. Monreal and Gibbs? Of course Nacho was being used as part of the three and whilst he had another good game and got the (deflected) winning goal we can all be pleased for him, I did wonder why Big Per appears to be out in the cold. 

Still, it’s hard to argue with the team selection, when the defence has just kept a clean sheet. As I wondered yesterday morning the wing backs were essential in this game and with the energy they have to expend going forwards and backwards you could see why Arsène rotated. I thought both Gibbs and Bellerin played really well actually; both got forward and seemed to relish the ability to play as auxiliary wingers for large swathes of the game. In the first half in particular Gibbs got in behind Leicester’s full backs again and again and I thought the Englishman was the best player on the team in the first half.

However, his efforts weren’t rewarded with a goal, for which therein lies the challenge with this formation that this team are going to need to find an answer for. Whether or not it’s a personnel problem, or just getting used to the formation I don’t know, but in the final third we were pretty poor yesterday. We all knew Leicester were coming to the Emirates to frustrate, he compact and hit us on the counter and that was obvious from the first time Schmeichel picked up the ball and looked to Vardy or Mahrez for a long diagonal kick. He hit that kick all evening and it was pretty much all they had. But Gabriel seems to love this formation and with three at the back we had more than enough to cope. It was just in attack that we were having problems.

Alexis had a pretty shocking game overall, but he’s a man with a moment of magic in him, typified by his rattling of the crossbar just before halftime. However Theo Walcott was utterly anonymous all evening. If ever there was an example of how a professional footballer can go missing in plain sight, it’s Walcott, who offered little to nothing for his entire duration on the pitch. What typified the type of Theo game that we were witnessing yesterday was when Welbeck got in behind on the left, then slid a delightful ball right to the centre of the goal where the six yard spot was. It was prime poacher territory and had Welbeck, Alexis, Giroud been in the same position they would have moved in centrally for the tap in. Not Theo though, oh no, he decided to lightly trot in to the edge of the box, behind the left full back, offering no danger whatsoever, then just looking on as the ball was cleared. 

You can blame the formation if you like, but Theo has been doing this for some time and surely even Wenger has to act, sooner rather than later. Walcott being on the pitch yesterday was a waste of a player. We were effectively playing with a man down.

As is the same for Coquelin in terms of the wrong player on the pitch, although I have a tiny bit more sympathy for him because he actually has some visibility. Coquelin against Leicester is a relatively redundant exercise. He pressed and he hassled, but in truth we were totally dominant in possession and when you’re playing with the ball, Coquelin is not the man to partner the excellent Xhaka. A game like yesterday would have been better for someone like Elneny, who retains position and keeps the ball ticking over as we probe. Ramsey is a runner and offers more of a threat going forward, but he played on Sunday so I could understand why he didn’t make the starting XI. But Coquelin starting was a puzzler. 

Still, defensively we were only really troubled once in the first half, which forced an excellent save from Petr Cech as Mahrez struck from point blank range. Other than that, Cech had relatively little to do. 

So the emphasis was on our attacking play and whilst Özil was ok, Alexis and Theo weren’t, and you’d have to think given Welbeck’s impact in the last two games we’ll see him again against that horrible lot at the weekend. Actually I tell you a lie, Alexis did do something other than lose the ball, he forced the red mist to envelope Fuchs and when you’ve seen the final whistle blow you can always have a chuckle at that. And he got a fat lip for his troubles too. Har-dee-har-har. 

So it’s a win and that’s the most important thing. I don’t think we’ll get anywhere near the top four so my expectations are already low enough for the weekend, but at least we’ve seen the team pick up a bit of form, ahead of what is sure to be an massively difficult game against arguably the best team in the league (*throws up a little in mouth*). 

For now, let’s just enjoy another win, and be grateful that the side seems to have stumbled upon a set up which is helping us to get back to form. Catch you all tomorrow.

So it only seems fair that this morning that collective of players are applauded for their efforts against a Man City side who were favourites, in better form, as well as looking like they might sweep us aside in the first half at Wembley yesterday. 

What we saw in the north west London sunshine was a fighting performance which had all of the ingredients of a winning side. There was battle, there was resolute defending, there were chances taken, there was unity and there was both brilliant individual and team performances that will see us get to another Wembley Cup final against Chelski.

Arsène’s decision to stick to a back three was not completely unsurprising and Pep would probably have been half expecting it yesterday. The same team that lined up against Middlesbrough did so against City and much like the Middlesbrough game, we weren’t 100% convincing if I’m honest. City looked the form team in that first half and dominated the ball as we looked to contain and remain compact and difficult to break down. And actually, from a defensive point of view, we were. There were a few hairy moments including Sterling having a goal rightly chalked off because the ball was out of play, but I don’t remember Cech making save after save in the first half, more that City got in to good positions but never quite made us pay. 

I was with Dave Seager for the day and both of us thought it was only a matter of time before we fell behind. In that first half it just felt like it wasn’t really clicking and the way we were unable to retain possession was causing us problem after problem. But we held on until halftime and that gave us hope of an improvement in the second.

And we weren’t disappointed. From the first couple of minutes we were more cohesive as a team. We started to string passes together. And we started to create chances. The goal we were attacking was right in front of us and the ball was being seen more on this side than anywhere else. So perhaps it was inevitable that we’d concede first. 

And it was a poor goal to concede. Right from Ramsey’s poor touch to concede possession, through to Xhaka being too far up the pitch and Monreal being a little too high to allow Aguero to race through and chip over Cech, it was a sucker punch just as we were starting to get in to the game.

In yesterday’s pre match blog I spoke about the game itself being season defining. Well, I think there are also moments in games that could potentially been seen as that. That period after that City goal went in could have resulted in an Arsenal capitulation and leave us wondering what’s left of the season now. But instead we got a response from the team. The urgency was there. The desire and drive all existed and we kept plugging away at City. The Ox was fantastic on the right hand side and Nacho on the other had one of his best games in an Arsenal shirt. So perhaps it was somewhat fitting that both combined for the goal. The Ox’s cross looked like it missed everybody, but in ghosted the Spaniard and with his weaker foot he sent us in to raptures behind the goal. 

Parity restored and whilst the 3-5-2 hasn’t been perfect after two displays, there’s no doubt the wing backs worked yesterday. 

It’s fair to say we rode our luck a bit though. Toure hitting the post (props to Cech for a wonderful save) and City hitting the bar from a corner meant we were just a lick of paint away from this morning feeling very different, but perhaps we needed a little bit of fortune given the rut we’ve been in. 

On went extra time and on went Arsenal and City and up popped Alexis. He does like a Wembley goal or two, doesn’t he? This one had all of the hallmarks of a poacher in the box and whilst Welbeck stuffed his attempt, Alexis didn’t need any telling and slid the ball home to be the difference once more.

As City poured forward I felt we could have had a couple more chances to kill the game, but Özil was a little wasteful and looked very dead on his feet towards the end, so I won’t hold it against him.

This was a win that could be pivotal. Like I’ve already mentioned, I said yesterday it could be season defining. What it certainly does do is give the team a massive injection of confidence for the rest of the season. I still think that given the games we have coming up, it will be difficult for us to get anywhere near a top four spot, but at least we’ve been given this boost to give us a chance. The players will go in to training feeling that little bit taller, they’ll be looking forward to the next game and they’ll certainly be up for Leicester on Wednesday now. We’ve seen players like Gabriel perform really well and I haven’t even mentioned the excellent Rob Holding yet. 20 years old and he looks so composed on the ball. This formation is perfect for his development and we need to see him string together a number of first team appearances now to see if he can remain as composed as he has been.

We’ve finally got a bit of light at the end of the tunnel after such a period where everything looked a little bleak. Kudos to the players and the manager for giving us that yesterday.

It’s a happy Monday for Gooners everywhere. Let’s enjoy it.

Middlesbrough were the side dispatched and now in the cold light of day you can say with some comfort that they are probably almost definitely going down. Arsenal were hardly immense and at times we looked exactly like a team with such fragile confidence, but we got over the line thanks to two goals from the big money players, which is about time.

The biggest surprise of the evening came when Arsène shuffled the entire set up of his team. It just goes to show you how bad its been that Arsène felt forced in to a formation set up and with Holding given his first start in the league since the beginning of the season, as well as the Ox and Nacho deployed as wing backs, this latest roll of the dice will have no doubt pleased some.

But it didn’t really start fabulously. I thought defensively we still looked a little shaky at the back and there were times in both halves where Boro got in behind and throw our lines a little too easy. But we can be thankful that they are as poor as they are going forward because otherwise we might have come-a-cropper. It’s weird though – now that I’m sat here writing today’s blog I can’t work out in my head whether I liked this new set up or not. We still looked a little ropey, but there were some encouraging performances. Holding played well. The Ox was great on the right hand side. Ramsey even had a decent game and I don’t remember the last time I said that. Up top Arsène opted for Giroud who was hardly his best, but I thought the two behind of Özil and Alexis was interesting. 

I’m not sure whether we’ll see the same again next weekend against City, but I’d probably be a bit more excited about the change in style if this was pre season and we were trying out things. As it stands though, I think Arsène will revert back to type with the semi final, so let’s not all get too excited just yet.

We do need to give Holding more game time though. He’s shown the kind of composure that Gabriel has never really demonstrated and although he’ll make mistakes, the more game time he gets, the more he’ll be able to iron out the kinks in his game.

Ramsey and Xhaka also looked more controlling than it has done. Perhaps that’s because Boro let us have more of the ball, but at least they didn’t seem as shocking as West Brom away. 

It’s hard to call really. I’m pleased that we won – obviously – and I think I’m pleased that Arsène is trying different things to fix th situation. But I’m also a little worried that we won’t get an opponent so amiable to us for the rest of the season, so I don’t know whether we should just be shrugging our shoulders and saying “ahh, eff it” and going down this route for the rest of the season, or not. I suppose it can’t be any worse than it’s been so perhaps Arsène is in the “eff it” stage of going all in with a new playing style. If he is, at least it’s something different for us to see, as opposed to repeating the same mistakes with the same set of players and the same tactical set up.

I’m hoping that the next week sees a lot of work on the training ground from the players with this new style. You could see how much it meant to those players on the final whistle and if ever we needed a result to give us a confidence boost ahead of a vital game, this was it. 

Roll on next weekend.

Alexis was interviewed in Chile after their 3-1 win and noises started permeating the social media atmosphere back here in England yesterday early evening. 

Now all of the UK press are running with the story in which Alexis said he was happy to see out his contract, he loved the city and he wanted to be in a team with a winning mentality.

Now I don’t know about you, but whilst I know that language can be misinterpreted, that last point seems the one which might send us all into a bit of a shudder. There have been rumours of an interest from Chelski and should that be true – something that suddenly overnight seems a little more realistic than before with those comments – then it makes for worrying reading for us Arsenal fans.

Of course the other way of looking at it is that Alexis is forcing Arsenal’s hand for this summer. He’s probably wanting a big money move and perhaps he knows that Arsenal would never sell to Chelski. Well, that’s what I’m hoping anyway, because that really would cause a revolt that would probably even get the most apathetic Arsenal season ticket holders off their plus red seats in the ground. So by dropping such a hint about seeing out a contract and staying in London, perhaps Alexis is telling the club that he’ll join that horrific football club in West London for free is actually designed to push Arsenal in to selling him abroad.

I’d love to believe that it is his way of saying he’d love to stay at Arsenal, but with rumours of an announcement by Arsène to sign on again and prolong the status quo at the club for at least another two years, Arsenal hardly seems like a place where a winning mentality is on the horizon any time soon. 

I find it sad that rather than just have hope and belief a player will stay at Arsenal like I used to, all I get these days is a sense of dread and even my support for them wains a little. For example whilst I still roar on Alexis when he’s on the pitch, the fact that I’ve seen this contract saga happen so many times before, the love for the player has gone a bit and personally I hope we just ship him out as soon as the season finishes if he won’t sign. Arsenal need to give themselves as much time as possible to find a suitable – world class – striker and knowing our track record that will take all summer. So we might as well make a decision quickly in May and let everyone get on with their lives.

But that won’t happen. This club are to player negotiation what Eddie The Eagle was to winter sports. We’re a calamity of an organisation these days and when Alexis goes I have no doubt we’ll pussyfoot around a few players for a couple of months and then leave something until the last few days of the window. That’s kind of what we do. We’ve got an archaic structure with an archaic manager and archaic valuations which, whilst to the rest of the world might sound reasonable for the purchase of human capital, in the football bubble is peanuts. 

But in this instance there simply must be swift action from the club and we simply must make a decision by the end of May.

There’ll be a press conference today and Arsène will no doubt be asked about the comments and no doubt he’ll rebuff them in a carefully worded response. But at this point anything he says is just spin. He’ll talk up our chances in the cup and top four and we’ll all have to contend with the lack of transparency or future plans at the club beyond May, which will remain one of football’s biggest farces right now, because how a business entity – and let’s not forget that it’s how Kroenke and the board see this football club – can have no real plan beyond the next three months is utterly bewildering. But that’s Arsenal these days. No real direction and a captain of the ship who just won’t let go of the wheel.

Righto, off I go, for another day in the smog. Still, I go past Wembley every day and at least there’s that looming on the horizon to look forward to. But it’ll be more about the pre game craic than it will the football. Sad but true, folks, sad but true.

Laters.

So I find myself standing on a platform in West Drayton this morning, wondering what to make of tonight’s inevitable exit out of the Champions League at the hands of Bayern once more, barely able to rouse a cheer at the idea of Arsenal playing tonight.

Can the impossible happen? No. 

Will the team show some fight and self-respect? Possibly.

If they don’t will there be boo’s? Almost definitely. 

I’m not going this evening. There was an opportunity to meet with former colleagues for a work leaving party and so I took it. You can judge me if you like, I don’t really mind, but as I said a few days ago I am weary when it comes to Arsenal. So perhaps it’s best for a short break. Then I can come back for the Lincoln game ready to cheer the boys on. But right now I feel pretty low and a ‘glorious defeat’ isn’t exactly going to improve my overall mood.

Arsène will probably play a full strength team tonight, minus Özil who is apparently not ready following illness, despite the fact that he was pictured having a gay old time in training yesterday. 

Go figure.

So I suspect we’ll see the same team as Saturday, except I doubt Arsène will try to ‘go direct’ tonight and I think we’ll most likely see Alexis from the start. Normally this is the part in which I give you a run down of our team, a look in to the opposition and a bit of guesswork as to how they’ll set up but really, is there any point? We know Bayern are miles better than us. We know our players are mentally shot. We know that our defence is as leaky as a colander. We know that they’ll most likely score at least one but their game plan will be to be defensively solid and not concede at least for the first 20 minutes. If we get to the half hour mark and the scores are 0-0 or heaven forbid we’re behind, then the home crowd will turn and this could get ugly, quite fast actually. 

Sorry folks. Don’t really know what else to say. I’m just hoping that I don’t have to write another depressing piece about another capitulation tomorrow. That’s worst case scenario. Best case is that we manage to at least win the game and restore a modicum of pride. Who knows, Bayern and Ancelotti might feel generous enough to give a second or third gear performance. 

Anyway, I’m annoying myself with all of this negativity, so I’ll stop now and be back tomorrow with some thoughts on what transpires tonight.

Laters people.

I watched the Liverpool/Tottenham game at Anfield a couple of weeks back and whilst it was delightful at the time to see the Totts get swept aside, I think oh sadly it was also the blueprint that I expect the scousers to adopt against us today, because they know what they have to do to beat us.

In the reverse fixture at The Emirates at the start of the season we may have been undercooked, but regardless of that we still didn’t know how to deal with Liverpool’s high press and I’m expecting more of that this evening. Those Liverpool players will be reminded of the way they swept us aside in the first 20 minutes a few years ago and they know that mentally this Arsenal team can be as fragile as a an ancient Ming vase sometimes. So for me I think the tone of this game is set in the opening exchanges. If we turn up at Anfield and look passive, unable to keep accuracy in our passing and folding under players pressing high, then we’ll get battered. But if we can hold off Liverpool for the first 20 and grow in to the game, you never know, and that is what we all have to hope for today.

At the sharp end of the pitch is where we have to be ruthless. We have to take our chances and we have to have runners in behind. The high press tactic from Liverpool will work if the whole team presses. If that is the case, under a turnover of possession, you have to be ready to counter-strike. That’s why Leicester battered Liverpool in the score line. They played ‘rope-a-dope’ on Liverpool and with the scouse defence being what it is, it was easy pickings for the likes of Vardy.

That’s why I’m praying Arsène goes for pace and movement without the ball today. That’s why I’m hoping we see Walcott, Perez or Welbeck, either side of Alexis. My preference would definitely be Perez, because he can play off the shoulder of the last man and will make runs in behind, but I can’t work out in my own mind whether I’d like to see Walcott or Welbeck. The reason I say that is because Walcott has a better goalscoring record than Welbeck, but we all know how anonymous he can be when it comes to large sections of a football match, which won’t happen if you play Welbeck. But Welbeck isn’t as natural a finisher and will he play on the shoulder of the last man as much as Walcott? I’m not sure that he does.

So that’s why I’m thinking Walcott and Perez would be the best option in today’s game. Alexis will drop deep and want the ball, so when that happens we’ll need people ahead of him and I like the balance Lucas and Walcott could offer.

Without Özil today might also make it possible for Arsène to play those three. He’s been persisting with Iwobi out wide and it hasn’t worked for me, but if Iwobi plays in that number ten role we have a direct runner and three pacey forwards, so I’M hoping that’s where Arsène’s head is at today. Then, with the Ox and Xhaka behind him you have two players who will look for those balls in behind Liverpool’s back line, so pace and counter attack by quickly moving the ball from front to back becomes a realistic game plan and one we haven’t seen too much this season from Arsenal.

The back five will remain as is I suspect, but they are looking pretty fragile and I don’t have much hope in them holding back Liverpool’s attacking threat, so by the time we are breached, I just hope we’ve already got one, two or even three!

I’m not holding out much hope though. It’s good that the team has had time off to recharge, but we haven’t turned up for a big away game in literally years, so why change what is becoming a habitual thing? The players are capable of winning it and a victory would go some way to restoring a bit of my faith in the team, but right now I would take the dullest football match on earth for a 0-0. Psychologically I have no idea what defeat would do to this lot, but by 6pm tomorrow evening I expect every one of the teams around us to have picked up three points, so we could be staring down the barrel of 6th place by then. 

Let’s just hope the worst doesn’t come this evening.

Come on Arsenal. Show us you have some mettle.

Fair enough.

But what isn’t fair enough, is that I was already counting my chickens, before some had even laid to roost. Which is exactly the kind of mentality the players need to avoid against Sutton tonight. Because that’s the kind of thinking that’ll get us spiralling out of the cup in the worst defeat in the club’s history.

I’ve seen Wrexham beat Arsenal in 92. I got the VHS of that season and back then it was the only Arsenal video I had, so whilst watching the other 40+ games helped to water down that result when I was a kid, I still had to fast forward that particular part.

What’s different about this time is that Sutton are a non-league team, but thankfully there’s no stereotypical boggy pitch that the players need to contend with. That means the players will be able to keep the ball on the deck and hopefully make the most of their passing ability. 

Which players get the nod, however, remains to be seen. Any player with any kind of dodgy injury record needs to probably sit this one out. Welbeck played for the under-23s because of his immediate history, but the last thing we need is a mass breakdown of some players or star players, so I’m hoping that Alexis, Özil, Theo, Koscielny and the Ox are all given time off. The first two are our marquee players and if something happens to them on that pitch then we really are Donald Ducked for the season. You can argue about Mesut’s impact, but I’ll go all cliched on you and say ‘form temporary, class permanent’ in response. I think Özil will regain his impact on our game so I don’t really want to see him going down with something dodgy tonight. As for the other three, I’m not sure Kos would have played anyway, whilst Theo and the Ox have had chequered recent histories with injury, so I don’t think we should risk it.

That means my preferred line up would include Ospina in goal, Hector at right back, Musafi and Holding in the heart of it (although I think Arsène will opt for his usual hierarchical stance of Gabriel ahead of Holding) and probably Monreal at left back. If Gibbs has usurped him as first choice full back, then Nacho needs to play, having missed the last couple of games.

In midfield I’d go with Xhaka and Elneny. Elneny is better in possession than Coquelin and I think we’ll have most of the ball this evening, so having a player with a better eye for a pass would of course be preferable. Let’s also not forget that Coquelin’s last couple of games have – in my opinion – been stinkers against Hull and Bayern. So he probably needs a time out.

Iwobi’s also been poor of late, but he’s shown he can do more damage when he comes in centrally, so if we have him in at number 10, with Lucas and Jeff Reine-Adelaide either side of Giroud, it would certainly be a team senior enough to show Sutton that we’re serious about this competition. I think that side should be good enough for a strong win too, if they’ve got their heads screwed on, that is.

How Sutton will line up is a bit beyond me I’m afraid. I know the players that will play, a few of which were at Arsenal as youth products (Roarie Deacon, Craig Eastmond, Jack Jebb, etc), but in terms of a tactical breakdown I’m not too sure. I’m certainly not expecting a high press from Sutton, so I’d imagine they’re looking at defensive shape, perhaps catching Arsenal on the counter or taking advantage of our shabby defence on set pieces. They’ll know that they are massively underdogs and they’ll have to play out of their skins to get something against even a mentally battered Arsenal team, but as a fan who’s seen his team underperform all season (bar a couple of results), I’m not putting anything past this Arsenal team. Or this Sutton team for that matter.

Arsenal simply have to win. I’ve seen some people talk about big scorelines to restore some pride, but for some people that won’t be enough against a non-league team, so for me I don’t care. I just don’t want to see us sink any lower by defeat. Even a draw – whilst giving us the opportunity to finish off at the Emirates would be great – would still represent a poor result. But at least it’s preferable to the unthinkable. Being dumped out.

So the players need to be professional, put the effort in and stretch the Sutton players this evening, because they will leave gaps for us to exploit. We just need to hope the Arsenal players do so.

Catch you tomorrow. Hopefully we’re able to talk about Lincoln in the next round.

So the tone of today’s blog essentially shifted from positive to negative, then back to positive again, all in the space of the seven additional minutes at the end of the game. 

As we hit injury time my thoughts were very much that we make it hard for ourselves, but there was a grit and determination about this Arsenal team that we should be pleased about, as they ground out a difficult result in the end. Then, when Gray hit home the penalty for Burnley on 94 minutes, the tone shifted to Arsenal having shot themselves in the foot again, as is the usual story with this team every season. Deja Vu has hit us once more and like every season in the last three or four, we’ve hit the point in the year where we fall apart before inevitably picking up to secure a top four spot. Then finally, as Alexis cheekily chipped us the winner right on full time, my thoughts were of relief that the team is still in the title race, now sit second in the league and have shown the grit to grind out a win in the most dramatic of fashions.

Doesn’t this team just love a late goal though, eh? Don’t get me wrong, I love that we have that in our locker, but I do just wish we’d see a game out before we get to the 85th minute. It’s much better for my blood pressure.

Speaking of blood pressure, or blood boiling, it would be churlish of me not to talk about the key moment of the game that really did frame the ending: Xhaka’s sending off. Sometimes I have these random thoughts, and it’s easy for me to say this now, but at the beginning of the game when I saw it was Jon Moss reffing the match, I thought about the ridiculous sending off he gave to Xhaka and felt like he might do something similar yesterday. I should have tweeted that gut feeling at the time, because it would have validated my premonition, but oh well. Sure enough though, Moss got his card out, and even now I’m not sure whether I think it’s a red card. On the one hand in real time from the camera angle of the TV it looked like a two footed challenge and so I could see that Moss might have thought that. But when I saw it again from a different angle, as well as the contact Xhaka got on Defour, it looked quite soft. He barely touched the Belgian – who made a meal of it – but also it was a single foot lunge that turned in to a bit of a scissor challenge. I have seen Danny Rose do that about three or four times this season already, whilst Rojo at United has already been shown as somebody who has licence to two foot somebody without any recompense. 

So my red and white tinted specs are quite obviously going to lean in favour of Xhaka, who I thought had a decent game up until that point.

In fact, most of the team had played ok, I thought. Burnley were always going to set up as compact and defend for their lives and as soon as we hit halftime without scoring, you knew it would be the odd goal that would decide the match if we didn’t score early. And I felt like we started a little sluggishly. We controlled possession and looked in control bar a few Burnley pot-shots, but whilst Alexis was content to take all of the shots he possibly could from outside of the box, his range was a little out and so was the rest of the team. But the end of the game I think we’d had close to 30 attempts at goal, but I suspect that only half a dozen were on target.

Thankfully Mustafi decided that he wanted to continue his good form in the team and nodded us in front with a decent header. Niall Quinn blamed the Burnley defence for giving him too much space, but I actually thought that more props should be given to our German, because he was in between two Burnley defenders and still managed to guide the ball to the back post to the perfect spot away from Tom Heaton. Heaton is a great ‘keeper who I think is one of the best in the league, so he’s not getting beaten like that unless the header is perfectly placed. Perhaps there can be a question mark about putting somebody on that back post, but that’s a set up thing rather than a defensive mistake based on the movement (or lack of) of the players.

So we’re one nil up and with about 25 to go and this had all of the hallmarks of one of those games in which Burnley push forward and we catch them on the break and win two or three nil. But Xhaka’s tackle caused more grief than it should and Jon Moss – who had ignored a stonewalled penalty on Mustafi in the first half – decided to give a little something something to Burnley to make the game interesting by carding Xhaka. Then, with quite a swift and decisive decision on Coquelin in our box, he probably thought he’d stolen a point for Burnley in injury time. It was one of those silly challenges that players do sometimes. He hung his leg out, tried to quickly retract when he knew a player would take advantage, then the rest is history as we know.

Here’s a conspiracy theory though: I bet Moss knew he’d buggered up a penalty decision for Arsenal in the first half, so any opportunity to readdress the balance he was going to give, which is why he was so swift in giving us the 97th minute penno. Let’s be honest though, it was a penalty, no matter what some neutrals have tried to tell me. It was a penalty because if you put that move anywhere else on the pitch, does the ref give it as a free kick? Yes he does. So when the linesman failed to flag for a really marginal offside, the next passage of play was a penalty, regardless of what old gravel-voice thinks himself. Alexis takes, Alexis converts, three points to Arsenal and up to second place.

So the overriding feeling today is of relief. We sort of got away with it in the end, but there can be no doubt we were the better team and had Burnley not been granted two lifelines in that second half, I suspect the game will have petered out like the Chelski/Hull match did afterwards.

Next up it’s a tough away game to Southampton, before Watford at home and Chelski away and if we beat Watford and Chelski fail to beat Liverpool, it will make the game at Stamford Bridge even more scarier than it feels like it is right now.

More thoughts during the week when I get time in between rum-based cocktails.

Laters.

So after the first fifteen minutes of the game, with Aaron Ramsey having misplaced his second pass out for a throw-in, I started to dread the outcome of the game against a Swansea team who were at rock bottom in terms of confidence. 

We just couldn’t seem to get a grip of the game. It seemed like we weren’t in control and as an Arsenal fan, what we all know usually happens when we don’t have control of the ball, is that we end up shooting ourselves in the foot. 

Thankfully though, Swansea are a team who do have real deficiencies all over the pitch. After 30 minutes yesterday they had had their spell of dominance, Cech had made a save or two and we’d been able to ride out the initial storm, which allowed us to assert more dominance of the ball and the game as a whole. The team Arsène sent out began to see a little bit more of it, we began stringing passes together and on the second proper move that we’d put together, Giroud swept in the ball after an Alexis cross and Özil headed down. 

It probably wasn’t really what we deserved. We’d only had a few minutes of dominance compared to Swansea, but that’s why we’re towards the top of the league and they’re at the foot of it; because our team have the players who can take advantage. Which we did and then saw out the first half to go into the interval with a lead and an opportunity to improve on a ropey looking first half. 

It’s that midfield, you see. It just doesn’t fill me with confidence. Xhaka and Ramsey looked the same in that first half as they did against Preston and Bournemouth. We just can’t seem to gel and it all feels a little haphazard and chaotic. Teams seem to be able to slice through that midfield too easily and had we faced a team of any kind of technical prowess, I think the narrative this morning would be quite different, so perhaps we should just be thankful that this fixture has fallen when it has. When we do eventually come up against a better team, a team with whom our midfielders will need to do just as much going backwards as they do going forwards, that’s when I fear the worst with Xhaka and Ramsey. Perhaps then we’ll have Coquelin back. Perhaps then I’ll realise that actually, Coquelin does have a place in the squad, depending on the opponent.

But in the second half Arsenal did what they’ve been doing in recent weeks: they realised that they were Arsenal and they realised that actually they’re all technically quite good. Özil started to influence the play more. Xhaka and Ramsey were doing more going forward than going backwards. We started to be more controlling of the football and Swansea began to be pinned back almost immediately from the start of the second half. 

Iwobi, who I thought was one of the best players on the pitch, was getting the ball and driving it through the Swansea midfield. This allowed us to open them up a bit and where they had pressed us high up the pitch to some degree of success in the first half, this tactic didn’t work in the second, because we were breaking through the high press and after a few instances of that Swansea began to lose their shape and we were able to capitalise.

Those who only watch the goals of a game will tell you with an uneducated conviction that we were fortunate with two own goals by Swansea. But much like how a high press executely effectively will force opponents into making mistakes, our dominance in attack did the same to the Swans. We pushed them so deep as a defensive line that the second and third goals were always going to come. Giroud came off after 15 minutes of the second half and we reverted back to the style earlier in the season of more direct running at teams with the ball. The Ox, Iwobi and Alexis all showed movement and drive and we looked much better than we had in the first half. Swansea folded like a house of cards after Iwobi’s deflected finish and whilst I’ve read a few reports saying that 4-0 flattered Arsenal, I don’t really believe that at all, because I thought we could have had a lot more if we’d have taken a couple of the additional chances we had.

Scoring goals is great fun, but yesterday after the initial storm had been ridden and at 4-0, I found myself a little nervous whenever the ball went in to our half by Swansea, because I realised how much I wanted the team to keep a clean sheet. As important as scoring loads of goals is, getting the defensive side right was also important yesterday, because of the confidence it will hopefully breed in our back five. We’ve been conceding silly goals of late and so by avoiding that yesterday, the team will be feeling a lot happier across the whole XI this morning. 

I also have to give some props to Gabriel. I thought he did ok yesterday, given he’s a makeshift fullback. He still offers less going forward than Bellerin and there were times yesterday when he probably should have overlapped, where his natural instinct was to hold, but he dealt with Swansea’s pressure in the first half ok. There were a couple of mistakes, but it’s easy to forgive when the side wins 4-0, so we’ll let him off the odd errant pass.

So that’s that for this weekend. A 4-0 away win and Burnley at home to come next weekend. In the league we have two home games and that is just as well because we need to start building some momentum and picking up points again, because everyone else is, including the Spuds and the concentrated evil that is Chelski. One of Liverpool and United – or both – will drop points today and whilst I’d love to say Everton might do us a favour at home to City, I think we all know that they’re terrible, so I’m expecting nothing less than three points. All of the teams at the top are winning and so it’s a relief that we did so comprehensively too. 

We even got another 12 minutes of Welbz to enjoy. Although I do wish we’d see a little more of Lucas Perez. Oh well. Onwards we march.

 Catch you tomorrow.

Perhaps I’ve taken that for granted recently. We’d been unbeaten since the start of the season and whilst the performances haven’t always been good – sometimes downright terrible – we’ve been picking up points each time. But last night we finally came-a-cropper with a pretty inspid performance.

There’s a lot to be annoyed about last night. At the weekend the talk was about our ability to come from behind. We’ve done it a fair few times this season. But what we needed yesterday was to hold on to a lead. That particular skill went missing from our game.

Arsène named the same team as the weekend and after the first ten minutes or so, this looked like a similar performance to that of West Ham, as we dominated the possession and camped in their half. We got the goal on 20 and all was looking rosy. Except this was one of those Arsenal performances. You know the ones. You’ve seen this play out like me dozens and dozens of times. We go one up, look in control, a little bit of complacency and a failure to go for the jugular gives the opposition some hope, then eventually we find ourselves behind. Then what usually happens is we put in a little more urgency as we try to rescue a game we were in control of.

Sound familiar? Yep, sure it does, and yesterday followed that formula. Even though Everton scored on 86 minutes, we still could have rescued the game, had Iwobi’s effort not been blocked on the line and Clattenberg seen the clear penalty that Alexis had as Mirallas tripped him seconds later. But I’m not going to dwell on that, rather I’ll look at the previous forty-odd minutes in which we’d decided that we’ll just go through the motions and all will come good.

It didn’t.

I’m very frustrated this morning. Frustrated because that defeat was entirely avoidable if we’d have displayed the same level of intensity as we did against Stoke at the weekend. But also, if we’d have been a little bit stronger both physically and psychologically against an Everton team that were on their knees, confidence-wise. All it took for Everton to get more of a grip on the game was to win a couple of tackles and get the crowd going, and suddenly we looked a little bit lost. I don’t really get that. These guys are professionals. Each of them have played in hostile environments overseas and at home. So why did they wilt with a little bit of noise? It’s just a bit strange when you see a performance like that.

I’m also frustrated because Everton weren’t that good. They played long diagnals to Lukaku and yes, he won a fair share of them, but that was pretty much their plan. Long diagonals and set pieces, or balls in to the box. And we were undone by that. It was like seeing us go down to Stoke MkII. And I get that it’s a style of football, that some teams play like that and we need to accept it, but I’d have thought we’d got over the whole ‘cold night in Northen City X’ malarkey? Now we have to hear it all over again from pundits who will have nothing better to say than “Arsenal don’t like it up ’em”. 

It didn’t click yesterday, none more so than our forward line, who were pretty poor to a man. Özil had a stinker and his ‘defending’ for their winner was criminal. I saw somebody on Twitter say they’d rather he just wasn’t in the box than do what he did for their goal. Go on YouTube and watch it. It’s shameful. But it wasn’t just him who underperformed yesterday. Alexis got his goal but never really looked like he had that spark. Theo did what Theo does. He went missing and when the Ox also endures a difficult night, it compounds our attacking performance, which fizzled out after about half an hour in the match. That Iwobi chance at the end and the Özil effort over the bar is all I can remember of the second half. That’s not really good enough, is it?

Then the subs. Iwobi hardly got involved and Giroud is a guy you want competing for balls in the box. I might be wrong, but I think we put just two in after he came in. We just weren’t playing in the style that suits him and so the substitution just looked like Arsène playing his ‘ALL THE FORWARDS’ card. You’d hope for a bit more thought in your substitutions really, from a guy who’s been a manager for decades and decades, no?

And so to the manager, who said he can’t fault his players attitude, but it just didn’t work tonight. Perhaps he’s right. But when I see his teams constantly underperform against another manager like Koeman, you can’t help but think that there’s something in it when people say Arsène gets schooled by some managers. How can it be that somebody like Koeman has such a good record over a number of games, with inferior teams? You can put one, maybe two, results down to isolated incidents. But when it keeps happening year-in, year-out? Then you need to start looking at what he’s doing that has Arsène so flummoxed. 

We’ve been on a decent run, picked up plenty of points and have got ourselves within touching distance of the top. It’s Jenko means the end of the world, but with Chelski almost certain to win their next two away games, we could find ourselves nine points adrift of them by Christmas Day. With the competitiveness of the league as it is this season, it isn’t insurmountable, but it will leave us with a mountain to climb in the new year to even get close to them.

Let’s just hope the team can respond on Sunday.

So there he sat yesterday, in London Conley, probably hoping for journo after journo to ask him about why the team are so fabulous right now. And yes, there was some of that, but mainly it became a competition for the assembled hacks on who can ask the same in a slightly different way the most times.

1. Can you tell us about Özil and Alexis’ contracts?
2. Would you be able to give us an update on Alexis and Özil?
3. Contracts. Özil. Alexis. Thoughts?
4. What do you think Alexis’ dogs think about the contract situation?
5. Can you tell the fans something about the contract situation?

Blah, blah, blah. We all know the situation. It’s been said. The players are leaving it to the representatives and the club are talking to the players. As I’ve said before, I don’t have a great feeling about either of them, because this all feels a bit ‘draggy’ to me. It has a whiff of ‘final big money move’ about it and whilst the players seem happy enough on the pitch, I suspect a lot will come down to how close we are to winning the league, which I’m still not 100% convinced that mentally the team can. I love Arsène for what he’s done for our club, but I’m just not sure he knows how to build a league title winning side, sadly. And there will be plenty who will point to Leicester, but as far as I’m concerned that was some kind of glitch in the Matrix, because look at them this season.

Anyway, as I was saying, he was asked countless questions about contracts and obviously just batted them away. He’s going to have to get very Geoffrey Boycott at the metophorical crease with these questions though, because they’re going to keep coming every week and he’s going to have to keep blocking them.

At there was some talk about the football at the weekend though, to which the good news is that we might be getting Hector back for the visit of Stoke, ahead of schedule. That’s great to hear because as sturdy as Gabriel has been, let’s not forget that he’s a centre half and when you’re going makeshift with your players, you don’t want to chance fate by playing them too often out of position. So if Hector is ok, having him back will be great. 

It’ll be an early Christmas wish for Theo too I expect. He’s not been as effective in the absence of Hector – although he did score against Bournemouth – but you can tell when you watch that he built up a good rapport with our Spanish right back. So I expect he’ll be particularly happy about his return, especially when he sees that first overlap by Bellerin.

The other talk in the presser was about who we might get in the Champions League and Arsène was expectantly bullish. Why shouldn’t he be? Nine goals in your last two matches will do that to the manager. He was asked about Madrid and Bayern and whilst he fielded the question with the ease of an old pro at this, I’m sure when he asks himself the question he would prefer to avoid the two biggest guns in the second place hat. I personally wouldn’t mind Madrid. It’d be something different and by the time the game comes around we’ll either know that this is shaping up to be another groundhog season, or the team will have built up enough momentum for us to go there and be confident of a result. As Arsène himself has said, for us this time, the advantage should be in the fact that the second leg is at home. We’ve seen that not really work out for us before though, as we all know with AC Milan, so let’s not use that as a key plus point just yet though.

As for Stoke, well, the 16 minute video on the official site didn’t really go in to that much detail about the game. That really annoys me and says more about the pathetic nature of the British press. They’re all about the tittle tattle. Why can’t these pressers be conducted like they are in Italy? I’ve listened to a few podcasts that have mentioned that in Italy the journos ask questions about formations, team set ups and the thoughts around how certain players play. Why can’t we have that? Why can’t the journos ask about whether Xhaka is the deep lying playmaker that Jack was supposed to be? Or which combination in midfield Arsène thinks works best at home against teams who set up to frustrate? Or whether or not having two inverted wingers creates too much congestion at times going forward? 

Those are the kinds of questions that I’d love to have him answer. And do you know what? I bet he’d love to be asked them too. Because they’re not about the soap opera side of football. They’re about the actual football side of football.

But who am I kidding. Even the big man upstairs – santa – can’t deliver that for me. 

And on that note, I’m going to clock off, and finish watching the Grinch on my journey in to work. 

Love you all.

West Ham had their injury problems and started the game fielding an unknown youngster up top, which led me to thinking of fearful parrallels to the United game at Old Trafford last season, but after about 15 minutes I knew it would not be the same. We were dominant pretty much from the first whistle. Arsène named the expected changed side from midweek, bringing all of the big guns back, but also gave opportunities for Xhaka and the Ox to prove themselves. And both did. 

I find the Ox an enigma of a player. Yesterday’s game he was exceptional at times. He ran at defenders, was able to beat a man or two, yet at times his final ball brought a tear to an Arsenal fans eyes. At times he was so wasteful. But he didn’t hide. He didn’t shrink in to his skin and instead kept going, eventually getting his reward with a fine strike to restore our three goal cushion in the second half. He’s bagged six goals already this season. A season in which he’s been dreadful at times. A season in which his end product is still considered wasteful, yet the best gauge of a player’s end product is goals and he’s already bagged a load. It’s just weird. I can’t work it out. Good on him though. After yesterday’s performance, I expect we’ll see him again next weekend against Stoke and he’s deserved a starting place.

Xhaka too was grand. His composure on the ball, keeping things ticking over, finding long passes, that occasion outside-of-the-boot he does, all looked great and surely Arsène is now at the stage where he can’t leave the guy out?

But whilst those two were great, nobody on the pitch got near Alexis, who was simply sensational. He does lose the ball a bit in every game, but if that is the price you pay for a guy who has touches that come off and lead to goals like the second he got, then I’d pay that fee any day of the week. He’s majestic and yesterday was unplayable. His finishing was spot on, his link play was good, heck, he even weighed in with an assist by giving Mesut a tap-in to put us one up in the first half. With him playing like this we’re a totally different animal. He’s now had a few months to ‘bed in’ as a central striker and we are all reaping the rewards. His third goal yesterday was like something you try to do on the playground. A cheeky reverse step over, then giving the ‘keeper the eyes, then notching a hat trick. The guys a magician at times. He runs all day, he can finish, some of his flicks are outrageous, plus his first touch is beyond comprehension. He can turn an opposition player with one touch and a shimmy of his body. All of the media pundits are going on about Aguero, Costa, Hazard and Coutinho, but my completely biased red-tinted specs tell me that the only players worthy of comparison with our Chilean, currently lead the attacks for Barcelona and Real Madrid at the moment. Alexis is that good right now. 

Sign him up. Pay him in dog food if he wants it. Give his dogs pet insurance, dog houses, free grooming sessions, private boxes at the Emirates. We don’t care. We just need him to sign a new deal.

We need to keep him fit for as much of the season as possible. He needs to be put into some kind of cryogenic chamber until Friday. Or at lest nobody tell him we’ve got a meaningless Champions League game in midweek. We need him well-rested for The orcs in a week’s time.

Everything clicked yesterday. Mesut may not be getting the assists, but his game has evolved and he’s getting goals, much like the rest of the team actually. In 38 Premier League games last season we got 101 goals in total. We’re five games away from the halfway point in the season and we’re already on 47. I know there’s a long way to go and we may still get dry periods, but right now we’re looking so much more productive as a team. The Ox is getting some, Theo has been bagging them, Alexis has, as well as Mesut. Goals are coming from different sources and that can only be a good thing for our form and hopes of competing for the title.

Chelski’s win yesterday sent out a message, but our away victory volleyed a message back, I think. Granted the calibre of the opposition was hardly comparative, but we did what we needed to do and some, so there’s not a gooner out there today who couldn’t be a happy soul on a Sunday after a performance like that.

We march on to Basel in midweek, in which I hope we play the squad players, then it’s at home to Stoke. Things are suddenly starting to look good. Well done to the players.

On the train home I also tried to think about the players performance on an individual level and if I’m honest, I couldn’t think of one player who’d been genuinely terrible. All of our players had been at least ‘alright’, so I found it hard to put my finger on where it went wrong.

Arsène made seven changes from the PSG side so perhaps there’s an argument that changes led to a lack of cohesion and understanding, but there wasn’t much of that in the middle of the park against PSG or United the week before, so you can hardly say that we disrupted our flowing form by rotating the squad. In came Xhaka, Elneny, Monreal and the Ox, out went Iwobi, Coquelin, Giroud, Ramsey, Gibbs and even Jenkinson for the lesser-spotted-Debuchy. A player whom we’d forgotten existed. Sadly, he lasted less than 15 minutes and perhaps as a metaphor for his Arsenal career, he was off due to injury before we’d had the chance to see him. I must say I thought it bizarre that Jenkinson wasn’t even on the bench, especially when we’re playing a right back who is injury prone and hasn’t made a first team appearance in over a year. I also found it puzzling why Mustafi – who has played right back for his country – was not preferred to Gabriel as an option to shift across, but I suspect that had more to do with Arsène not wanting to break up the band in the heart of the defence.

To be fair to Gabriel he did ok, so given the circumstances I think we can be pleased, but it means Jenkinson will get another shot whether Arsène likes it or not. If I was in Jenkinson’s shoes though, I’d be well aware that this is now a shop window season, because it’s clear Arsène doesn’t fancy him. I can kind of understand that. If you get beyond the affection we all have for The Corporal because he’s one of us, he is the next level down in terms of quality, and so I can see why Debuchy was brought back in.

But anyway, back to the actual game, which was a strange one. Our gift of a first goal from the Bournemouth right back was countered only by the gift of a penalty from Mike Jones, who had a few dubious decisions he made all day. Bournemouth had been very Arsenal up until that point and until half time, having the ball and popping it around well, but not really threatening Cech too much. We seemed to be in control in the first half, aside from a five minute window after they scored their ‘penalty’, so when I went inside the stands to catch up with a few of the guys for a half time de-brief, I didn’t really know whether to have a moan or just shrug it all off.

I guess that’s the problem with football – there’s not really ever any black or white, just varying shades, when it comes to player/human performance. Yes, we weren’t great, but we weren’t terrible either.

The second half was a bit better though. We still looked a little edgy at times after we’d gone ahead again, but aside from one Benito Afobe shot, all I really remember is a couple of penalty appeals. 

Perhaps Eddie Howe was right and there wasn’t very much between the teams. Except of course that we have somebody like Alexis. Two goals, both very poachery, and our Chilean is up to double figures this season. Arsène talked him up post-match yesterday saying he’s always got another gear. I hope we’ve got another ‘0’ on his contract, because we need to keep him, especially when he’s in this kind of form. He’s a player who could look like he’s not in the game, looks slightly off and you question how tired he is, yet he can change a game in an instant and doesn’t need many chances to put the ball in the back of the net. The contract talk is going to rumble on and on whilst we tick through the season, but whilst I’m starting to become less convinced he’ll sign, Arsène is putting on a brace face and talking positively. Let’s just hope there’s some substance behind the positivity.

Let’s also have a bit of a tip of the cap for Giroud too, who notched an assist in injury time. He’s becoming quite the impact sub and his ball to Alexis was perfectly weighted for the Chilean to tap home the goal that secured the three points. There’s a reason why Alexis went in to full missionary position on Giroud with the celebration; the ball from Olivier made his job very easy indeed.

Aside from that, there really isn’t much to say, because ultimately we got the win and we’ll soon be able to see the back of the dreaded month of November. It’s Southampton in midweek in the EFL cup, followed by West Ham away, so hopefully this winning run can keep stretching on and we can start to hunt down Chelski at the top. 

See you tomorrow.

The other team news from the press conference surrounded Hector and Santi. Sadly both are out, but whilst Hector’s prognosis sounds definite – four weeks out – Santi’s is more alarming. There have been rumours of Achilles problems from the beginning of the season, so to have Arsène being so vague and admit that he’s not even back in training, worries me. There’s no doubt he has a positive impact when he’s in the squad and playing, so it’s a blow to have one of our key players out with a Rosickyesque timeframe for his return. I just hope that this isn’t one of those injuries whereby we don’t see Santi until Christmas.

For Carl Jenkinson though, Hector’s injury gives him the perfect opportunity to get a run in the team. He’s sure to play in all of the games in the run up to Christmas and I hope that he can show us that he’s a good player who can perform well as Bellerin’s deputy. The good news is that he’s already had some game time quite recently, so I expect him to hit the ground running in the first team, and there’s no better place to start than by being thrown in at the deep end against United.

A United who will be looking to continue their run of ten years without defeat at home to us in the league, and one managed by the most ghastly human in football. Unsurprisingly the press tried to stoke up comments about Jose to Arsène, who did his usual level best to dismiss them as people wanting to create controversy. I’m in no doubt, however, that Mourinho will not be as unaccomodating to the press today though, with his recent favourite way of jibing being to make sarcastic responses towards Arsène’s tenure at the club and the years without trophies. That’s just the sort of person he is and we should expect nothing else.

What we can also expect from tomorrow, will be a United team impossibly hard to break down, because that’s how he’ll set his side up. More on how we counter that in tomorrow’s pre-game blog.

For now, we just have to spend the day reading about the pre-match build up in the press, which will focus on Mourinho’s record, our shocking record up there, as well as what could befall both teams if one loses. I was feeling kind of positive earlier on in the week but for some reason now, I feel less so, with that nervous feeling in my stomach starting to increase with every moment ticking towards kick off. 

Let’s just hope that’s not a bad omen.

Righto, time for work, so he I’ll catch you in the morrow.

It just highlights to everyone how much of a talisman he is too. Without him in the side, Chile would have been missing a massive player and probably wouldn’t have had the firepower to score the goals that they did, but instead they will all be feeling happier than when they woke up yesterday morning.

The attention will now turn to his availability for Saturday and what Arsène will do. With such a heavy strapping as Alexis had, I do wonder if Arsenal have to take the hit and rest him, or even have him on the bench on Saturday lunchtime. If he’s come back from Chile with his legs in a bit of a state, he’ll no doubt be on the verge of total breakdown, so if it means we lose him for a week so his body can recover in time then we just have to do it. 

Personally, if I was Arsène I’d be heeding the warning signs and telling Alexis he’ll be on the bench on Saturday and could potentially play a part for the PSG game in a week’s time. We need him available for the December period and when those games keep coming, he will have to be squad managed anyway.

All that aside though, the fact he played does make you marvel at the human bodies ability for reconstruction, when it comes to situations like this. How a guy could be feared out for between six to eight weeks and then even play a game a week later, is unbelievable, although as I said above I guess we won’t know the full extent until he’s been tested by the Arsenal medical team.

Elsewhere there were some friendlies and Walcott got on quite early in the game due to a Lallana injury. I watched about 20 minutes of it when Theo was on an he made a few decent tackles, but I didn’t see anything else on the game so it’d be hard for me to make a decent assessment.

Laurent Koscielny played 45 minutes, Olivier Giroud got about half an hour, Mustafi annoyingly played an hour and according to Sky Sports, we’ve racked up loads more air miles than United have done this weekend. Personally I think that’s a load of old tosh, because each of these players will have been treated to first class with all of the trimmings, so I doubt any of them will be feeling all achey because they’ve been wedged in to a Ryanair flight. Sure, the sleep on a lie-flat bed in a plane isn’t a thing like your own bed at home, but I expect the players will probably be afforded a days rest on Thursday, before the team travels up north on Friday. So fatigue based on international travel shouldn’t really be a consideration I don’t think. 

What also shouldn’t be a consideration, is the choice of referee for the game on Saturday, but in their efforts to overhype everything they have made a specific news page for the fact it will be Andre Marriner. I’m sorry, but when did something like this become news?? 

Oh yes, when that reprehensible character Jose Mourinho decided to try and play mind games before the Liverpool match. Now every single United game has a focus on who the ref is. I really do dislike that Portuguese man. More than I’ve disliked almost all football managers to have walked this earth. He is a sullen, boring, grumpy and game playing man who the world probably wouldn’t be too upset about steering United into an oblivion in footballing terms. I am sure he’ll strangle the life out of the game on Saturday and probably get exactly what he wants, but the fact that he’s the root cause of most over analysis on referees this season, tells you all you need to know about that scummer.

That’s pretty much it on what’s going on at the moment. I’ve no doubt we’ll get a ‘heads up’ tomorrow at some stage, but right now we’re in Arsenal news ‘no mans land’, so I’ll say my goodbyes for another day.

Cheerio.

I’d imagine it will be the Arsenal med team and Arsène Wenger who will take the morale high ground in terms of his fitness, should he make it through tonight’s game, which means we’ll probably not see the guy at the weekend. It would be the right thing to do and whilst I’m kind of being a bit presumptuous here, it’s an educated guess that suggests it’s better to rest him for a week, than risk losing him for a couple of months. Still, we’ll have to wait until the weekend to find out from Arsène how he is, and we need to pray that nothing serious happens to him tonight.

If he doesn’t make it for Saturday, it will place added pressure on Özil to be that focal point of the team, but it will also mean the German has to potentially adapt his style from this season to last season. Michael Cox says some interesting things about the pair combining this season and whilst Giroud can still provide good foil for Özil to operate in his newer, more forward-lying role in the team, he might still find himself operating as an assist king if Olivier is positioning himself centrally, in the box, when our build up play begins. If Alexis is missing for a period of games it will be good to see what Ollie and Mesut can do to combine with one-another. In the Sunderland game we saw that Giroud can still get on the end of Özil’s balls, so I am hopeful that we can still see a good partnership that could develop between the two.

What I’m also hopeful for, is the return of Santi, because I think that could be a real confidence booster for the team ahead of another tough away day at Old Trafford. That tiny little Spaniard is a ball retention machine and Xhaka is also proving to be good in that regard, so a base of a midfield who don’t lose the ball, is the beginning of a positive and stable team set up that can give confidence to the defenders. In particular the full backs. If, as a left or right back, you know your central midfielders will be able to keep hold of the ball whilst your team has possession, you feel more comfortable in going forward. You know that if they’ve got the ball then you can supplement the attack and so if Santi and Xhaka are available and ready to start against United then I hope they do, because I think we could get some joy from our fullbacks venturing forward on Saturday, especially someone like Nacho. Fresh from scoring with Spain and having got one already at Old Trafford, it’d be interesting to see how he gets on if given the time and space in United’s box, no?

Elsewhere, it’s nice to see Gnabry hail the influence of Arsenal after his hat trick for Germany at the weekend. Whilst we can no longer claim him as our own, it’s nice to know that he still holds some positivity for the club. Like I said in my blog the other day, it’s a shame he had to jump ship so early, because he’d definitely have been given his chance this season. But I suspect that unlike Pogba, we won’t be seeing a return to Arsenal for him one day. He’s doing well at Bremen, but his rise to prominence at that team will do one thing if he’s successful, which is to secure him a move to Munich. That’s what happens to decent young German players and given the slightly questionable nature of how Munich seemed to be involved in the transfer and then not involved, I think his future is tied to Bayern if he’s successful. If he’s not successful, why would Arsenal try to re-sign him? We want the best players in the world to play for us and with all due respect to Werder Bremen, the only way we’d try to pick up a player from them would be as their star player rather than a player we’re taking a punt on.

Still, like I said, at least it’s something that he has good things to say about Arsenal.

There really isn’t much else going on right now. This international break has felt longer, more boring, fraught with more irritating news than many an international break before it. England play tonight but it’s a friendly game against Spain, to which I really couldn’t give a monkeys. I just hope all of our players return back alive.

Catch you tomorrow. Maybe some Arsenal news will start to trickle through.

Probably not. The successful delivery of my cauliflower cheese in my Sunday lunchtime roast is hardly the most riveting story in the world. Pretty much like international football. All international football brings us is misery and boredom. We’ve got a good five days before the next set of games and another round of pointless matches to pray for Arsenal players not to explode into a fiery ball of human combustion. Alexis is the main concern though. We won’t really find out until Wednesday whether his country have ripped him to shreds. But from Arsène’s perspective, he has to be planning on the United game being sans Chilean on Saturday evening. Even if Alexis plays 90 minutes, somehow isn’t injured, then gets on the plane and heads back to London, there’s no way he should be risked at Old Trafford, because we’d surely loose him for a longer period of time. The scary news is that we’re effectively down to one fit centre forward in Olivier Giroud. I mean that not as a slight on the Frenchman, but more on the fact that we started the season with four centre forwards (if you count that Arsène always had it in his mind to play Alexis through the middle), but now we’re missing Welbeck, Perez and potentially Alexis. As November reaches its midway point, it already feels a little ‘crisis’y, doesn’t it?

Perhaps I’m being melodramatic though. After all, Lucas has been posting some videos of him training and we all know that Theo has previously fancied himself as a centre forward, so we know we have options. There’s probably some added nervousness caused by the performance in the North London Derby, that we went in to the international break off the back of a disappointing result. Had we beaten that lot then we’d probably have a more positive outlook at the moment, rather than having to spend two weeks stewing on what transpired the Sunday lunchtime before last.

A quick word for Southgate, who has sent home Harry Kane from England duty. Hang on a second – when have we ever had a manager making decisions on a players welfare like that? Why does it have to be for a Tottenham player? Why aren’t we running him in to the ground as a national team? That’s what’s always happened with Arsenal?!?!

There’s not really a lot else going on. I think I’m right in saying that no Arsenal players were involved in international duty on Sunday, with most of those having played on Saturday, so we just have to cross our fingers that today and tomorrow the players all manage to get through their matches with little concern. Although we know that something is bound to happen to one of them. Even if it’s a scare. They are, after all, Arsenal players.

Righto, I’m offski. See you tomorrow.

I read both of the comments from the players over at Arseblog and the official site and perhaps I’m reading too much in to it, but it very much feels like a rally cry from our two best players. I guess that’s totally understandable, if we take the disappointment of our last game into consideration, but it also underlines to me the importance of keeping these two talismen for longer than just this season (and next if there’s contracts running down and the club don’t sell). 

Özil’s comments about always wanting Arsenal are nice and you can understand how that sort of deal for that sort of money could be done so quickly, when you hear about the talks Arsène and Mesut had whilst he was still at Madrid. Wenger clearly wanted him quite bad and when it became a reality that he was leaving Madrid, he’d already laid the foundations of the move to happen, so kudos to Arsène for that. Mesut is now in his fourth season at Arsenal and he’s talked up how happy he is and whilst his isn’t a direct “we can win the league” like Alexis’ is, It’s still good to hear such positivity even after a pants result.

It’s no surprise that Alexis mentions the word ‘running’ in his description of going for the title, as the guy is a machine, and has been since his arrival. Sadly though, sometimes machines break and it appears we’re going to have to deal with the consequence of this now, after the Chilean FA confirmed he’ll miss the first of two games for the national team this week. He’s picked up a calf injury and I think I speak for all Arsenal fans worldwide when I say:

DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM ABOUT THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL. 

He will tell the Chilean’s he’s fine. He’ll go full Monty Python Black Knight “it’s only a flesh wound” on the coaching staff there, so I hope their strong enough to think of his long term health rather than the short term gain. 

If he does play in the second match, you just know he’ll be gone until the new year, which would be a massive blow to us. Giroud has done well when coming on from the bench, but we lack mobility across the whole of the front three when he plays and that mobility is what has allowed us to flourish at times this season. There’s also the fact that teams know there are different ways Arsenal can approach games. Without Alexis they will know that we will revert to last seasons style. Granted we have more form players right now, but the back-to-back home draws have given teams a blueprint to stifle us and so I for one am just praying that Alexis is rested and comes back to us in one piece. Especially given the game we have coming up next in the league.

Calling for common sense amongst national teams is like asking Americans to make the right choice in a presidential candidate though. Just doesn’t happen these days. So I expect we’ll be greeted with some unwelcome news when Arsène next takes to his press box.

Anyway, enough of this jibber-jabber, as I need to devote some time to building my deep underground bunker that will prevent me for the evtnual nuclear holocaust that is sure to befall us now Trump is about to take charge.

Catch you all tomorrow. Maybe. 

It’s lovely to see the team popping the ball around with such consummate ease. Alright, the opposition weren’t exactly Barcelona last night, but “can only beat what’s in front of you” etc, etc, yada-yada-yada…

It all felt very reminiscent of Saturday evening, didn’t it? I mean, we were swift in transition from front to back, we scored early, our players rotated with their positions well, which all came together beautifully to give us the first three points of the Champions League season and a team that seems to have found its ryhtmn both domestically and on the European stage.

I liked what I saw. Ok, we should have probably have won the game 14-0, but we’re not playing Harlow Council under-11 division 2 stuff here boys and girls. This is Europe’s top competition and sometimes you just need to appreciate that your team is dominant and be happy for the three points.

The initial reaction to the team line up wasn’t really one with any surprises, wit Ospina and Xhaka starting, as we probably could have all guessed. Big Dave O didn’t really have much to do, in truth, and I found myself wondering whether he’d be happy with that of not. I mean sure, it’s great when you can say you’ve kept a clean sheet, but I bit there’s a bit of Big Dave that would have hoped to have had some worldie saves to add in to the old scrapbook. Still, none of us will complain when our ‘keeper has little to do other than kick the turf from his boots.

Xhaka however, found himself with plenty of ball time, to which I think he performed superbly. The way he pops the ball around seems effortless at times and he and Santi worked well as a partnership, I thought. Santi’s a joy to watch too though, isn’t he? His change of direction, his ability to drift past a man, it’s lovely to watch when he’s on form and anybody who thought he was finished just over a year ago, is surely wondering why they would ever think such madness.

Everything is clicking at the moment and for that first half we got another display of quick movement, passing and a nice early goal set the tone for the evening, ensuring that our opponents do not just sit back and contain for a goalless draw. When you score early against opponents like Basel, I always feel it does make life a little easier, as you have to draw them out. Basel didn’t know whether to stick or twist so when Theo nodded in that first, I think deep down, most of us knew that it was probably game over.

Perhaps that seems a little premature to say and perhaps its laced with a little too much hindsight, but defensively we looked so good as well, which is why I never really felt too worried all evening. Koscielny and Mustafi are building a very tidy partnership in the heart of that defence I must say. Both are aggressive in the tackle and they’re complimenting each other well. Whilst the opponents were hardly going to trouble us all evening, you still have to do the business by maintaining shape and discipline and I thought both did that. 

In attack we also had the team purring and for the second game in a row we saw the benefits of a mobile front three. It’s like Theo has suddenly realised the positions that Alexis is operating, so has taken the responsibility to tuck in and fill that centre forward void when Alexis goes wandering. And he’s profiting from it too. His goal on Saturday was from a centre forwards position and his first goal last night was the same. His second goal was very much of a Walcott right wing vintage and as soon as the net rippled I really did feel like it was all over. 

Thereafter it became a game that I hope we see more of this season: an exercise in control. We retained possession, our passing was slick and we were able to dominate the thirds of the pitch. We could have scored many more, but it’s ok not to be too worried about the fact that we didn’t, when you know that the job had already been done and the players didn’t need to force the issue. It was the same on Saturday too. We knew the result was ours if we remain tight at the back and so on Saturday we let Chelski play the ball in front of us and last night at times we let Basel have a touch. But not for long, because it felt like we had the ball a lot more than they did throughout the game.

I’m liking the confidence and swagger at the moment. When this Arsenal engine is firing on all cylinders it’s a joy to watch, as players find pockets of space to play the ball in to, knowing a teammate will get to the ball ahead of the opponent. But it’s not just the passing that is working, the pressing is too, and last night I saw us win the ball a lot higher up the pitch at times, especially compared to last season.

Arsène is right to play down our ability to win the league or Champions League. We have to have another dozen games where we haven’t lost before we can start talking about real momentum, but the important thing is that we’re winning and playing well now, which is enabling us to build some momentum.

Long may that continue.