BEWARE: PHASE 5 CATASTROPHIZERS ARE LURKING
Welcome to Monday, dearest friends, how are you holding up? Good, I hope. In an uncertain world, Arsenal, right now, are the main pool of joy for many of us.
My Arsenal family lost a great woman this weekend, so I wanted to start this post by sending some love to them. There’s nothing harder than losing someone you care deeply for, but there’s a comfort in knowing you did right by that person. Looked after them in the good times and the hard. And made sure that, despite their total lack of interest in Arsenal, you always kept them up to date with your feelings on the club at all times. We all have people in our lives who show their true love by pretending to be interested. My Arsenal family did that for their matriarch… and through her, she inadvertently connected her Arsenal-loving sons and grandsons with my dad and his sons… a later-in-life gift that has never stopped giving. Rest in peace ❤️ x
Ok, so what to talk about today?
Guts.
Yeah, we’re going to talk about your strength. Your character. Your courage. Are you a mentality monster?
Of course you are. I know you just received the push notification for Le Grove, you exited your 2026 budget approval meeting for a “bathroom break,” and now you’re reading 1049 words of just above-average Arsenal prose like a total fiend. But this isn’t about your commitment, it’s about your friends who support Arsenal — you know, the ones with poor taste in Arsenal content who send you videos from personalities that stalk cameras after the game (not the main GC guys, friends of your partner types). Those are the people we need to talk about, because they are about to get spooked when we return after the break for Phase 5 of the season, because the winds of attention are about to blow the way of the catrophizers.
Why? Because the next phase of the season isn’t going to favor Arsenal like Block 4 did. Block 5 is hard for Arteta and the boys, and quite pleasant for Manchester City, the challengers elect, after they totally battered Liverpool yesterday and RIPd Arne Slot’s szn.
The only teams City plays in the top half of the table are… Sunderland and Palace.
Arsenal? Different story.
We return after the break with back-to-back London derbies. VERY TOUGH. Then it’s the “Unai Hates Pedro” exhibition, and we have that twice in December. Brighton is never easy, and Everton have nicked points off us a few times over the past five years.
City are about to go on a helluva run, and Arsenal are about to get clogged up with some games that have a high chance of chaos and draws. Hey, we might even lose the odd game.
Our lead at the top of the Premier League will shrink. Weak-kneed fans will claim we’re choking. People will start pointing to City’s experience. YouTube channels absolutely starved of “viral moments” will be queuing up for the weakest takes that the dimmest people you know will absolutely lap up.
But you have to be strong and you have to see the bigger picture. Easy games are followed by hard games. Teams that have weaknesses will be exposed. Manchester City have two big problems as far as I can see:
They aren’t as good as Arsenal.
They are far too dependent on Haaland.
The Premier League will have to find a resolution on the you-know-what before fans get too bought into a two-horse race.
Was that three problems? Glad you’re paying attention.
Arsenal are quite weak at the moment. Yes, I know, top of the league, keeping all the clean sheets, and I’m saying we’re weak? Yes, I am, and I’m right.
Madueke
Odegaard
Gabi Jesus
Martinelli
Big Vik
Kai Havertz
If we had half those players available for Sunderland, it’s a different game. If Liverpool were missing that many players, how bad do you think their form would be? If City were missing their Big Vik equivalent, they’d be done.
What Arsenal are doing, given the circumstances injury-wise, has been exceptional. If you were banging the table in the summer saying NO EXCUSES, well, this moment we’re in has exemplified how NO EXCUSES our performances have been, because missing that many big names is a serious mitigating circumstance.
The cavalry is returning, but it won’t be until mid-December that we’ll be up to speed. I think you’re dreaming if you think any of the supposed returning players for the Spurs game will be fit enough to start. Slowly but surely, we’ll be gaining new options on the bench, which gives us the chance to be more unpredictable with more experienced players.
My belief is Arsenal will have to start the Spurs game with Merino. I just don’t think players returning fast is the sort of luck we’ve been gifted. But I think we can still take them down with Merino. Arsenal were sensational in the second half against Sunderland. We didn’t lack for creativity or open-play bombast. We just didn’t have the luck. If that game was in the Champions League, I think both Sunderland’s goals are chalked off, and I would wager my house that Daniel Ballard gets a red card for that errant elbow.
As one of the strong ones (you), your job is to counter the weak knees, be a stable shoulder, like a designated driver at a stag do. Too many fans I know thought this season would be easy because we deserve an easy Premier League win. That was never going to be the case. Too much money has been spent on great players for there ever to be an easy Premier League season. City have the best striker in the world, juicing himself with raw milk, flexing with the confidence only someone dabbling in YouTube fame could possess.
But Arsenal is the monster of this league campaign. We have the best squad. The momentum is still with us. We’re the team most likely to get better as the season powers on… and don’t forget, the players returning from injury will be better rested, so they should be fresher during the crunch period.
Ok, how you feeling? Good. Let’s snub out those catastrophe fires like those really cool fire planes that scoop water from lakes.
See you in the comments. x