I’d forgotten how stressful this all is
Nottingham Forest 0-0 Arsenal
How naive and, frankly, forgetful I am. There I was thinking we might find a way of making this all a bit less stressful than it needs to be. Two goalless draws later…
It’s not that we’re not well placed – that’s positively not what I’m saying, despite the double negatives – but by god this team knows how to put us through the ringer.
I’ve probably lived through about 8 proper title races (not just us farting around on the edges, grunting, which I’ve seen plenty of too) and I honestly don’t know if it’s worse this season or if it’s always been like this.
I certainly think that a) 22 years b) three times a bridesmaid c) who we’re up against have parachuted additional nerves into this one, but I don’t think that d) our inability to really put our feet on the gas and e) our lack of a prolific striker have helped my tender emotional state either.
Surely I was a bag of angst during the invincible season too? I had a look through some of my blog posts of that season and I seem remarkably upbeat throughout. When we got dumped out of the FA Cup that year, I said this:
“We cannot play Harlem Globetrotter football every match, and we must be allowed off-days; the players are only human beings. Furthermore, we have three more games this week, and our players are already feeling the physical strain of their achievements.”
How measured is that! There are some truths in there that ring true today. No team can be brilliant week after week (City have taken 3 points from 12, lest we forget), and January’s schedule is ludicrous.
But the Harlem Globetrotters part is interesting too, and may be playing a part in my nerves. We’re a fantastic defensive team, and have options and depth all over the park that we could only have dreamed of in years gone by. We’re seven points clear, for god’s sake. We’re in a great position.
But – and maybe it’s because the standard in the league is so high, or maybe we just haven’t quite found our magic attacking formula yet – every point feels like hard work at the moment.
Or maybe that’s just the way it always was, and always will be, when you’re in a title race.