LOOKING FORWARD

The dust won’t settle… we’re in a sandstorm of an end of season and we’re still alive in the two competitions we care about the most.

Are we in the ideal state? Absolutely not. The Man City game might have us as favourites with the AI-powered stats nerds, but we all know what the stalking horse of Manchester City can be like. They have defied odds plenty of times in the past, they have no Champions League distractions, and they have a squad that has won the big competitions in the past.

But… we are alive.

I was shuffling through some music yesterday and a line from an artist called King Krule landed aptly.

If you’re going through hell, just keep going.

There’s no choice at this point.

If the season crumbles, then we’ll deal with it at the end of May… but if it doesn’t, I want to be able to say I was enjoying the fight, and that I was in it emotionally. Far too many ‘I’m going to leave with 7 minutes to go’ types sucking up the oxygen at the moment.

When Gary Neville is on Sky saying that Arsenal played as good a game as you can at Man City, you have to take a beat. Man City had the rub, Arsenal did not. Khusanov playing Kai Havertz instead of the ball would have been a red against Arsenal… in fact, we’ve seen it with Saliba at Bournemouth in the past. We’ve had referees pouring back through phases of play to find issues with Arsenal goals, yet somehow, they all missed Haaland wrestling with Gabriel to score the second goal. Remember Fulham and catching that offside in the build up? VAR rummaging for minutes to disallow the Gyokeres Everton goal?

Arsenal had 4 big chances and they f*cked them all. Finishing in big moments is still a curse for Arsenal. If the season doesn’t prove a successful one, we will, without doubt, look at the attacking recruits from the summer and ask big questions. People say, if we win the Premier League, it’s all ok… and I have to disagree, big questions still need to be asked about how we spent £300m the way we did last window. Big questions need to be asked about how we made Arteta king and let him choose his own Sporting Director. Big questions have to be asked about how we ended up with a striker not fit for purpose in the Premier League after searching for 3 seasons. Especially when the data pointed to this sort of outcome. Big questions have to be asked about how we spent £55m on Madueke, knowing a player like Semenyo could have been available for £10m more. Could we have reconfigured the money we spent on 8 players to go on 5… and maybe doubled down on quality over quantity?

These are big questions that we’ll need to ask regardless of outcome because with better quality, we’d probably be 10 points better off this season. We all know it. That we’re in a situation where the best attacker to bring of the bench at City was, without doubt, a 16 year old… is a high crime.

The biggest question that Arteta never seems to have to answer for is how he manages his squad of players. The major factor in any failing we have this season will be player fitness again… or the lack of it. Is there any club, bar Tottenham, who have suffered as many injuries to key players as Arsenal? Three players that make Arsenal tick are Kai, Odegaard, and Saka. They are rarely available, and when they are, we’re asking questions of their fitness. Then there’s the lack of rotation, and the overtraining I’ve been talking about for years that is now in mainstream media. April is always our worst month because that’s when the chickens come home to roost.

I thought we had a squad to compete for four trophies this season — and that proved wrong by one. It is amusing that so many people flag that comment, like my meaning was ‘we’re going to win the quad’… my point was, we have a squad big enough to go far, without deep breakage. Well, that didn’t prove right. But there are some factors there. Ethan was bombed off early. Myles has barely played. Calafiori breaks every 4 games. Norgaard was a huge waste of money. Ben White has given his body to Arsenal, now it’s broken, and he’s not trusted to start over a centre back in a major game.

The only godsend has been the five players that make up our defensive core have been pretty much invincible all season.

But… we are where we are… and squad wise, things could be looking up.

Saka and Timber should be available for this game at the weekend and that gives the team a whole new dynamic. We don’t have to watch a striker who doesn’t register a shot 45% of the time. Saka’s incredible output will have a target man who can bring players into the game. We’ll have the best right back at the club making us more secure all over the park. Martin Odegaard was brilliant at City, he needs to get back to his best for the summer, he’ll be in the mood to carry us over the line. I also think the boys will feel hard done by over that City result, rather than broken.

They have a choice. Be heroes. Gut it out until the end. Make history in the Champions League.

Or be tarred with all the standard media nonsense that happens when Arsenal miss out again.

I’m going to believe that City will drop points. 6 wins on the bounce against some really good teams with jobs to be done would be extraordinary. There are going to be misses.

I’m also going to believe that one of the most consistent teams in the world is going to get its bouncebackability on and deliver something special.

I’d rather spend the next 5 weeks in the world of hope, than burying myself in preemptive misery. Again, people giving up on players they say have no character are kind of telling on themselves. It really is a scene to read grown adults cry about mentality as they commit seppuku on the internet before the fat lady sings.

Not going to be me.

We have a HUGE game against Newcastle this weekend to regain our footing. This is a very bad team who have been hammered by Barcelona and lost their last three on the bounce. A good performance there will set us up for a historic game in Madrid. Plenty to look forward to.

See you in the comments. Therapy with Jacob out later. x