Bit of a delayed post from me today. I booked meself off for a day of rest, relaxation and recuperation with the missus, after running a half marathon yesterday. These ageing limbs certainly can’t do what they did ten years ago, I can tell you.

The after effects of said marathon can also be felt in my own Arsenal musings. Firstly, I ran around Wembley at the halfway stage and boy, it is massive. You do get a sense of perspective when you’re pitch side and I can kinda see why some players could potentially be inhibited by the sheer size of it and the noise when it’s full. I suppose we should be thankful that the players have now experienced it and will not be overawed by it when they play there in a few weeks. 

But the fact I wasn’t able to blog yesterday because I was running, then knackered from the running, means I haven’t really had much chance to compose some thoughts on the West Ham game. I suppose the most important thing is the three points, but aside from the factual, I thought the performance was another ‘different’ one to add to our reportoire. Since just before Christmas we seemed to have developed this fabulous habit of winning games in different styles. There’s the ‘defend the gates’ performance like City away, there’s the ‘swashbuckling’ performance like Villa at home, then there’s the ‘patience is a virtue’ performance like Saturday. West Ham knew that we were in form, but they knew their own limitations and so came to the Emirates to be as compact as possible, which has already worked for some teams this season.

If you think about it, it was working too, because had Giroud not leathered the ball home in stoppage time then it probably could have caused the team to try a little bit to hard to force the issue in front of goal. That first goal allowed for a big sigh of relief and aside from a ten minute window in the second half, the game felt relatively comfortable, looking back on it with that glorious thing called hindsight. 

About four or five weeks ago I looked at our fixtures and asserted that we were in a period of the season that could see us put together a good run that builds momentum. You can’t really argue that the manager and the players have done anything else other than exactly what has been asked of them. Both league and domestic cup form have got us to a point where people are starting to talk about the ridiculous notion of a league title assault. It’s fanciful in the extreme but totally welcome for us and although I don’t think we will pick up that league trophy, if we won all of our remaining games I think we’d get close. I still don’t think we’d win the league even with a max points haul, but if we’re within three points or so come the end of the season, you’d have to argue that it’s been a successful one given the start. Of course, the FA Cup needs to be won too! 

The return to form of Rambo was nice to see too, wasn’t it? He was his old effervescent self and capped a good performance with a fine team goal. Unlike Theo, Ramsey will give his manager one heck of a selection headache tomorrow night, because picking three from Coquelin, Cazorla, Özil and even Rosicky, isn’t exactly easy. But better that than wandering around London Colney looking to find any stray midfielders that have working limbs, so I’m sure Arsène is happy with his dilemma.

We’ll probably get some team news today ahead of the Monaco game, but mentally I’ve already written it off, so as far as I’m concerned we should probably rotate a bit and see if we can make the end of the season a successful one from our home travails more than anything else. Monaco are not a great team but they caught us on a very bad day and in the Champions League you don’t get the chance to redeem yourself – hardly ever – in the second leg if you’ve fudged the first.

I just hope we can keep the momentum of the team going by winning the game and going in to the Newcastle performance with confidence.

Back tomorrow.