Why am I telling you this? Well, obviously, because that’s what’s happened today, but it’s also a question I’ve played with in my head. That question is:

If you could only guarantee one signing this summer for The Arsenal, what would it be?

It’s the sort of ‘in the pub’ question that is always an interesting one to start a debate, and whilst I can’t exactly start said debate through this one-way medium, I hope that if you are reading this today, or any day, that you pop your thoughts in the comments. It’ll be interesting to know what you’re thinking.

First, some ground rules, though, like any good ‘in the pub’ chat. You have to pick a realistic player. Somebody that Arsenal might actually sign. We’re not getting in a DeLorean and signing peak Messi. We’re not going to pay Mbappe’s wages and fee (and, frankly, I don’t think Arteta would want him if I’m honest). We can debate over how much a player will cost, but it’s your choice as to who you’d like in that one position, as it is my choice to dump down my thoughts onto this page here today.

But, as I am my mother’s son (she was an A-Level maths teacher), I will endeavour to at least walk you through my thinking as best I can, exploring all my options, before finally settling on my one choice. I did this for The Same Old Arsenal podcast the season before last, in which I got my mates on the show to talk about one player they’d want to sign, one to sell, and one that they thought would ‘bang’ in the upcoming season. This is a bit of a shorter version of that summer series.

So, firstly, the position. Where do we need to strengthen the most? There’s no doubt that if Ben White disappears, we’ll need another right back. Mosquera is a good option, but it feels like a third-choice option, much like Myles is at left-back, now that he’s found his home in central midfield. Mosquera is number two at right centre-back, number three at right-back, and I think that means plenty of game time for him. And, if the noises of Kepa having a £ 5 million release clause are true, somebody might punt for him, and we might find ourselves needing a new ‘keeper. But these don’t feel like the most pressing problems. Remember the summer in which we only signed Cech? That’s kind of what I am thinking about, and if that’s the parameters of this game, I can’t be going for a backup right-back, even if the news about Jurrien Timber being sent home from the Dutch National team are true – we just need to get Ben fit and ready for the start of the season at this rate.

***As a quick aside from our ‘pub chat’, that is a bit of a concern, because if they don’t think he can play a part until the latter stages, which would be mid-July, Arsenal must be more than a little worried about his participation for the start of next season***

I think the emergence of MLS as a central midfield option secures that part of the pitch. I also think that Merino being back adds versatility across multiple positions, including in attack, so whilst my first instinct was that I think we need somebody to replace Gabriel Jesus and shift Gyokeres one notch down on the pecking list of strikers (I still think he gets plenty of game time, by the way), I can’t stop looking at that left-wing position and thinking that’s where we need to have our number one priority.

Which is why I’m still more than a little confused about the Morgan Rogers and Morgan Gibbs-White rumours that have emerged. Two fine players, Rogers particularly bagged plenty of goals for Villa last season, but neither of those players has spent any significant time in at left wing. We’ve seen that Arteta is unwilling to shift Eze there last season, and given he’s only one year into his Arsenal career, I doubt he’ll be jettisoned after a pretty decent season last time out. The only other option if you’re signing somebody like Rogers or Gibbs-White – who has not played left-wing at all last season – is if there’s going to be a big sale like Odegaard being moved on. I just don’t see that. He leads our press, he’s the captain, and whilst I know Arteta is a ruthless man in the pursuit of success, I just don’t see this being a thing this season. It feels more likely that Arteta would phase Odegaard out over time, rather than completely cold-shoulder him.

So for me, personally, I hope these are red-herring news reports, as Arsenal look to pull off some kind of mega deal on the left wing. But what are the options? Well, according to TransferMarkt, we’re looking at:

• Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
• Vinicius Junior
• Yan Diomande
• Kenan Yıldız
• Matheus Cunha

That’s the top five, for which I think, if we’re all honest now, we’re unlikely to get at least three of those. I don’t see a world in which PSG part with Mr Unpronounceable-to-an-Englishman, Vini Junior isn’t moving from Real unless pushed, whilst Cunha is at United and even they will fight to keep him. This fella Diomande looks good though. Rapid, good with the ball at his feet, 13 goals and 10 assists and a ‘Rookie of the Year’ award in the Bundesliga. My initial thoughts on somebody like that are that the Bundesliga doesn’t really fully translate to the Premier League, but at 19, he’s going to get better, and given we haven’t had an Ivorian for a few years, I’m starting to like that as an option. He looks – by his numbers, like he’s a dribbler and somebody who can beat a man, and it does feel as though we need somebody like that on that left-hand side. Martinelli seems to have lost that verve when it comes to creating a bit of chaos, so perhaps it’s time that we did look to somebody new, fresh, with a new approach and ideas.

The challenge we might have is that it sounds like Liverpool have been close to this for a while, so I suspect they’ve already done enough groundwork. It doesn’t mean we can’t ‘swoop in’, but Liverpool aren’t Tottenham, so it might be a little too late.

I’m somebody who always leans towards that younger talent that you can then mould and, if it doesn’t work out, sell on – which is also why I’m not as hot on the two Morgan’s. They don’t play in the position we need the most, they are a little on the older side, and it does feel like we might need somebody to stake a claim in that left-wing spot as their primary position. I do think one of Martinelli or Trossard might go this summer, so if you’re asking me to pick my choice, it’d be this fella at Leipzig.

But what’s your call? Who are you thinking might be ‘the one’ that you want this summer? Let me know in the comments.

It may be Erikson’s livelihood, his job, his identity, but health has to come above everything else, and when you put yourself in his position now, I’d personally have to say he has to surely be hanging up his boots now. It will be a shame for such a talented player, but at 34, he still has a massive part of his life in front of him, and so now I’m sure he’ll be thinking about prioritising his wife, kids and family.

It did make me think about my own stresses this season, though. For some reason, this has felt the most stressful season I can ever remember. I don’t know whether that is because when we won the league last time, I was just 21 and at Uni. I’d started supporting Arsenal around 1990, and so my childhood had been a League title in 91, a double in 93, the Cup Winners Cup in 94, the Premier League title in 98, 02, an FA Cup in 03, followed by that historic Invincibles season. So from the age of eight until 21, I’d pretty much seen us win everything domestically, including one European trophy. When you’re that young, you don’t think about time, about history, you just…well…live it. That’s what I did, and so I never really got that stressed because I always thought that there would be another trophy around the corner soon enough. And yeah, we won those FA Cups in 2014, 2015 and then 2017, but by then it felt like it was merely a light relief for the itch that needed to be scratched. As I got older, as I became more obsessive, writing and podcasting about The Arsenal, my emotional attachment has grown, but running in parallel with that, so has my anxious nature as a fan.

For a few years now, I’d started to think things like “Will I EVER see Arsenal win the Premier League again?” or in the Champions League case, “EVER?” – and that seeps into your footballing experience as a fan. The result of which is that the worry and anxiety build up – especially when you get so close three times in a row – which feels like, from a stress point of view, you’ve kind of built up a bit of a pressure valve in your mind. Well, that’s my experience, anyway. And as a result of this, this season has made it even more stressful. That pressure valve was at maximum, so for it to be released this season in the way it was, felt like a massive weight had been lifted.

The wife tells me it is not healthy for me to live like I had been living; worrying over the results of not just my team, but others too. I have a Fitbit, and it tracks my heart rate – I literally burn more calories when Arsenal are on and during the normal season. All of a sudden now, with the Premier League over, my average heart rate has dropped. I feel at ease. This weekend has even felt like it was a longer one than it was – because I wasn’t worried about The Arsenal.

I think social media has had its part to play in this too. The benefits are that I have basically met all of my Arsenal mates through the likes of Twitter. I have several different people I see at games. I was at a conference a few weeks ago and bumped into one of them, which was amazing to chat and catch up in a non-Arsenal work setting. But equally, for all the good it has done for work connections, it has also increased exposure to fans of rival clubs, as well as a generation of people who video themselves ‘hate watching’ other clubs just to get clicks and hits and monetise other people’s misery. It’s a pretty shameless existence if you’re doing that to weaponise ‘banter’ as they do. And as much as I personally try to avoid it, it always pops up on my social feeds somehow. And because this approach does generate clicks and hits, it bleeds into mainstream media, and platforms idiots like Agbonlahor, Cundy and O’Hara. And because you get exposed to it, because you get tired of having to see it, you (I) end up becoming emotionally invested in it. As soon as we won the Premier League, I looked up all of the ‘banter’ I’d been sent by rival fans over the last year and started ‘cashing in the receipts’. It was fun, I enjoyed sticking it to people who have stuck it to me or us, but in reality, why did I feel the need to do it? I was almost as happy to be sticking two fingers up to people as I was that we’d won the Premier League. And so the next day I said to myself, “focus on the joy, rather than the one-upmanship” – and I’ve been trying to do it ever since (not always succeeding, mind). When you focus on the joy in life, the stress easily melts away.

When people say “It’s only a game”, you think to yourself “, yeah, ok, but you don’t really get it” – and of course, they don’t. But when you hear the news about Erikson, when I think about my own relationship with football as a fan, and when I reflect on what stress it puts me through, I do think to myself that perhaps it would be healthier if I did say that phrase to myself a little more once in a while.

Doesn’t mean I’ll stop – I can’t, because Arsenal is my drug – but at least recognising and being mindful once in a while could be a bit more useful to my overall stress levels.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Well, it looks like it’s underway now, because this morning I’ve had a little flick through my social feeds and a few websites, and there are about half a dozen names that have popped up. Morgan Rogers from Villa is the loudest one, but there was also Gabriel Jesus to Everton, Calafiori to Real Madrid, Frankfurt’s Nathaniel Brown from Leverkusen, Declan Rice to Real Madrid, Rafael Leao from AC to Arsenal, Julian Alvarez to Arsenal from Atleti, Enzo Fernandez from Arsenal to Chelsea and hilariously, Igor Thiago from Brentford to Arsenal – For £99.5million!

We all know the drill by now. Transfer rumours make clicks. Spurious links to players towards Arsenal will ‘do numbers’ and websites will try to make hay whilst we have this void between the end of the domestic season in Europe and the start of the World Cup next week. They’ll still make hay during the World Cup, but the distraction of football will mean that some people are less interested than others.

I always feel like I’m in some kind of No Man’s Land with this sort of stuff. I just can’t be arsed to entertain certain transfer rumours until certain sources start saying it. I’m not trusting MSN News for a second, for example, so I try to filter out the transfer stuff. But equally, I’m less fussed about international football and the World Cup. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll watch it when it’s on and convenient, I’ll follow, and as a person who was born and lives in England, I want to see England do well (especially given we have a few more Arsenal players in the squad these days). But I’m only partially invested. The Management won’t see my heart rate hit 130 beats per minute when watching, as I do with The Arsenal.

I probably will talk about matches I watch on here, mainly because what the World Cup does do is slow a lot of the transfer rumour stuff down. Lots of players put blockers on talking about their future, and the media obviously know this, so the value of clubs making enquiries just isn’t there until early/mid-July. I guess if you’re a player too, you’re probably getting a bit cheesed off if you’re getting phone calls from your agent whilst preparing for what is a big game for yourself, representing your international team. As buying clubs, you really don’t want to cheese off any potential new signing by disrupting them when they are focused on the World Cup, which is something you’re also going to feed back to your agent. So I think up until next Friday, we probably WILL see this flurry of news and transfer gossip, before it starts to go quiet, albeit not completely silent, from next Friday.

The funny thing is, the transfer window doesn’t open up until 15th June, which is four days after the World Cup has started. So it’ll be weird because there will probably be announcement videos, etc, for players who have done deals a week earlier, but who are now in the World Cup. Will be slightly odd for some of them I suspect, because I’m sure there are some deals that are already ‘being done’ so to speak.

Personally, I think it is good that Arsenal are in a position of strength. I think it was Mark Goldbridge who said yesterday that Arsenal could probably not sign anyone and still be in the strongest position to win the Premier League next season, and personally, I would think that’s a pretty decent shout. If you think about our situation right now, we have a stable and settled team, we have a deep squad that has been able to deal with the second-most injuries of any team last season, I believe behind Spurs (168 absences – 1 x player missing 1 x game – across the whole squad this season – which I believe was worse than last season), plus we have players who will only get better – Big Vik’s improvement in the second half of the season as he adjusted, Kai missing most of the season, MLS in midfield, Max Dowman’s emergence, etc. Even the more established players are merely just reaching their prime.

Of course, I don’t think Arsenal will, in fact, just stick with the existing squad. I think renewal is healthy, and so there will be some players who will inevitably depart whom we love. But given our position of strength as Premier League winners, this will be the first summer transfer window I personally will go into feeling super chilled, knowing that the basis of this team is there. As I said in the piece the BBC asked me to write this week, we don’t need a revolution, we just need cherries on top of cakes.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today. There’s not a lot else going on, but if you do fancy listening in later, we’ve got a crew of people together to chat to us about the season in a bit of an end-of-season-review style get-together on the Same Old Arsenal podcast. Come join us tonight if you fancy it.

Otherwise, I’ll catch you all tomorrow for some more Arsenal musings.

And inevitably, things will now start to turn to “how do we go one better?” with regards to Europe, but also how we keep our rivals at arm’s length. It does feel like there is a massive opportunity for us next season, given the transitional state of so many clubs in the Premier League. I was asked to give my views for BBC Sport on what risks Arteta might need to take to ensure we remain at the summit next season. As I said in the piece, this doesn’t have to be a revolution. There will need to be some churn; we will need to lose some players that we all love, but we also need to have faith that those who come in could be even better.

What are the risks our rivals might be fearing, though?

Let’s go down the league by placement and have a look at where each team are, shall we?

Man City

New manager and uncertainty over whether or not key players will remain. Maresca is a guy who, I think, will do a good job at City, but will he be able to drive them as much as Guardiola? Will he instigate the same period of dominance that they had before? And will the players react to him the way they did with Pep? How does following arguably the greatest ever manager in the history of English football play out for Maresca? There’s no doubt he’s in the right mould; he was in Pep’s team for a few years and so clearly knows the infrastructure well enough, but IS that enough?

He’s also got players like Rodri – a key pillar in this team – talking about “Anything related to my future will wait until after the World Cup.” – that’s hardly a ringing endorsement that everything is tip-top, is it?

I haven’t even mentioned the 115…

Man United

A lot is being made about the resurgence of United under Carrick, but it is well documented that they played the least number of games a team could play in a season. They were knocked out in the third round of the FA Cup at the first attempt for them, and the same in the EFL Cup, meaning they effectively played on average one game per season for the whole season. That will surely not happen next season. Michael Carrick will have a whole season to deliver, not just the new manager bounce approach, and I know that there are some fans who are wondering whether this is a bit of Solskjaer going on. To be fair to him, I think he’s a little more tactically astute than the Norwegian, but let’s just wait to see what happens when the first couple of defeats pop up for United, after they’ve played in the Champions League and the Premier League and haven’t had any rest time. Luke Shaw played the most amount of games for them – can he stay fit? Will Bruno Fernandez have another stat-padding season at 31-years-old? Casemiro played 35 times, and he’s off. They have a fair few questions that need to be answered, methinks.

Aston Villa

Villa are a weird one, because they’re just as likely to have another storming season as they are to absolutely crash under Emery. Do they kick on from a Europa League win? Well, they’re in the Champions League now, and so the rotation of their squad will not be as easy as it is in Europe’s second competition. When they were in the Champions League last season, they finished sixth, although it was a final-day defeat to Man United away that stopped them from getting into the Champions League, as Newcastle took the top spot. But if the news of us sniffing around Morgan Rogers is true, then if they lose him, that is a big threat disappearing from their team. In all competitions this season, he got 14 goals and 12 assists from midfield. Replacing that could be hard, unless Villa can resist any team overtures (it won’t just be us interested). They reported healthy profits off the back of the Champions League last season, but the Europa League run won’t have given them as much (as this article points out). I don’t know enough about Villa’s financial position to know whether they will be able to resist one or two big names being picked up.

Liverpool

With Slot gone, they’ll pick up Iraola, who could turn out to be a really good move. I like him; I think he is a clever guy who has done wonders at Bournemouth, but does that translate to Liverpool? I actually think it is a better move than if they’d have gone for Alonso, because Iraola knows the league. But there is no Salah. Virgil van Dijk turns 35 in July and has played in every Premier League game. Time catches up with us all. Tony Adams retired at age 35. At 34-years old and in the 2000/01 season, he played 38 games in all competitions. In the 2001/02 season, he made 13 appearances in all competitions, as age and injuries caught him up. That might not happen to van Dijk, but I’m sure if I looked hard enough, I’d find plenty of examples to show that around that age, the pace, the injuries and other aspects catch up with players. Konate still has an uncertain future, Robertson is gone, Leoni had a long-term injury, Joe Gomez is injury-prone, as is Bradley, and Frimpong seems to be a guy the Liverpool fans don’t trust as much. Ekitike was a good buy. Isak may suddenly find himself not injured, but there are so many questions about Liverpool that Iraola is going to have to deal with.

I’m not going to go through the whole league, so I’ll leave it there for today, but Bournemouth have a new manager, Sunderland and Brighton have to contend with European football, Chelsea finished 10th for Christ’s sake! So when you look at where we are right now, you have to say it feels like we’re in a good place.

Let’s just hope the club makes the right moves this summer to put us in an even more commanding position.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I was genuinely blown away by the sheer volume of Arsenal fans who took to the streets of London.

From the moment The Management and I stepped onto the Met Line train at 10.40 am yesterday, the train was packed. Arsenal fans were everywhere. By the time we got to King’s Cross, the tube was standing room only. It was crazy.

Then, as we decided to walk from King’s Cross, we realised that everyone was making the same decisions. Arsenal fans were arriving from every side road, from every corner, more and more. I’ve never seen anything like it. All ages, races, colours and creeds took to the streets to celebrate that first Premier League trophy since 2004. It was something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

We went for a lovely pub lunch, we celebrated with champagne, and we made our way to Upper Street. It was a festival atmosphere with cheering and singing, and that was something so nice to behold.

The parade itself, from my perspective, was a shambles, though. People on the street we were on broke a tree. By the time the bus came along, I was 100 deep from Upper Street. And everyone got their phones out. I got a glimpse of the bus for about 10 seconds. It was a shambles, if I’m honest. Some of that was on me; we’d thought that it wouldn’t be as bad, but where we were located was some of the busiest roads, and in the end, it felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

We did meet one of The Management’s old school friends, though, as well as go to her cousin’s new flat on Islington Park Road, so that was lovely. And we chatted to a nice couple who were bringing their three kids along, which was also really nice to see, as the kids all had different iterations of the Arsenal jerseys over the years. The youngest had the 1998 shirt, the next one had the 1999 one that always reminds me of Emmanuel Petit and those long flowing locks of his. So whilst the experience of the bus part was actually the low point of the day, the fact that this was a celebration of the Arsenal community, and a reminder of the size of our football club, was a really great spectacle to behold.

If I could have my time again I would probably do things differently, but there you go.

I’ve decided to keep today’s blog relatively short, because I am going to watch plenty of footage from other people and live vicariously through their pictures rather than mine. But now the work for Mikel Arteta goes into trying to do that all over again domestically next year, whilst also going one better in the Champions League.

Back tomorrow with some more thoughts. Catch you then.

Last season I actually went into the semi-final in a pretty confident mood. We’d beaten PSG pretty well at home, we’d already managed to vanquish Real Madrid in the previous round, so “why not PSG?” I thought. Of course, they showed us that they are made of different stuff and dispatched us in both games, scoring some pretty decent goals, to be fair. At the time, Mikel Arteta said we were the better side over the two legs, and I think you can certainly make the case for it:

• Merino’s offside goal was tight
• Dembele shins one in off the post
• Donnarumma made several fantastic saves, particularly in the second leg, where we had nearly 3 xG versus PSG’s 1.7 – of which they scored two goals.

I also think that our injury problems didn’t help. In the first leg, we played Trossard as a centre forward because we had Havertz, Jesus, AND Merino out injured, so it’s fair to say we were quite significantly underpowered for that semi. I mean, when you look at the bench, you get that feeling even more – youth team players like Butler-Oyedeji, Henry-Francis, and Kabia all made the bench last season. We were beset by injuries, and it took its toll.

This season is different, and different for a variety of reasons, for sure. Let’s start with the options Arteta has at his disposal. I’ve just mentioned that we had a bench of youth team players in that semi-final. That won’t happen this evening. We did the Same Old Arsenal preview pod last night, and Amanda and I couldn’t agree on the starting line-up, but one thing we could agree on is that it is great that we have such strength in depth. For example, this would be my lineup tonight:

Raya

Timber – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

That would be my line-up, but think about who could still play a part from the bench:

• Mosquera
• Hincapie
• Zubimendi
• Eze
• Madueke
• Martinelli
• Gyokeres
• Dowman
• Merino

You can name ten players on the bench for the Champions League matches. That’s nine I’ve just mentioned there, let alone factoring in Norgaard and Gabriel Jesus. If you factor in that you have to name two goalkeepers, there are going to be three players from that list who can’t even make the bench. That’s strength in depth. It’s very different from last season.

What’s also different, too, is that I am not going into this one expecting us to win it. I said on the preview pod 1-0 to The Arsenal, that’s what my heart wants to go with, but PSG and their firepower in attack make them the bookies’ favourite. They are the ones that are expected to retain this trophy; they are the ones who took their chances against us last season, they are the ones the neutrals will expect to win. In some perverse sense, that makes me feel more at ease about the game. It takes the pressure off. I suspect part of that is because we’ve won the league. We are already champions and winners, and there will be a parade tomorrow regardless of what happens tonight.

And I hope that the fact that the players are already Premier League winners has also unlocked them, too. Rice and Saka spoke about the fact that they feel that the weight has been lifted. They can say they are winners now. They will feel a little taller. And that confidence going into this game is huge. I hope they can play with the freedom that will surprise PSG. I hope we get the best version of The Arsenal today. And I think we will.

I also think the fact that Arteta was able to rest players last week is huge. Saka, Rice, Odegaard, Eze, Raya, Gabriel, and Saliba – all have basically not played many minutes for nearly two weeks. Any potential fatigue we could be thinking about for the team, any emotional strain, was immediately lifted on 19th May after City dropped points at Bournemouth – 11 days ago. They’ve had 11 days to prepare and focus themselves, whilst also celebrating the Premier League win. They go into this game an inch or two taller.

So whilst PSG are the favourites, they probably do edge it in terms of quality, there’s enough there for these Arsenal players to suggest that we might be able to do something special tonight. And I have no idea how I would react if we did. The Premier League trophy celebration tomorrow was enough for me, so the fact that this could happen tonight, I’m not sure what I’ll do or how I’ll react. It’ll be crazy after the game if we do win. I’m going to the screening with The Management this evening at the Emirates, the party kicking off if we win will be immense. I’d love to be part of that. I pray I can.

That’s all that needs to be said for today. It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be nerve-biting, but it is a chance for those players to etch themselves into Arsenal’s long history, to be woven into the fabric of the club for eternity.

Go out there and Make it Happen, lads. We’re all behind you.

Up The Arsenal.

But as the countdown begins, as I start to see more and more tactical preview shows, I guess it is time to put those game faces on and start to look at what lies ahead of us on Saturday evening.

It’s a scary prospect. I mean, sure, they play in a Mickey Mouse league that they’ve just won by six points and have been coasting for the last few weeks, enabling them to focus on the Champions League prep, but they are still a thoroughly impressive side. And we will – by the sounds of every European football expert out there – find ourselves as underdogs on Saturday. They have spent the season resting players at the right moment; they have the balance and blend to their season that enables them to do that, plus they have some of the most frightening attackers on the planet. In the knockout stages, they smashed Chelsea 8-2 on aggregate. They did Liverpool 4-0 on aggregate over two legs. Then there was that crazy 5-4 game against Bayern, which they followed up with a 1-1 draw at the Allianz. So they know where the net is.

But they also aren’t the tightest at the back either. In the Champions League this season, they have scored a whopping 44 goals across their 16 matches, nearly three per match. But they’ve conceded 20 – so they don’t always keep a clean sheet and they are going to leave space for us this coming weekend. We all know Arsenal’s impressive Champions League run, built on the foundations of a solid back line that has conceded just six compared to PSG’s 22, but have also ‘only’ bagged 29 from PSG’s 44. It’s also worth pointing out that we have played two games less, so perhaps that goal tally might be closer to them if we had.

What’s interesting, when you look at the numbers side-by-side, is that PSG averages a higher possession than us, which is not so surprising, but also more ball recoveries and tackles won. Because of the fact that they’ve played two games more, I looked at the ‘average per match’ on the UEFA website, and PSG averages 6.44 tackles per match compared to our 4.43. ON ball recoveries, they average 39.07, compared to our 34.86. The ‘saves’ are more similar – PSG have 2.82 to our 2.43.

So what does this tell me, the very poor data nerd in disguise? Initially, I looked at those numbers and just said out loud, “Well, they’re just better at us at most things, right?” Of course, that could be true, but it could also mean that they make more tackles per game because they put themselves in more compromising positions defensively. Teams towards the bottom of the Premier League often lead the way in things like tackles or blocked shots, because they have to do more of it by volume. Perhaps the same could be said for PSG? Or, perhaps I’m just injecting a little too much Hopium at a time in which we all might need a fair dose of it?

The number of ball recoveries, as I interpret it, could be due to a higher press from PSG. I do think they do press higher than us, and when you can force that from your opponent higher up the pitch, you get more turnovers. In the Champions League this season, we’ve tended to dominate games on possession, often just shutting down matches, so when you slow down the game, then perhaps there is a tendency to see fewer ball recoveries. I think.

There’s one more stat that I saw that I thought might be worth highlighting, which is a goalkeeping stat on the number of claims that Raya for Arsenal, or Chevalier for PSG, makes. In fewer games, Raya has made 38 claims and 19 high claims, whereas Chevalier has 18 claims and 11 high claims. Our goalie commands his box more than the PSG one – could this be an opportunity for us? Given our penchant for set pieces, I certainly hope so.

So there are a few titbits of opportunity for us, but the key will be to stop their constantly rotating and fluid front set of players. The news on Hakimi will be key, because like Calafiori (who I would play in the final, by the way), the Moroccan likes to roam and pop up in unusual places. If he isn’t available (and he’s been out since they played Bayern a month ago), then that’s a big plus for us. They also have Chevalier and Nuno Mendes, who haven’t played since then, but it wouldn’t surprise me if all of those players have basically just been given a month off to prep for this one.

So there is still a bit of team news and expected tactical set up to be concluded ahead of this one, whereas for us it is pretty much just Jurrien Timber who is the question mark. There’s no way he starts on saturday, but getting 20 minutes from him could be big, so let’s just hope for more positive updates. Apparently he was in training yesterday, so that’s great news.

Other than that, we play the waiting game as the build up to this intensifies. It was weird that Arteta did the Champions League presser last week, but I guess there will be more embargoed words that will come out from that one today or tomorrow, as the team make their way to Budapest for the last match of the season.

Right, that’s it from me for today. It’s going to be another scorcher for the UK, so I’m going to finish up here and make sure I have my set up all sorted for a day of work – outside in my garden.

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a great day.

But having seen Arsenal win the Premier League and lift the trophy? I’m still going.

The Management asked me yesterday “How long is that Arsenal flag in the lounge window going to stay up there?”, to which my retort was “A little while longer, love. We still have the Champions League”. I think she thinks that after that, it’ll come down, but if we win the darn thing…well, let’s just say, it ain’t gonna be moving for some time after that for sure.

Regardless of the result, the fact that we have that and a parade to look forward to, means that this week can just be a continuation of the party, so in a sense, I’m kind of glad the club didn’t go early by doing something yesterday. It meant I could spend more time consuming ALL THE CONTENT, messaging more friends who are Gooners, watching more videos, listening to more podcasts, all whilst soaking up the glorious sunshine.

It’s made me really reflect on how much this title means. I knew it would mean a lot, I think we all did, but I didn’t realise it would have as big an impact as it has. I didn’t realise that a full week after we learned our fate and the victory was confirmed, I’d still be revelling in it. I spoke to my brother (West Ham fan) after they won the Europa Conference League, and he was happy, but I remember him saying, “After the high of seeing and experiencing it, it’s a bit of a come down to realise that it was just a moment of joy and tomorrow is just another day”. He tried to echo those sentiments after I spoke to him last Tuesday, after the Bournemouth/City game. I couldn’t see it that way. I still don’t. This victory is amazing. It is phenomenal. It shows just how massive the club is on a global scale. There have been parties everywhere. I’ve seen clips of a preacher spelling out an acronym at a sermon, in which the acronym spells ARSENAL as he preaches the word of God, whilst also nodding to his team. I’ve seen the parties in Africa, America, and Asia. Arsenal are a truly global entity and a cultural beacon for so many people to identify with all over the world.

And as for those Arsenal players, well, they have written themselves into history. They will meet up 20 years from now and instantly have a bond that they can share and talk about. Bonded for life through the unifying force that is the football club. There’s something beautiful in that. Regardless of players who maybe haven’t played as much, like Norgaard or Gabby Jesus, they still have that bond, and there is something magical and wonderful about that.

It must be so weird for them to go to work today, though. In many ways, they’ve done the hard work, but after the parties on Sunday afternoon/evening, then probably having a day off yesterday in the sun, today it is back to London Colney, and game faces on. And I have to say I’m really intrigued as to what Arteta will do this week. I doubt we’ll get much intel, but he has to bring those players back down to earth, as well as prepare them for a huge game in just four days. A game which could take them over and above any of their Arsenal title-winning predecessors. Arteta will be focused on how PSG set up, what Arsenal need to do to counter their obvious strengths, as well as amplifying our own strengths against them. Will he lean in to some ‘revenge’ narrative from last season’s semi-final defeat? Maybe. Maybe he’ll use that as fuel?

I think there will be an element of it, but I also think that having a solid two or three days to prepare for this big opponent will be big for him. The players and manager often talk about not really getting time to do much training. Well, they will this week. I suspect they’ll leave London for Budapest on Friday morning, which means Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday can be spent running through scenarios, working out team strategies, and getting the players in a fitness situation where they are good to go. The likes of Merino coming back for minutes on the pitch on Sunday would be welcome, but so too would be Timber in training. I suspect his ability to play a significant part will be limited, but just having them there will be great for the players and coaching staff.

And I guess we as fans will need to get our game faces on too. This is the biggest single club competition game in world football. I’ve been approaching it as a ‘nice-to-have’; a ‘free hit’ if you will. But come Friday and Saturday, I wonder if the usual nerves have started to kick in? They aren’t here now, it is weird to think that they might not be there at all, because of the Premier League win. But I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, there’s more basking in the sun to be done.

Catch you all tomorrow for some more thoughts.

<<< Oh, wait, no, I was wrong. He did both yesterday. I can’t be arsed to delete all of the above text, so I’ll just leave it in there. >>>

And here we go. I am still on Cloud Nine, but today I’m thinking about Super Mik Arteta. He knew exactly what we needed. And he delivered it to us. He has overseen something special, and he and his players have been able to deliver happiness to millions of fans around the world. I watched a video of him talking about his wife with a Sky Sports reporter in one of their video rooms, and it was genuinely lovely to see him give her praise, to talk about how much she means. You could see he was welling up when he was speaking about the emotions of the moment.

There are idiot rival fans and pundits that say idiotic things about Arteta like “I hate him. he’s so annoying, waving his arms up and down and running around on the touchline like a maniac”, which is exactly what Klopp used to do – with an added feature of snarling at third officials with those massive chompers of his. They completely ignore how he talks about his players, they don’t watch the interviews like that, they ignore his innovative ideas and how he’s constantly having to evolve and change Arsenal’s game to keep us a neck ahead. They focus on one attribute, and they ignore everything else.

But if they actually took the time to see what this man has achieved, how he has turned us from a divided fanbase into one that mobilised outside the armoury in an estimated 100,000 army in a matter of a couple of hours – unprompted – then, even deep down, I guarantee they would appreciate and give respect for what he has achieved. The “He ain’t won nuffing tho” crowd are finished. Rising from their ashes should be a begrudging collective of people who frustratingly acknowledge his status as an elite manager.

Arteta recalling the moment he found out was lovely. With his family, in the garden, the kids are crying, all hugging. Beautiful stuff. And then when he said he got a video from Martin Odegaard saying “Boss – come out” – that was lovely too. There’s plenty of talk about Arteta and his ‘antics’, but he is a man who recognised that in that moment it was better for the players to have the unbridled joy of being champions themselves, without their manager. He is ‘the boss’ after all.

He did deliver some team news and the best of all was that Mikel Merino is back in full training. That’s great. I suspect he might get a token 10 or 15 minutes at the weekend, then it means he has a chance to be available for the matchday squad in the Champions League in a week. Timber, too is getting there, but he wasn’t pictured in training yesterday, with Mikel admitting it would be a ‘few days’ before he is ready. I wonder if they will try to get him in there for Sunday? There is another training session today, which won’t be filmed, but if he can be with the group then that would be great. It does feel like he’s close. He was out on the pre-match walkabout pre-Burnley, so I just wonder if they’ll think about getting him in on the bench for Sunday, to give him hopes of making the squad for the final.

The rest of the stuff he said was about the journey, which he admitted was a tough start for us, and it’s funny because you don’t realise all of those highs and lows whilst you’re still basking. But there have been so many. I remember after we got over that initial tough period of games intact and still up there, thinking “that’s a great foundation to build on”, and, ultimately, it was. We have pretty much been top of the league for the whole season. We took it off Liverpool in match week seven and never looked back. We had wobbles, particularly in 2026, but the team course-corrected on several occasions and were able to hold off City’s title charge attempt. It takes some mental toll to be leading the whole time, especially after what happened in 2022/23, as well as us being chased down in 2023/24 like we were. But this time, this group of players and the manager held their nerve, and we are all in ecstasy because of it.

He also talked about a story in which, at the start of the season, they gathered around a tree he asked to be planted when he arrived, to symbolise the growth journey they had to go on. I love things like this. The little innovations that Arteta tries. I’ve seen people suggest it is a little David Brenty, but I think that belies the reality of what Arteta needs to do to motivate a team of professional athletes. These are young men in their 20s/30s. If you deliver the same message in the same way every week, they will become blinded to it. Mikel Arteta is a tactical innovator, but he’s also a ‘details’ guy. Yes, that includes things like set-pieces, throw-ins, stuff that happens on the pitch, etc. But he also understands the psychology of the modern-day footballers. These guys have to be motivated and stimulated mentally, as well as on the training ground, so he is constantly finding new approaches, new ways to challenge their minds, and it has manifested itself with the Premier League title this week – a reward for statistically being the best team in the Premier League on points for the last three seasons anyway.

I salute you Mikel. Thank you for everything.

And in yesterday’s blog I did say there would be a time to bust out the ‘receipts’ for all of those fans.

Today needs to be a bit of that I think. Not least because I was looking at Sky Sports this morning as I was getting changed and saw a video of this bottle wanker talking outside of the City ground. I have never heard such revisionist bullshit in my entire life. You could see he intended to do this video as a “fair kop, I’ve done meself up a kipper here” to start off with, but then he waffled on about being ‘rent free’ in everyone associated with Arsenal’s heads. Like it ius some kind of consolation. Some kind of small victory he can take.

“Rent free”. You can have space in my head my friend. I am literally happy to give it to you. I don’t care. You wanted to make a name for yourself, you thought you were hilarious, then when it has backfired, you’re now rowing back with this faux “it was only banter” nonsense, which also included saying “I never said tears”. Technically, I guess you are right, you didn’t “say” anything of the sort. You just decided that your moment of fame needed to be doubled down on after you beat us by filming yourself pretending to cry tears into an Arsenal bottle.

You have reaped what you have sown, my friend. Now don’t try to dial it back because your actions have backfired so spectacularly.

Rent free.

Yep – you have a special place in this season and this summer’s ‘banter’ logs. You are welcome to it.

He’s just the culmination of what I talked about yesterday, though; the ‘weaponized banter’ age brought about in the main by social media and the ability for anybody to go ‘viral’. And if you’re going to go viral, if you’re going to be part of that scene, you need to be able to laugh it off and hold your hands up. I think he tried in that video yesterday, I really do, but ultimately he couldn’t help himself. He had to ‘yeah but’ like everyone else who plays in that arena. And it’s because of that ‘Yeah but-ary’ that I’m even talking about him this morning. He is a twat who can’t just hold his hands up.

As for me, well, I’m still celebrating. I’m off to a conference today, which, if I’m honest, I could really do without. The management and I shared a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, two bottles of primitivo, as well as a Chinon, before we finally hit the hay, such was the jubilation. I’ve booked myself somewhere for lunch on the parade day, as the wife and I will be making our way towards Islington Town Hall to celebrate the title win. And hey, who knows, maybe there will be a second trophy on display too? That’d be nice.

On the Champions League, I still find it so weird that I’ve barely registered it or thought about it since the Atletico game. All my energy, mental faculties, focus, and will have gone into the Premier League. That was the one I wanted. I craved. And now it is done, I am still just so happy. And yet if you are one of those Arsenal players, having partied yesterday and enjoyed the celebrations, now you find yourself having to get your game face on for what is the biggest domestic club game in the footballing world.

We are in the Champions League Final, and I’ve spent the build-up to it not even registering that in my mind. It’s just so bizarre. But nice, actually, because I feel like whatever happens in nine days, this Arsenal team is already a winner. How on earth is the Champions League a ‘nice to have’???

Maybe as we build up to it I will feel different. Maybe I’ll start to have the nerves kick in this time next week. But for right now, where I sit, it just feels so amazing to be in a position where I don’t have the stress of football weighing me down. Only joy.

I’ll probably try to compile some pre-Palace thoughts tomorrow, as we build up to what is thankfully now a meaningless game, but for today, I think I will leave it there and let you go about your day, enjoying being a supporter of the Champions of England.

Feels good to say that.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I didn’t watch the game last night. I am an irrational football fan, and I believe in football karma. I believe I have some kind of cosmic sway over a football match happening miles away, with nothing to do with my team, and if I had watched it then it would have all gone wrong. So The Management said to me, “Come on, we’re going for a walk”. And we did. No phones. Over the fields in Uxbridge to avoid the possibility of coming across a house showing the game and me seeing the score. We walked, we talked, about anything other than football. She knew my mind was on that game on the South Coast, but she kept me busy and did an amazing job of stopping me from going to the next level of stress.

It worked. I said to her as we got home that it was the right thing to do. We left it until 9.25 pm before she said, “Do you want to check on your phone?

I went to my phone. I fired up the Sky Sports app, to the most glorious of things – a yellow ‘Breaking News’ ticker that simply said: “ARSENAL ARE PREMIER LEAGUE CHAMPIONS.”

I turned the phone over and put my hands on my head. I stood motionless in the kitchen.

She said, “What?”

“They’ve done it. Bournemouth has got a draw. We’re champions. It’s over.

I started receiving WhatsApps. From family. From friends. From other Arsenal fans. The outpouring of love was amazing. It meant so much. I thank everyone who has taken the time to send a message on whatever platform. I couldn’t properly type back. I was shaking. I shed a bit of a tear. She said “Do you want to cry?” – I laughed. I sort of did.

We went to bed at 11pm. It took me over an hour to get to sleep. I woke up at 4.53am. I tried to go back to sleep, but at 6am I realised that it was folly to think I could.

Arsenal are Champions again.

For pretty much the whole of 2026 I’ve been on edge. A coiled spring. There have been great highs, of course, that release the tension (4-1 away at The Scum springs immediately to mind). But until you get over the line, until we ACTUALLY did it, in the back of my mind, I could never fully celebrate. The ‘rival’ fan weaponised ‘banter’ these days means you always fear being too loud when you celebrate victories, however small. That is the sad part of modern-day football. But conversely to that, the upside is that as soon as that was confirmed last night, a community of Arsenal supporters all over the world was united in ecstasy. My screen time on my phone at the end of this week will show that I have spent an inordinate amount of time on social media platforms. I drank everything in from the second it was confirmed. I have watched countless videos. I’ve seen Arsenal fans gathering outside the Emirates. I’ve watched the players at London Colney celebrating. I’ve tuned in to everything. I have a TV in my office at home – it is going on and staying on all day.

I wish we lived in Islington right now. It looked jumping last night. I’ve had video messages from people who went up there. It looked to be rocking. The cat would’ve hated it if we lived in Islington, with all the honking of horns going on, which will no doubt continue throughout today. And will be extended right into the weekend too, I’ll bet. That part of North London will have an extended party period going well into this weekend. I’m going to place a flag I got from one of the cup finals in my front window. It is a great day to be an Arsenal fan. A proud day.

I am a white-collar office worker. But I’ll be wearing an Arsenal kit today. I don’t care about dress codes. Today calls for it.

Football moves so quickly. In just three months, we will still be champions, but a whole new season will be kicking off. And so at times like this, you do need to take stock, let the emotions take control, just ‘live’.

I’m going to write a piece about the doubters. I’m going to get out all of the receipts. But not today. I want to savour only the joy. I want to drink it all in. Listen to all the podcasts. Watch all the videos. Read all the blogs, articles and ‘thinkpieces’.

There might be a podcast later – I’m not sure – I’m a bit all over the place at the moment. But I don’t care.

Champions. We’ve done it.

I couldn’t be happier.

Catch you all tomorrow, as the celebrations will continue.

Enjoy the day, people. It will be a glorious one.

And yet, in the cold light of day, when you look at the numbers, think about the chances, and consider the overall match, it was actually a comfortable performance from a team now just one win away from the Premier League title. Our first in 22 years.

I’m not sure my nerves will survive next weekend.

Arteta named what I’d predicted in the morning, with a lineup that screamed ‘I’m going for it’ by having Havertz up top, Trossard wide left, Saka on the right, Eze and Odegaard as the attacking eights, and Rice mopping up. Mosquera was there as the third-in-line-to-the-throne at right back (despite Timber being spotted on the team walk earlier in the day) and I was bullish (albeit nervous) before a ball was kicked. And when Trossard hit the post on 15 minutes, it did feel a little as if “this is fine – it’s only a matter of time” was the phrase going around the stadium in my corner of Block Five. It was a great effort, ricocheted off the post and straight to a Burnley player in the box, which felt a little unlucky. Perhaps it was, but Burnley had not come to be expansive, merely to limit the damage, and throughout the night, there were far more Burnley players inside their box than outside of it. Or at least that’s what it felt like to me.

And then not a lot happened until the 35th minute. We had plenty of the ball, Burnley were content to let us have it, and we once again struggled to break down a low block. Until a great ball into the box saw Saka fouled – and yes it was ABSOLUTELY a foul, having watched the replay – and VAR said no. I’m sorry, but Saka is behind his man; he is winding up to take a shot which would be a tap-in, and his foot gets clipped. It’s a penalty. If Saka isn’t fouled there, then he’s touching it in. He has been denied a goalscoring opportunity. It doesn’t matter how minimal the contact is; if the player impedes Saka inside the six-yard box, it is a foul and a penalty. That goes in, and who knows, maybe we take the extra 10 minutes before halftime to get that second. Thankfully, just two minutes later, we were in front, so perhaps the point is moot, but it’s still frustrating that it wasn’t called.

But perhaps we should be grateful for non-calls last night? After all, Kai Havertz should definitely have been sent off. His challenge on the Burnley defender in the second half yesterday was nasty. There’s plenty of bleating from City-biased media and fans on that, whilst ignoring Foden’s worse challenge on Bassey of Fulham earlier in the season, but let’s not try to cancel this out from a title race perspective. Let’s call it for what it was: A red card, and Havertz was taken off almost minutes after that ‘tackle’.

He’d done his work earlier in the game, though, with a superbly timed headed goal from a Saka cross. Cue the inevitable “Set Piece Again Ole Ole” raucous chants from the crowd, and it felt like we were on our way at halftime. The second half needed to be where we stamped our authority on the game and made this a bigger score line than it should have been.

Except this Arsenal team has a real habit of not doing that. We were up against a Burnley side behind, not really creating anything, not having too much by the way of ideas, and yet too often we squandered opportunities. Whether it was not beating the man, taking too many touches, or just overcooking that final ball. Eze had a shot off the top of the bar – saved by the ‘keeper but not given for a corner – but that felt the total of the big chances in that second half. Eze was really poor; he just didn’t affect the game – that chance aside – and we just felt really wasteful with the ball in the final third. Arteta rang the changes on 73 minutes which, for me, was too late. Ultimately, we got over the line, Burnley didn’t (in hindsight) threaten a ton, but it was clear from about 55 minutes that we should have made changes earlier than we did. Gyokeres came on and instantly caused that Burnley back line to think about more things. I thought Hincapie’s cameo was decent (even if it was a little x-rated with his arse out after a fall inside the box), whilst Myles looked assured when he came on. But it shouldn’t have been a game in which we were so nervous.

And that, in itself, has made me even more nervous now, annoyingly. The 1-0 win means that effectively, goal difference isn’t going to become a thing when City win tonight – which I think they will. It will mean that at the weekend, when they rack up a cricket score against a Villa side that just don’t give a shit with nothing to play for, a draw at Selhurst Park for The Arsenal just won’t be enough. It’s in our hands, it is ours to lose, but I just don’t see a world in which this coming Sunday isn’t excruciating for us. It feels pre-ordained. And if we do draw, we’ll have lost the Premier League title on the final day, having led it for practically the whole season. That would be the cruelest of jokes to play on us Arsenal fans. And the players. And Arteta.

Would I have taken where we are at right at the beginning of the season before a ball was kicked? Of course I would. But right now, as I type this, I have a nauseating feeling in my stomach even thinking about that game. And it’s only Tuesday.

Who knows – maybe Bournemouth can do something tonight. But I won’t be holding out much hope, and I certainly won’t be watching it.

Back tomorrow. Have a good one boys and girls.

Firstly, we’ll have to watch City win their second trophy of the season, when they batter an absolutely turgid Chelsea side at Wembley today. Well, I say “we’ll have to watch”, but I’ll be doing nothing of the sort. I know it is the FA Cup, I know it is a footballing institution, but watching two financially-doped clubs with charges of cheating (one proven and shown farcial leniency, the other still dragging out the punishment for their crimes in the courts) duke it out, is not something I want to even remotely be part of. I’m going round my brother’s later, so he might put it on, but I might see if I can play with the kids or something.

The best we can hope for later is that Chelsea forget they are a basket case of a player trading platform and take City to extra time. Yep, let’s have all the minutes possible in those City players’ legs, before they travel to Bournemouth on Tuesday, who will have had 10 days off to prepare and rest for their game against City on Tuesday. Pep might bleat about it, the media might even show some kind of sympathy, but that pales into insignificance compared to the 22 days they had to prepare for when they visited the Emirates. I just hope their potential prize, which is probably predicated on Villa now winning the Europa League next week, is not lost on them, and they are supercharged for their midweek game at home. That final potential Champions League slot is still finely balanced, with Brighton just two points behind Bournemouth in seventh. Brighton play Leeds away tomorrow, and we sort of need Brighton to win that one, because if they do, it means they go ahead of Bournemouth, and it really does mean that the Cherries need to pick up something at home to City to get that Champions League spot.

I know, I know, lots of permeations there, enough to give you a headache on a Saturday morning. But motivation in football is everything. We saw how Palace went through the motions against City in midweek (I have no doubt that won’t be the same for us, but we’ll see), and at this stage of the season, certain clubs just don’t put their full into matches. We’ve seen it over the years with Arsenal, particularly in those years where we’d qualified for the top four with a game or two to spare, and we just didn’t care that much about the result. So I hope that Brighton get a Leeds team just happy to be safe, and they turn up to turn the pressure on Bournemouth and force them to go out there and get something against City on Tuesday. Play as your lives depend on it.

All of this talk about other clubs and not The Arsenal is, if we’re honest here, because there’s not really a lot going on. The club released the new kit, but we won’t see that on display on Monday night, I don’t think. It certainly won’t be on display away at Palace, as we’ll not play in red and white but probably the white kit (which I’ve seen far too much of this season, for my liking), but the fact I’ve even spent two sentences talking about kit colours shows that there really ain’t a lot to talk about.

Normally, I’d talk about how Burnley play and their set-up, but as I mentioned a couple of days ago, it doesn’t really feel like you can tell what type of Burnley are showing up, given the context of relegation and an interim manager. Chris Sutton did his prediction at 3-0, and he had Man City fans from a band on there too, one of which did a silly 3-0 prediction with a Kyle Walker hat trick, another one said he wanted to manifest a 1-0 Burnley, whilst the other said a 3-0 Arsenal. Merse thinks it’ll be a 3-0, Shearer goes with an Arsenal win, whilst Lewis Jones goes 4-0 on Sky Sports. That last one is an interesting one, because he’s normally balanced, he looks at the numbers and the betting markets, and sometimes he’s predicted shocks. I think he predicted that Bournemouth would surprise Arsenal and get something at the Emirates, so I do tend to pay attention to what he says and the way he thinks the wind is blowing on these things.

Having looked at the Burnley fans forums out there, there is plenty of gallows humour going on, which I totally get, because you know your fate and this is just one of two last outings you have before you start thinking about the Championship next season. For them and their travelling fans (for which I think there is less, as Burnley gave back tickets to Arsenal to sell – which is a good gesture I think given the circumstances and the fact it is a night game on a Monday) it will be more a case of hoping for a cupset-style situation I think, but that doesn’t mean Arteta or his players can be complacent. We all know Bournemouth are a better side than Burnley, but they showed that anyone can come to The Emirates and stun us. The focus and concentration will have to be tip-top on Monday night from those Arsenal players in red and white.

I think it will be. If you can’t be up for an evening game, when you have the title in your hands, then you shouldn’t be the one’s to call yourselves champions. We’ve had a week to prepare, to analyse the opposition, to rest up and be ready for the challenge. The atmosphere will be raucous, so all of the raw materials are there for those Arsenal players to put on a show. They just have to go out there and do it.

Back tomorrow with some more thoughts. Have a good’un.

The cynic in me says that, as we reach the pinnacle of the drama on this season, he wants to double down on his usual approach of leaving injury problems even more open in the air, by adding day before we play, as an extra bit of speculation. Indeed, the injury update was just that, with him saying “not much at the moment” when asked about the team news. So we’re nowhere closer to knowing if Calafiori is fit, or Timber, although I guess if you want to look for some crumbs of positivity on the injury news front, at least Arteta said: “he’s progressed a little bit in the last few days”. I don’t really think that will be enough for him to be in the squad, but if you’re looking at him possibly having some involvement on Sunday next week away to Palace, that might give us some hope he could play a part in the Champions League final too.

He was asked as to whether Calafiori could play right back, which I thought was a kind of bizarre question, to be honest. The way the Italian plays left-back is so niche that I’m not sure that you could just invert him onto the other side and away you go. I’m just not sure it would work.

As would be suspected, given Ben White’s injury, most of the chatter was about who he plays in at right back. He referenced the fact Rice played there against Brighton earlier in the season, then semi-acknowledged it didn’t work on Sunday, simply saying it was “something else”. You’ll never get Arteta saying negative things about any players, but that was a tacit admission of a bit of a cock up on his part last weekend, so I suspect he’ll go back to basics on Monday night with Mosquera in there. He didn’t admit that, he even said there were a few ‘options’ that he wanted to look at, but I’d be surprised if we see anything else this season other than the young Spaniard at right back. According to TransferMarkt, he’s played right back just once for a full 90 this season, which was at home to Sporting Lisbon. Now, that data might be a little out, because they’re saying he was a centre-half against West Ham, which we all know wasn’t right, but I’m trying to rack my brains on those times at right back and I’m not coming up with loads of examples. Again, according to TransferMarkt, he’s had a total of 211 minutes there this season, which feels like a slight worry, and with Summerville showing him a clean pair of heels last weekend, you do wonder about how viable it is for Palace and then the Champions league final. There’s absolutely no way that Palace and PSG won’t target him if Timber isn’t fit, so I hope this week in training has seen the defensive coaches give him a fast-track to right back crash course. It feels like he might need it.

A lot of the other questions he was asked were a bit ‘meh’ in my opinion. He was asked a few times about the City situation and the Bournemouth game, but he played the straightest of bats and simply dismissed the conversation, simply saying things like “focus on Burnley”, which is absolutely the right thing to do right now. We can’t have any hint of a team underestimating an opponent, regardless of the current situation they find themselves in, in the Premier League. He simply can’t entertain questions like “do you have one hand on the trophy?” at this stage; he and his players need to be laser-focused on Monday night, to make sure they do their job and just expect it to go to the final game of the season.

Other than that, I’m really not sure what else is worth talking about from the press conference. It looked a very bland press conference from where I’m sitting, which is kind of a good thing given how close we are to the end of the season. These kinds of press conferences have the potential to be journo fuel for a potential story, but Arteta did what was required as part of his media duties, and now it is about getting on that training ground and preparing for the Clarets.

I had to check myself for a second there, because I was about to say “Scott Parker will have his say today”, but then realised that actually it is Mike Jackson who is in charge. Plus, he’s already had his press conference! Their news is that Hannibal Mejbri could be fit, but the rest of the team is pretty much available. Which means that unfortunately we’ll probably end up seeing Kyle Walker take to the field, which isn’t ideal. Jackson’s general comments were pretty much as expected though; asked the players to ‘thrive’ in that kind of environment, admitted there would be some exits, said he was sad for Scott Parker. There’s not a lot else that I took from it to be honest, but then again, the guy is filling in for the last few games of the season, so I’m not really sure what else he is supposed to say.

And so I’ll toddle off for today, I think. I was asked yesterday to give some thoughts on the VAR debate after the West Ham game for BBC Sport, which you can read here if you want a bit of bonus reading. Other than that, I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

Laters peeps.

The hope I’m taking from the overall result is two-fold:

1. Palace players ALREADY having an eye on their Europa Conference League Final after the Premier League has finished.
2. I saw a message from a journalist on the socials that Glasner made a comment about Glasner linking City’s rotation last night, as they prepare for the cup final this weekend, to their own preparation for their own cup final.

On the second point, if they do rotate against us, he’d be well within his rights to cite last night’s game, so that’s my initial hope for us, that we get a rotated Palace team with one eye on the final and certainly not looking to stretch for that extra ball, or make that extra sprint. Some of the post-match stuff I’ve read from last night is that it was a little too easy for City throughout. Let’s hope that is true week after next on the final game of the season.

Who am I kidding though? Palace will 100% be better on their final game of the season and I fully expect it to be nervy, worrisome, hand-wringing, edge-of-the-seat stuff for everyone involved with The Arsenal. It’s just how we do things. Nothing is easy.

Now, back to The Arsenal, annd because our game is on Monday night, it feels a little weird to start looking ahead at Burnley. I’m gonna do my usual stuff where I look at their recent performances, what the data tells us, how I think they might play, but it feels a little too soon to start thinking about it, right? I mean, OF COURSE we’re all thinking about it, but it just kind of feels a little odd to me to be obsessively looking at every single bit of info on a game that isn’t even in this calendar week and still has another four full days ahead of it. There’s also the whole ‘Burnley are down’ thing, which becomes an unknown factor, but also makes you wonder if any of the analysis is worth it. They will be a bit down, they know their time in this division is drawing to a close, their fates are sealed. But does that give them an extra freedom to just say “screw it, let’s have a go”?

If they do, then it feels like it could be a very interesting game indeed, because it would leave plenty of space for Arsenal to potentially profit from quite heavily. Or, is there an element of “professional pride lads, let’s low block the sh*t out of this game and see if we can frustrate The Arsenal”? That’s certainly got to be a consideration. Wolves did the same at The Emirates in December. Burnley could very well look to follow the same blueprint.

It almost feels as though the overall season data sets that exist right now are kind of irrelevant, based on my hypotheses above. I guess the only real data points you can take into account are the Leeds game they lost 3-1 at Elland Road, and the Villa game at home, which they drew 2-2. I’ve just had a quick look at the Leeds game and watched a quick match recap, and by all accounts, Leeds battered Burnley. Some of the defending was a bit haphazard, too. So that’s a positive sign. In the game at home to Villa, Villa dominated possession, went down to an early goal, clawed it back and went ahead, only for Burnley to equalise. But it was a very ‘Emery -end-of-season’ game. Villa clearly had its eyes on a European prize and some of the defending and goalkeeping on both fronts were pretty shoddy. Dubravka palming balls into the centre of the six-yard box, front post corners flicking in, route one balls from the goalkeeper to Watkins for his straight line running goal, all of that kind of play I can certainly do with on Monday night!

Arteta will take to the media tomorrow and we’ll get an update on the team news, but what I’m hoping for today is news of players looking good in training, maybe the odd training ground snapshot, then some kind of positivity over Timber’s availability. We now know, thankfully, that Ben White doesn’t require surgery, which is great for him, but I still suspect it keeps him out for the next month. Does that leave him open to the possibility of getting on the plane for England? I hope so. It would be a really nice story for a guy who has suffered so many injury setbacks in the last couple of seasons. He’s had his end-of-season run of games and potential impact on a title run-in taken away from him, he’s had a potential start in the Champions League Final taken away from him, so to have him get out to the USA would be a nice little bonus for us Arsenal fans, and certainly for him.

Right, I’m going to leave it there fore today, I think. I’ll be back tomorrow with a more detailed look at Burnley’s season, as well as how their fans are viewing this, and the pundits too. 

Catch you all then.

That is such a shame, and you have to feel for him. And on so many levels, too. Firstly, he was starting to look like his old self again; regular football had seen him linking well on that right-hand side, he looked fitter to me, he was impacting games positively, and we could see his impact when he came out of the team on Sunday. Some of that, as we know, was down to the manager not quite getting the balance of the side right by shifting Rice to right back, but I also just think our back four had a great look to it with the two centre-halves and then Calafiori roaming on the left-hand side. Earlier in the season, we all talked about the gulf between Timber and White, but with each passing game, it felt to me as if that gap was shortening, so to have his season cut short like this is incredibly sad.

You could kind of see it on his face on Sunday, too, I think. He is a guy who will run through brick walls, and so when he’s wincing and hobbling off, it means that something bad has happened. I think we all probably suspected as such, but when the news comes through on the official channels, it’s still a shock. And yet, sadly for Benny Blanco, part of it isn’t really a shock. Sadly for Ben, his last two seasons have been blighted by injury, as a result of his constant playing through pain and willingness to be a soldier for Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal side. His TransferMarkt injury record tells us this: this is a guy who was robust enough to play through everything, until he wasn’t. He was a guy who could run through those aforementioned brick walls until he couldn’t. And clearly, that point in his career kicked off last season with him missing 29 games through four separate injuries, then this season it will be another three games to take him to 13 games missed this season, across four separate injuries.

He’ll be devastated on multiple fronts here. Firstly, not to play and have yet another setback in your season for the second-year running, but secondly, the timing of this injury couldn’t be worse. For him or us.

Ben will miss two games that could see us (hopefully) lift the Premier League trophy. Given the fact that he was now the de facto first-choice right back and we were only playing once per week for the next three matches, that is a load that he certainly could have managed before this impact injury. If we get over the line, he would have been there, on the pitch, to be part of that final push. But secondly, he will miss the Champions League Final. That is the pivotal point in a footballer’s career. That is history. And to have it taken away as he has is really cruel indeed.

Again, because of the current unknown situation surrounding Jurrien Timber, I think Ben White would have been an odds-on to start in that showpiece final. And although I am less worried about the World Cup, given his form and the fact he’d been playing regularly for The Arsenal, I think there was also an outside chance of him making the England squad too. At a time when he was edging his way back into contention for the national team, he’s been ruled out almost indefinitely.

So, what now then at right back for these remaining games, eh? Well, that is a conundrum that Arteta has to solve. He’s previously said that he doesn’t know if Timber will play again this season, but there are chinks of light on that story, as reported on social media by HandOfArsenal:

Arsenal General Update

David Raya has a 1 year OPTIONAL extension on his current contract which has 2 years left. All parties are very relaxed about his long term future as a payrise was agreed last summer as reported by @SamiMokbel_BBC .

Contender for POTY? Serious shout…

— HandofArsenal (@HandofArsenal) May 11, 2026

I think the caution from Arsenal – and from us as well – is well-placed. Timber hasn’t played in coming up to months, so he will need time to get back to fitness. And even if he does come back before the end of the season, is he in tip-top shape to take on somebody like Khvicha Kvaratskhelia? I would question that. As PSG once again lead a procession to their domestic league title, he has sat on the bench for two of the last three matches against Angers and Lorient, only playing 29 minutes in a 1-0 win over Stade Brestois at the weekend just gone, so he will be fresh. The other option – which, to be fair, for a third-choice right back ain’t too shabby, is Mosquera, but again it isn’t optimal. I think for the Burnley game on Monday, you’d hope that Mosquera can come in and do a job and, for Palace away with him playing from the start, you’d hope he’ll be able to feel his way into the game well enough. But that Champions League final sticks out, and the quality of opposition sticks out. It is a worry.

And the other final worry I have with regards to this news is for the player and his longer-term future in itself. Has Ben White played his last game for The Arsenal? That’s difficult to speculate on right now, but if some of the online reading on MCL injuries is right, he could be looking at between three and six months out. Not only does that impact his ability to recover and have a pre-season, but it is unlikely that – if he wanted to go somewhere and play football more regularly this summer – his chances of doing so have just taken a blow. If we assume the worst-case scenario, it’ll be six months, and that takes him to November this year. With no pre-season to get up to speed as the rest of the squad are well into it, you’re probably talking until December before he can start to be considered. And my biggest worry with this sort of timeline is that it all feels a little Tierney/Tomiyasu-like. KT was a regular for The Arsenal and Arteta when he first arrived, but after his knee surgery in 2021/22, he never really got trusted by the manager afterwards and saw out his contract as a bit-part player. Tomiyasu was exactly the same. If Ben isn’t getting into matchday squads until December next season, one fears that his playing time is going to be limited, because Arteta will have moved on and found another right back to deputy Timber, I suspect.

I’m going to leave it there for today. But I’m going to say thank you from one Gooner to the man who has been such a cult player for us over the years. His sh*thousery will go down in folklore, his interviews, his deadpan face, but most of all, his connection with his teammates in that right back slot.

Get well soon Benny Blanco.

How is this becoming MORE stressful each week?

How on earth are we STILL being put through the wringer?

Honestly, my nerves are shot to pieces. My heart rate has been getting up to cardio-load levels during games. Then, when you have an ending like that yesterday, it goes up a notch even further.

Those last 15 minutes or so (including stoppage time) were the worst/best that I can remember. And when it finished, I was trying to put out social media messages, but my hands were shaking. I was an absolute mess.

But we did it. Somehow, we did it, getting over the line, albeit in somewhat controversial fashion, against a West Ham team fighting for their lives.

I have my family connections to West Ham, so I am not happy that, to all intents and purposes, they are probably going down. And to get what you think could be a vital point in the dying seconds against a team at the top of the Premier League, only to have that taken away, is a gut punch.

But it was a foul. If David Raya doesn’t have an arm across the front of his shoulders, he’s catching that ball that was put into the box. If he isn’t having his shirt pulled behind him, he is catching that ball. And as Trossard said afterwards when interviewed, Raya himself was very calm when the decision was being reviewed. Because he knew it was a foul.

And in that moment, you have to say, it feels like we got some kind of football god-intervention happening for us. Because I’ll be honest, I thought exactly the opposite when Wilson struck that ball. And I wonder what the players would have felt like, too? You’re leading, you know that if you win this tough away game, you are just two victories away from the first league title in 20+ years, and it is taken from you right at the death in stoppage time. It would have been a mental hammer blow (pun intended) that would have given Man City players just as much of a boost as it would have been a blow for our players. The psychological toll that it would have taken could have been huge. The title would have still been in our hands, a big win against Burnley would still put Arsenal in the driving seat to do it on goal difference, but you just feel like City would have used this result as a fuel to go on and absolutely smash Palace in midweek to call the goal difference into question, too.

And now, with Arsenal having got over the line, the pressure for City is massively ratcheted up. They know they basically have to beat Palace, AND beat Bournemouth in the middle of next week. It isn’t done, we still have to win against Burnley and Palace, and despite what anyone says, those two teams are still Premier League sides with decent players, but the momentum has swung back with The Arsenal, and that is huge.

It has come at a cost, though. The Ben White injury is such a shame. He hobbled off; it was a problem with his knee, and if we see him this season, I will be surprised. It’s compounded all the more by the fact that Jurrien Timber might not play again this season, meaning our young centre-half Mosquera, becomes the de facto fullback for the foreseeable future. He’s an able deputy, but he isn’t as good as White or Timber, and it’s a problem for us when you start to think about the Champions League final, for example.

It’s also a shame because with Ben in position, we absolutely dominated the opening 15-20 minutes of the game. Sky Sports showed some stats saying that we’d had nine attempts on goal in the first 15 or so minutes. Calafiori (also apparently injured – no surprises there, though) was linking well with Trossard, we were getting in behind, we hit the post and bar and had one off the line from Calafiori that could have made the complexion of this game look very different. But the White injury changed everything, because Arteta decided to go a bit left-of-field with his subs for the White injury. I think in the cold light of day, when he re-watches this game, he’ll hold his hands up to say sticking White in at right back just wasn’t the right choice. It meant we not only lost our right back, but the control in the centre of the park, and West Ham found themselves with a little more space. Arteta did, of course, course-correct his decision at halftime, but that second half felt stodgy and disjointed overall anyway. Zubimendi suffered the ignomy of being a sub that was subbed off, but he’d hardly had a blinder of a game, plus Arsenal needed to change it because, from a tactical perspective, it wasn’t working. We weren’t finding space in between the lines for those passing lanes, and Havertz felt like a natural choice because he’s going to stand in between the West Ham defence and midfield, rather than where Zubi stands as a deeper lying midfielder. You feel for the Spaniard, but needs must at a time like that.

And those needs were rewarded by Leandro Trossard, who has – quite handily – decided to find some form in recent weeks. I thought he was good again yesterday; lively, looked good in partnership with Calafiori, and whilst his finish had a touch of fortune about it with the deflection, I think on balance we’d deserved that little bit of luck given the chances we created earlier in the game. We also need to tip our caps to Martin Odegaard, whose introduction in the second half as a sub was massively significant. He gets the assist for the goal, his Platoon-style celebration I particularly enjoyed after it went in, but he was central to a lot of the progressive stuff we did when he came on. At a real crunch point in the season, we needed a captain’s performance from the bench, and I think we got one.

And points, well, we got all three. With 20 minutes to go, I didn’t think that would happen. At 96 minutes, I didn’t think that would happen. But here we are. It’s still in our hands. And we have two more wins needed to achieve something magical.

Amanda and I will be discussing all of that and more on the Same Old Arsenal pod later on this evening at 5.45 pm if you fancy joining us – here.

Arsenal need to do their job, though. It is still in our hands. A win today and it will feel like we are nearly there. But this one will by far and away be the most difficult one, I suspect, because West Ham are fighting for their lives, and when you look at their recent home form, it’s actually pretty good. They have two wins and three draws, with their last outing being that late 2-1 win over Everton. Before that, they beat Wolves at home 4-0, and before that, they drew 1-1 with City, 0-0 with Bournemouth, and 1-1 with Manchester United. So this is a West Ham team that gets up for these big games on their own patch, and they will certainly be up for it today.

Mikel Arteta has several decisions to make, specifically on the line-up and tactical approach. I have to say, the ‘finding’ of Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield feels to me like an approach that we should probably be continuing today. The adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes into play in my opinion; the system has been set up to enable us to find players in between the lines and when you are going to have to break down a probable Nuno low-block West Ham side, you need to be able to have that ability to find players in tight spaces who can wriggle out of danger. Myles certainly has that, and so I would be picking him today.

So my starting XI for this afternoon’s game at The London Stadium is:

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS – Rice

Odegaard

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

My thinking on the selections are:

1. Mosquera for White – because I think there’s a question on how much we can play Ben White before he breaks down. With Arteta confirming that he’s not sure if Timber will play again this season, we do need to make sure we’re not overplaying White. I also think Mosquera has proved himself more than capable, and as such, it makes sense to use these players to keep squad harmony too.
2. Calafiori instead of Hincapie – I think the fact that West Ham will sit deeper in a lower block means we need a little more chaos than Hincapie offers. Calafiori stepping into those zones in which West Ham players aren’t sure whether to track or not gives us another option in the attacking third, which I think we will need today.
3. Odegaard instead of Eze – this is the one I wasn’t sure of the most, if I’m honest, because Eze has been playing well of late. He wasn’t amazing against Atletico, and Odegaard did eventually come on, but I just wonder whether Arteta will want a player who has a bit more ball dominance and control. I could happily see it the other way, however, with Arteta favouring that kind of player who will pull out a finish from nowhere, a la Newcastle at home a few weeks back.
4. Havertz for Gyokeres – again, this move for me is based on the fact that we are facing a team who will sit a little deeper and I don’t think they’ll be looking at giving us much green grass to run in behind, so I want my striker to be a bit more of an ‘on the ball’ guy, because I think today will be more of an ‘on the ball’ game for The Arsenal, rather than one that will find us with lots of space.
5. Trossard and Saka stay – Saka has been nursed back into this team and played just 58 minutes against Atletico. You’d hope that means he’s good for at least 70 today, and with Trossard also looking like he’s found a little bit of form, I think you have to start him. You could argue that Eze could play there, but I don’t think Martinelli gets the nod, for the same reason that I wouldn’t play Big Vik.

The nerves are starting to kick in now. Finding out about West Ham’s home form has me a little nervous now, and I’ve just had a look at when they last tasted defeat on their own soil – it was on 6th January against Forest. They’ve been knocked out on penalties against Leeds, but that game in itself was a draw, so teams are finding it difficult to beat West Ham in East London. We are going to have to go and do something that only one team has done in 2026 so far.

It’s going to be edgy, it’s going to be tense, there are moments that none of us are going to like, but I have hope that we’ll get over the line on this one. We need to. A draw still leaves us with the ability to win it on goal difference with a big score against Burnley, and then a win against a hopefully rotated Palace team preparing for the Europa Conference League final, but sending a message by winning this game could be absolutely massive.

Let’s hope the boys are up for it.

I think we’re podding straight after the game on the Same Old Arsenal podcast today, so if you are around and want to dive into it – with delight or disdain depending on the result, subscribe to the pod channel here and you’ll get a notification when we go live.

Otherwise, I’ll catch you all tomorrow, with a debrief on what went down.

So, what of West Ham then, eh?

Well, there are plenty of Arsenal fans who don’t like West Ham, on account of a section of their online fans who, frankly, were a bit weird about the whole Declan Rice stuff. They have a long history of booing/hating some of their ex-players, like Paul Ince back in the 90s, but I sort of get that one. Ince was still a West Ham player officially when he was pictured wearing a Man United shirt, as Sir Alex tapped up the former England international in a move that, these days, would earn United a certain hefty fine. But Arsenal’s situation is different. Everyone knew Rice was off. He had one year left on his deal, and Arsenal came in with a mammoth fee that smashed our own transfer record for Pepe into smithereens. We sing and joke about getting Rice “half price”, but the reality is that it was, and still is, fair market value.

I personally have a bit of love for West Ham. Half my family is from East London on my dad’s side (if you’re a regular reader, you’ll already know that), and I have been holding out hope upon hope that they would get out of this slump. That amplified more when we all saw that it was The Scum they were fighting against, but it looks like the Scum are going to just limp over the line. With Leeds now safe, they might be a bit on the beach on Monday night at the Scum, so I suspect they might win that to secure their safety.

Annoyingly for us, we will have to play a part if we are going to win the league, because I think we HAVE to beat West Ham on Sunday. We are going to need to pick up maximum points in our remaining games because I think when Brentford lose tomorrow, and the gap is two points with three to play for us, we can’t really afford to give them any leeway. I had previously joked with my brother that I was hoping City would drop points and we could field a team of kids against them to give them the best possible chance of them staying up whilst we win the Premier League this weekend, but I think deep down we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

My brother is pessimistic. He thinks we will all but relegate West Ham this weekend, which makes me sad, but I can see why he’s saying that. And he’s not alone amongst their fanbase; you don’t have to go far online to see how unhappy they all are. Here’s one I found within seconds:

I have followed this club over 5 decades and seen many ‘typical West Ham’ wins against all odds.

Sunday will not be any such thing.

It is a mismatch.

And:

I hope we give them a fight maybe even get a draw and scupper their chances.

But if we go a goal down I fear either it’ll get toxic (especially if there’s Arsenal fans in the home end) or there’ll be a mass walk out.

And:

No point messing about:

West Ham 0 – 4 Arsenal
Tottenham 3 – 0 Leeds

All done and dusted.

And:

we are down and the players know it or certainly will after this latest pumpoing by arsenal at the bowl. championship here we come !

a lot of the players will start thinking of the WC and transfers away.

hopefully sullivan has a lively afternoon ! should be a good protest on 16 mins ! the highlight of the match for hammer fans !

There is a smattering of fans who are hopeful of getting something, but the majority think this will be a pumping. I’m not so sure. We are buoyed by the result in midweek and an excellent performance against Fulham, but this is a West Ham team fighting for its life. Their players won’t go down without trying to lay a few jabs and swipes at us, and with the likes of Bowen available and having scored against us plenty of times over the years, as well as Summerville, who looks a very good and tricky player on that left-hand side. I liked the look of Dioud earlier in the season on the left of their defence, but my question is whether or not we’ll be able to get at that West Ham back line. If WhoScored are right with their probable line-ups, you have to be hoping that Mavropanos and Disasi can be got at, as well as Walker-Peters at right back.

From a numbers point of view, it doesn’t look amazing for West Ham. They’ve conceded 61 goals this season (third-worst). They have an xG against of 55.14; they’ve had the second most shots of all teams against them this season, with the same number of shots on target. On average, West Ham concede nearly two goals a game, 15 shots, with at least five on target.

They also have the second-highest concession of goals from set pieces, with 17 this season in 35 matches. That’s an average of a goal conceded every two games. With a team down there, you’d expect the number of tackles they’d be making to be high, but perhaps that shows some of the deficiencies, because for the number of tackles made this season, West Ham are seventh in the Premier League; it’s hardly Sean Dyche “Backs to the wall, lads, Ben Mee on the line” stuff, is it?

On the attacking front, they fare a little better, in at 15th in the league for goals scored. Their xG puts them 14th, with their total number of shots they have at 16th. So, whilst as Arsenal fans we can look at their defensive problems as a cause for optimism, the attacking threat they have can’t be dismissed. Last season, we may have scored five at their ground, but they bagged two, so Arteta needs to be reminding his players today and tomorrow that they need to have their heads screwed on. In that regard, Man City’s 1-1 draw there can be a cautionary tale; I had a look at the stats from that game and it was a proper battering in all but the scoreline. City had 21 shots, six on target, 71% possession, 670 passes to West Ham’s 294, 15 corners and yet mustered just the one Bernardo Silva goal on 31 minutes, countered just four minutes later by a Mavropanos header from a corner. West Ham, by the way, sit comfortably mid-table when it comes to set pieces, and we all remember Mavropanos doing us a dirty at the Emirates a couple of seasons back.

I’ll talk more about the team news and what the pundits are saying tomorrow, as we get a little more intel from the managers, but this is going to be a tighter game than I think a lot of people (who aren’t Arsenal fans) might envisage. More on thoughts about that, then, but for now, have a great Friday, and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

Last night was one of them.

In anyone’s life, there are lots and lots of things that change. School, job, friends, where you live, your health, your money situation – loads. But some things are constant. For me, my family is obviously the biggest thing in my life, but a constant that I have also had since I was eight years old was The Arsenal.

And, as such, when big milestones happen for The Arsenal, I tend to mentally ‘bookmark’ them. I remember those big moments years after they have passed. Winning the League in 91. In 98 and, Tony Adams was against Everton. 2002. My first FA Cup final in 2003. The Invincibles in 2004. Plus, of course, the Champions League final of 2006. I was one year into my professional working career. I was at a local newspaper, and I remember the joys of getting to the final, as well as the low I felt the next day. There was a Spurs fan who worked in the office who came down first thing just to laugh and gloat. That is etched into my memory like it was yesterday. But as I am older now (not sure how much wiser), I recognise the feat just to get to the final is huge for the club, the manager, and the players.

That shows through not just in the response on the final whistle from the players, or the reaction of the Arsenal fans, but also in the history that Arsenal have in this competition.

Only twice in our history have we got to a final.

That is the most important context this morning. We know that Arsenal have won nothing yet. We all know that this weekend, unless we beat West Ham, we still could come away with nothing. And if that happens, we will need to ask some serious questions. But after a night like last night, now is not the time for ‘yeah but’s. Now is the time to celebrate and recognise what this Arsenal team has achieved by getting to a final.

This is a 71-year-old competition, and this is the second time Arsenal have reached it. Those Arsenal players deserve so much credit. They have bettered their efforts by one from last year, and they have done it with easily the best defence in the competition so far. The 1-0 victory last night, against a decent, albeit slightly limited, I thought, Atletico Madrid side, was done based on a strong defensive foundation. Now, that’s not to say there weren’t moments in the game that had us worried, and the Saliba mistake header that allowed Simeone junior to round Raya for what I thought was the equaliser. But, as if to underline the defensive prowess of this Arsenal team, Saliba was bailed out by some superb work from Gabriel to save his bacon.

Phew.

But that chance aside, as well as a little more territory and ball from Atletico in the second half (which was always going to happen given the fact their season was on the line in that second half), I thought Arsenal pretty much snuffed out anything the Spanish side had to offer. I’ve just had a look at the stats from last night; we out-shot them 13 to five, we had more possession (54% to 46%), we had more passes (443 to 388), and we had a greater xG (1.58 to 0.58). By all accounts this was a close game, but it was one that Arsenal were very much in control of from start to finish.

Now, scratch that, because Arsenal were in control from about two hours before kick-off. Because the fans who went yesterday absolutely smashed the brief for being the 12th man. I was there, I saw it with my own eyes, my mouth is scratchy this morning through so much singing and shouting, but we made the start of this game electric through the fans welcoming the team buses, the early entrance and packed concourse with 30-minutes to play before kick off, as well as the opening tifo and then way in which North London Forever rang out just before kick off. The players have subsequently said they could see and feel it in the ground, and afterwards Arteta referenced the impact it had on him and the players. Football is sometimes a sport in which the perfect symbiosis happens between fans, and that’s what it felt like last night. We were there for them, then those players were there for us.

And of course, the ‘franchise’ player would be the one to be the eventual match winner, wouldn’t he? Bukayo Saka will score many more visually impressive on the eyes goals in his career; he certainly has already done so, but that one will be long remembered by him. He was a mere child when we got to the Champions League final the first time – he’s just done his part in history to put us through last night. I don’t know about you, however, but I thought the chance had gone. It was one of several superb runs into the channels that Gyokeres did on the night, his chipped cross finding Leo’s feet (who was also very good, I thought), before Leo seemed to want an age to set himself for the shot. Oblak managed a decent save, to be fair, but when Bukayo crept in front of his man to tap home from inside the six-yard box, the limbs in block five were everywhere.

And then it felt like it would be a case of holding on to see what Atleti would throw at us. But here’s the thing, and I am clearly saying this in hindsight, but the team set up and performance of those players to a man was absolutely spot on. Arteta had named an unchanged team, which was a surprise, but it was absolutely the right call. Ben White was good, I thought Calafiori played well, the inclusion of MLS was a surprise master stroke and I thought his performance was really great, too. He strikes me as a kid who is so unfazed by this kind of occasion (in fact, given how he was interacting with the crowd, I’d wager he might be one of those ‘big game’ players), which was perfect on a night like this, and alongside Declan Rice they absolutely bossed that midfield. It was a quieter one for Eze, but today is not a time for picking holes, so let’s move on and talk about Big Vik, who followed up his good display against Fulham with another impressive outing. He had his defender pinned all night and never stopped running. He emptied the tank out there and the home fans recognised this and showed their appreciation. He was also unlucky not to score after a great cross from Hincapie. It would have been a goal that his performance merited and although he won’t get the numbers on any official charts or tallies today, there won’t be many Arsenal fans who aren’t saying very positive things about the Swede this morning.

I think Amanda and James are going to do a post-match pod this evening (I’ll be at work) so look out for that one later. But for now, have a great day Gooners, and enjoy this one.

Catch you all tomorrow.

With Unai Emery going ‘Full Unai’ with his team ahead of their home game against Forest on Thursday, Villa put in the kind of performance you expect from an end-of-season team that really are mentally on the beach. That was frustrating from an Arsenal fan perspective because:

1. The Scum won and will probably now stay clear of relegation
2. West Ham will now be doubly motivated next Sunday when we play them.

That second point will be one to worry about. Over the years, West Ham have given us tough games on their patch, and with the threat of relegation now very real with just three games to go, they will be more fired up for this one than we could imagine.

West Ham got battered by an improved Brentford side on Saturday, which had mixed blessings for us overall, because:

1. It means that Brentford are closing down a European spot and next weekend they will go to City, knowing a win could be huge for them
2. West Ham are probably going to need to beat Arsenal next weekend – their heavy defeat doesn’t help the goal difference either.

Before that match yesterday, we also saw Bournemouth pick up a big win at home to Palace, which was certainly a better scoreline for us, because:

1. Bournemouth will be buoyed, and to qualify for Europe, will probably need to beat City in a week and a half at home on their own patch
2. Palace losing heavily shows us that there’s a team that has all eyes on a possible European final, which will happen just after they play us on the final day, when hopefully we are fighting to win the title.

The complexities and permutations of this season are not lost on a single Arsenal fan, I don’t think, and in pubs and homes all over the Arsenal-supporting world, we’re all doing the mental gymnastics to see chinks of light or opportunities to build out a little more hope, through the actions of others.

But it will be Arsenal’s actions that define this season. If we beat West Ham, then we hopefully have two games in which you’d hope Arsenal can rack up plenty of goals. If we do that, then the goal difference thing would swing from City’s favour to ours. I can’t see City hammering all of the teams they are playing by fours and fives. So there is a chink of light and hope that we might have a bit of an advantage.

Tonight, all eyes will be on Merseyside. Can Everton do something against City? I’m not so sure. They’ve lost their last two games to Liverpool at home and West Ham away. Before that, they picked up a 2-2 draw away at Brentford, but before that, they won at home 3-0 against a shockingly bad Chelsea side. Their record at home this season is mixed; I just had a look, and there are defeats to United, Brentford, Tottenham, and Newcastle, whilst also draws against Leeds, West Ham and Villa. They are a patchy side. But the good thing about tonight, one would hope, is that today’s game means that if they lose it, their outside chance of Europe is basically gone. That’s what most Arsenal fans will be hoping for this evening – that this ‘last chance saloon’ inspires them to do something special in front of their own fans.

Mind you, the same could have been said about Fulham at the weekend, and yet we absolutely rinsed them in that first half on Saturday. To be fair, that was at home for us, whereas this is away for Man City, so perhaps that swings the balance back a little, but I still think that Everton probably won’t have too much for a City side who are in form at the moment. Despite their bitching through the back channels about their impending fixture congestion, they’ve also just had over a week off, so they will be fresh now, too.

As for us, we have our eyes trained on that Champions League semi-final, and Arteta will be making his way to The Emirates this evening to deliver his pre-match press conference ahead of the game. The noises we’re hearing are that Kai is pushing to be fit to play a part, which would be massive not just for tomorrow, but also in the context of the remainder of the domestic season. Having him as an option when we’re facing a low block in the league might be very important, although tomorrow night I think you do still have to go with Big Vik, given his two goals and confidence will be up after one of the best performances for him this season.

The big question I have is around Timber. Like, are we actually going to see him this season, or nah? I really would love to have him back, or even news of him back, but what we’ve had over the last couple of weeks is Arteta saying “a few more days” and yet not even a sniff of a return. Odegaard too, we need to get a good update on, but I suspect his absence from the weekend was precautionary and there to manage the knocks he’s had that have kept him out of that difficult period of April that we’ve just overcome. If he’s back, if Timber can even just be seen in full training this week at some stage (even if it is not possible to be in the squad for tomorrow), then I will take that as a big positive. Having him available at right back for a game like West Ham feels like it would be a huge boost, although at this stage, given how long he’s been out, I’m not sure even then how viable it would be.

Let’s wait and see what Arteta says later. As for me, I’m going to take the opportunity to enjoy the rest of my bank holiday weekend in Portugal, before I fly back tomorrow morning. I hope whatever you are doing you have a great day too. Catch you all tomorrow.

I’m in Portugal and, to try to completely forget about the stress of football, I asked the parents and The Management if we could go out and have a lovely lunchtime meal in Tavira, where my parents’ place is. They obliged. Two bottles of white and a couple of large Super Bocks later, and I’m heading back to their house to watch what was to transpire in N5 yesterday evening. The stress was such that the need for alcohol to dumb the senses went too strong, and I ended up drinking well into the night. Before the game, it was nerves, during the game it was nerves, after the game, it was drinking in celebration.

Because Arsenal were superb yesterday. This was easily the best performance of 2026 so far I think, and I include the win at the Toilet Bowl against The Scum, because they are terrible. Fulham are not. Marco Silva is an astute tactician, and I don’t think there would have been many Arsenal fans putting their pennies at the bookies on a 3-0 victory before the game yesterday. But here we are, the day after, and we get to talk about an Arsenal performance that will have every Arsenal fan merrily skipping their way through today as they go about their business.

Arteta rang some changes, as we expected, but I think the inclusion of Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield was not one that any of us thought we’d see. The absence of Odegaard clearly meant that Arteta needed somebody who had the technical ability to keep the ball, so he turned to Myles, and boy did our young Hale Ender deliver. I thought he was superb yesterday. He was able to wriggle his way through the Fulham midfield; he rotated with Rice superbly, he was controlled and calm in possession, and he fully deserved the big hug he got from his manager at the final whistle. We’re at a crunch point in the season, and at these times, sometimes you get performances from players you didn’t expect, and this was certainly one of those from MLS, for which I think we’re all very grateful.

But it wasn’t just Myles who stepped up against a Fulham side who had an outside chance of qualifying for Europe. Many players stepped up, I thought. As I talked about with James on the Same Old Arsenal pod this morning, Trossard was really good yesterday, getting an assist for the third goal and as James reminded me, he could have had more if Gyokeres had’ve scored when in on goal when Leno saved his effort. Calafiori was back and unlucky not to score to make it 2-0, and Rice was his usual imperious self. But the two goal scorers will take most of the headlines at the top end of the pitch today.

At the beginning of the season, I always said that if Gyokeres gets 20 goals in all competitions, then he’s done his job. For £55million you aren’t going to get a Thierry Henry regen these days. It just doesn’t happen. So for that kind of money, you need a guy who will put the ball in the back of the net against a mid-table team, which is something we just didn’t do enough of last season, so his goal that set us on our way was exactly what the doctor ordered. It was a fine ball in from Saka, and what you want from your striker is to get in front of his man and into those spaces. The pass from Saka did all the heavy-lifting, but Gyokeres was there to profit, and boy, weren’t we all glad.

When the two combined for the second goal, I did sense this would be a good afternoon, so to have Gyokeres be the one assisting Saka felt right to me. There’s been a bit of talk about how these two players don’t seem to pass enough to each other, maybe that Saka doesn’t trust Gyokeres, but yesterday it felt like their combination together was enough to dispel any such rumours. Saka’s finish felt very ‘on brand’ for the forward. He’s a guy who sometimes makes the very difficult look so easy. When Gyokeres reversed-passed the ball into him, he still had plenty to do, but his finish to Leno’s near post was cool, calm and collected. And needed.

And although Saka wasn’t involved in the third goal – from Leo to Big Vik for the header – there was something in the commentary that Alan Smith said that has stayed with me: “he’s had such better service today”. Both Trossard and Saka put chances on a plate for the Swede, and he reacted exactly as you want your centre forward to – with goals. That’s 21 goals this season, with a few games still to play, and if he gets himself to 25 goals, you have to say this has been an excellent season. There are times in which he looks a little rough around the edges, his control sometimes lets him down, but when he’s put in the penalty box with opportunities to score, he does it. Last season, we missed that and our title challenge never really materialised. This season, we’re going to take it to the wire, and ultimately, you have to say that Gyokeres has done his part.

Three goals in the first half meant Arteta could rotate out some key players, which will have been music to his ears to see those players all doing the business early, so we could bring the likes of Saka and Rice off to preserve their legs for Tuesday night. On a weekend in which Diego Simeone has basically given his players the time off, Arsenal couldn’t afford that, but the fact they could afford to bring guys off with 30 minutes still to play is huge. And I think we’re all relieved ahead of Tuesday’s semi-final.

There’s still more work to do. We all know this. But waking up this Sunday morning to a comprehensive Arsenal win feels good. Real good.

I’ll be back tomorrow as we start to look ahead to another big one in just 48 hours.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, boys and girls.

I read comments like “Fulham have never won at The Emirates,” and that only makes it worse. Because you just know there is a first time for everything. And unlike our situation at City, in which we basically NEVER win up there, today could very easily end up with Arsenal dropping points and opening the door to City having a clear path to the Premier League title.

Arsenal, Arteta, and all of those Arsenal players simply MUST be ready for today. Fulham have had a week off, we have been in Madrid on Wednesday, then have a huge game on Tuesday night, but if one single eye is on that midweek match-up against Atleti, you worry that it will be enough for Fulham to get something from today.

They are not in what I call “Charlton territory,” unfortunately. Back in the 90s, I think there were about four or five seasons in which Charlton, under Alan Curbishley, would get to a set number of points, then the foot would come off the gas, and they’d coast their way to the end of the season, losing pretty much most of the games they played. That is not the case this season for a side that sits in 10th with four games to go. The concertina’d nature of this division means that Fulham very much have everything to play for and, having beaten Villa last weekend to give them a sniff of Europe, they have a little bit of confidence going into this game. They will be up for it. They will be looking for a scalp.

And as I talked about yesterday in the blog, Marco Silva will be looking to use every tactical and emotional advantage he can get his hands on. He’s said as much in his pre-match preview, alluding to the potential worry of the home crowd and how he will be hoping they can draw on that tonight. I think that means his approach today is about keeping things tight for the first 45. He’s done this in other games, but Silva is not against a tight back five with his central midfielders tucking in to a lower block, then relying on diagonal directness to spring forward. His ‘utopia’ football game today is Arsenal dominating possession and territory, which creates space as we look to penetrate a stubborn back line, for his players to spring traps when the ball turns over.

My hope is that Arteta has an idea for that. My hope is also that this idea finally involves dropping the Madueke-Gyokeres-Martinelli approach. Don’t do it, Mikel. You need technical security on the ball in attack. This ain’t gonna be no ‘green grass and space’ game. This will be tight, cagey, and will require ballers who work in small spaces.

So for me, my ‘hoping for’ lineup is:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard   –   Eze

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

That team has an attacking line-up of players who are all good with the ball at their feet. They are not runners in behind; they are more suited to quick interplay. I’ve gone with Ben White, despite the fact he played in midweek, because I look at that right-hand side with Saka back in (I think given he’s now been in training over a week, played a part against Newcastle, as well as Atletico Madrid, he should be able to do a solid 60 minutes) and I am hoping for a “We’re getting the band back together” automatism or two between White, Saka and Odegaard. White overlaps to create space for Bukayo, with Martin gravitating towards him.

I’ve suggested Rice as the six because he was really good there in midweek, so why not lean in to it more, whilst allowing Eze to float into those left-hand spaces, where Trossard and Gyokeres overlap? You have yourself a right-hand side ‘pod’ that is familiar, but how about stocking a left-hand side one too?

And then, for good measure, get Calafiori in there to cause a little bit of chaos in those pockets on the left-hand side? Yes, please, ma’am.

I also think that lineup helps Gyokeres. He can’t trap the ball. He won’t be able to run in behind of a deep-lying defence. But if he’s got players who have the eye for a pass and the ability to thread the needle with their distribution, maybe he can find pockets to get some shots off. The alternative would be Gabriel Jesus, which would be interesting, but we just don’t get enough from him these days for me to think he’s anything other than a 20-minute cameo player.

Do I think Arteta will go for that? Possibly not really. You could potentially see Mosquera instead of White, as Arteta looks to split the minutes between some of his fatigued players, plus he’s played Zubimendi basically every time he’s fit. So my gut tells me that he’s going to play the Spaniard once more. I also wonder whether Trossard is on the naughty step and Eze might play again on the left-hand side. I think it’s more likely that Eze starts and Odegaard is rested, given he started in midweek and Arteta will want to be careful with his captain’s minutes. So the likelihood of me getting my wish today is probably slim.

But it would make for an exciting opportunity to see if we can recapture some more technical control, ball dominance and chance creation, plus trying something a little different, wouldn’t it? And given some of the performances we’ve had at home, maybe leaning into something different could just be the ‘unlock’ that sees Arsenal ‘click’ at the perfect moment in the season.

G’wan Mikel, give it a go. I dares ya.

Let’s see. I’m in Portugal today visiting the parental units, so it’ll be a watching brief from the sofa for me this evening. I just hope I’m smiling by the end of today.

Back tomorrow with a blog and pod first thing. Let’s hope it’s a happy one.

Until then.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”

It’s a grind right now, eh? But a lot of that has been because of the performances. The City game gave us hope, the Newcastle game gave us more fear, so what will Fulham bring to the table tomorrow?

Well, they’ll be without Sessegnon, who limped off injured in their win against Villa, having scored the goal in the first half. I have just watched the highlights of that game, and Villa certainly created enough chances for it to be at least a draw. So his being out, I guess, is a plus point for us, but so is the fact that Iwobi is out. We have enough things to worry about without having an ex-player cause us all manner of headaches tomorrow evening.

**Emile Smith Rowe enters the chat**

Their main man this season, however, has been Harry Wilson, who has 10 Premier League goals to his name and has racked up the second-highest goals vs xG metrics, which means when he gets chances, they tend to be lower quality but higher conversion.

As a team, Fulham sit mid-table for xG, they’re 12th for goals scored, 12th for total volume of shots, 14th for shots on target, 11th for touches in the opponents’ box, and 14th for ‘fast breaks’. By all rights, this is very much a ‘mid-table’ side based on the stats. And yet they find themselves in 10th, and because of this mad Premier League this season, they are just two points off Brighton in sixth position, fighting for a European slot. So last weekend, in hindsight, we could have done with Villa probably winning that game against them, as it might have meant they pretty much know that their chance of Europe is gone. Now they will be looking at this match as one that, if they can pick up a win on our patch, then they have a good chance of hitting that target.

That’s why this is a mad season, because Everton are only just one point behind them, and we’re hoping that on their own patch they can do us a favour against City on Monday night. But Fulham are just as likely to cause an upset as Everton are, which is why Arteta and his players need to be wary.

We’ve had a couple of recent memory slip-ups against Fulham at home, too. Two seasons ago, it was the 2-2 in which we contrived to drop points having been 2-1 up and a man to the good after Bassey was sent off in the 83rd minute. We went one down in one minute, then had two goals on 70 and 72, and when their man was sent off, you’re thinking that we’ll coast to the final whistle. But an 87th-minute goalkeeper mistake from a corner (Ramsdale) cost us three points, and I remember being very grumpy that bank holiday weekend in August, away with friends all weekend.

Two seasons before that, it was Eddie Nketiah rescuing a point for us after they’d scored on 59 minutes, after a Maja penalty was converted. In fact, since Arteta took charge, he’s had two narrow 2-1 wins and two draws against Fulham. We haven’t had it easy against them for seven years. I don’t expect that to start tomorrow.

And in Marco Silva, they do have a tactically fluid manager, who will shift their approach. I suspect we’ll see a side that will build up with a back three, stretch their fullbacks to make the pitch as wide as possible, and see if they can get runners and dribblers disrupting the middle. They rely on the ability of their full-backs, and I seem to recall Antoinee Robinson always has a good game for us in that left-back spot. On the left-hand side, if we had an attacker in any kind of form, I’d fancy them against Castagne, but unfortunately, we don’t, unless Arteta leans into Eze there again. That will be one to discuss tomorrow when we have an update (of sorts) with the team news.

Fulham’s style this season – having read a few articles – is to leverage those full-backs, but also make diagonal passes as two or three runners try to get in behind the opposition defence. They will sit in a compact back five out of possession, then try to spring traps on us. We have to be ready for that.

I hope we are. Arteta pulled Odegaard off in midweek, presumably to protect him for tomorrow, as well as not starting Eze. He gave Saka 20 minutes against Atletico Madrid, having given him 10 minutes against Newcastle, so one would hope that he might be ready to play. The big question is over Kai, but I suspect the club will be cautious, and we will get told he’s not available. That means he’ll most likely turn to Big Vik, who hopefully has a little bit more confidence after a decent performance against Atleti in midweek, as well as a goal, albeit one from the spot.

I don’t expect anything other than a coy Arteta to give nothing away, but I hope that we at least get some word on Timber. It’s getting to the point where I’m wondering if we will ever see him again this season. I really hope so. He is such a key component of that back line and their defensive stability. A fit Timber, along with Big Gabi, Saliba and Calafiori would be huge for these final games.

It is unlikely to be tomorrow, but even having him in the squad would be a big boost, so let’s cross our fingers for some good news today.

And with that, I’ll toddle off for now, with some pre-match thoughts tomorrow. Catch you then.

Laters people.

I am convinced of it.

Diego Simeone was waving his arms around like a lunatic. He was encroaching on the referee. He was barking and hollering, and so was the crowd. And last night’s referee just played to that gallery.

Let’s look at the facts here, boys and girls:

1. Eze gets to the ball first
2. There is contact by the Atletico Madrid defender
3. It is inside the box

It. Is. A. Penalty. Now, what you could argue is that the contact was, indeed, minimal. And because of that, if the referee doesn’t give it, you’d have me saying things like “tight call, but it’s not a stonewaller of a penalty”. And then you go with the on-field decision. But when the referee gives the penalty, there is ZERO chance that it shouldn’t be given. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. No way should that have been re-refereed in the way it was.

And yet here we are. Simeone is a prick. Afterwards, he supposedly (can’t find the exact quote but some journalists mention it on social media) laughably tried to claim Gyokeres’ penalty shouldn’t have stood because he backed into the Atletico player. Utter deflection, because his side had been edged out in the second half, and I thought we’d played really well to go one-up in the break. Their home fans were loud and raucous for the opening exchanges. Atleti started well and fed off that, but once we rallied and started getting on the ball, I thought we looked composed and in control. You could tell that Atletico Madrid were going to show us respect; this is a swashbuckling Spanish side who bag a lot of goals, but they were remaining tight and compact in their shape, and at times I was watching this game seeing a back five from the home side. That is a compliment to what we were doing in possession, and I thought the back four, particularly, were good.

Arteta changed it a bit, and I think it is a blueprint we need to think about moving forward, because Rice was playing the deeper of the two midfielders, with Zubi just in front of him, and that also enabled us to move to a back three at times and give us more passing lanes. It was good from the manager, and even though we still had that dreaded front three, we had a few chances. I still think between them, Martinelli and Trossard, when he came on, didn’t offer enough on that left-hand side, but Madueke was better.

And so too was Gyokeres, who notched his 19th of the season, and never in my life have I been more convinced that a player would score penalties than the big Swede. We all have our issues with Gyokeres; he’s been frustrating at times this season, but when it comes to finishing and penalties, the ball stays hit, and you know we are going to score.

That’s why the Eze penalty is also such a disgrace, because Gyokeres absolutely would have tucked it away to win us the game, and then you’re talking about bringing a one-goal lead back to your own turf. We’ve been robbed of that, and it’s a real shame because although Atletico were better in the second half, there was still so much positive to take from the way Arsenal handled the game overall.

On the Ben White penalty, I think Arteta handled that perfectly too, afterwards, admitting that it isn’t given in the Premier League, but it is in Europe, so we have to stomach it. Atletico had other chances too. Raya made a couple of good saves, Griezmann hit the bar, plus big Gabi made a tremendous block to deny the Frenchman. We rode our luck at points, but there’s no doubt in my mind, the luck was more with the home side than ours by the time the final whistle came along.

So where do we find ourselves now? How am I feeling this morning?

Actually, pretty good, if truth be told. We went to a tough ground, with a partisan home crowd and a barking manager, we came away with a draw. We can all be annoyed by the end, but before a ball would have kicked, I’d have taken an away draw to turn our home game into a knockout. Away goals mean nothing anymore, so this match next week is effectively one in which all is decided on the night. And having home advantage has to make you feel more confident.

I also think Arteta has some ammo now. We got minutes into Saka’s legs, Calafiori is available, Eze also got on the pitch so he should be fine for Saturday, Rice and Zubi had great games. The only question is with Odegaard, who came off and I read that he was getting some treatment on the sideline. We have to just hope that it’s nothing massive and he can have a day or two off and be ready for the game against the Cottagers on Saturday evening, because we need everyone now.

Arteta can use this injustice on the Atletico game, but he can also use the performance for Saturdaay too. The team can take confidence from the game and given that Saturday’s game is an evening kick off and hopefully the weather is good like last weekend, the home fans might just be feeling a little more boistrous than we would have done if we’d have lost last night.

We didn’t lose. we played pretty good. There is some confidence that can get built back up now. And so on to Saturday, in which another big match looms and Arsenal simple MUST win.

Back tomorrow as we start to prep for that one. See you then.

@SamiMokbel_BBC has confirmed the below.

For clarity, City’s objective is to manipulate the fixtures and avoid playing Bournemouth on a few days rest when Bournemouth have 10+ days rest… just like Arsenal had to do the other week.

It would hurt Palace’s possible final
prep too https://t.co/qZZpHDsiHG pic.twitter.com/u79BFpYoek

— Magic hat (@themagic_tophat) April 28, 2026

I don’t think I want to spend too much time on this, but it does feel as though there should be little room for manoeuvre here. Arsenal had to suffer playing a very good Bournemouth team after they were not in the FA Cup, and we had both FA Cup and the Champions League games in between our Premier League matches. If City are playing a fresher Bournemouth too, then so be it. You can’t rearrange things just because of the hope from the TV companies (because you can bet your bottom dollar that Sky will want this re-arrangement, to take it to the last day of the season) that they get more drama on that last week.

They’re gonna get it anyway! Have you seen how nervy we look when playing!

Those nerves were heightened somewhat at the weekend, when we thought that we’d be losing both Eze and Havertz for a period of time, right when they were just coming back for us and able to play significant minutes. Thankfully, Eze dispelled that almost immediately by doing his media duties and being seen on the pitch afterwards on Saturday. Phew. One sigh of relief down.

Then we got a ‘sort of’ sigh of relief yesterday evening, as news emerged from the likes of The Athletic that Kai’s injury is not as bad as feared, which again is good stuff. Depending on what you read, there are variations on when he could potentially be back. I suspect we’ll get it confirmed from Arteta this evening that he’ll play no part tonight. I saw one report suggesting that Arsenal think he might be able to play some part in all of our remaining Premier League games. If that’s true, then happy days, because that means he’d at least be fit for the Fulham home game this coming weekend.

I suspect that might be a little more hope than reality, though.

What he brings is without question. We talked about it on Sunday, and Scarlet spoke the truth when she said that we looked very different after Kai came off. That’s very true indeed. I had a look at some of the stats up until the 34th minute, when he limped off, and we had:

• Better possession (just) – edging it 51% to 49% (we finished the game on
• More through balls (four to one)
• Level on shots (they ended up out-shooting us by the end of the game)

But the way we played just looked more fluid to the eye. Kai links players all around him, where Gyokeres seems to be a lot more isolated. A lot of that, I think, is that his technical quality is so low that the players don’t want to lose the ball, but rather than turn this into a Gyokeres-bashing piece, I want to lean in more into what Kai brings us.

We were much better against City. It ‘felt’ better against Newcastle until he came off. I also think the Everton game we played well, although Big Vik did his bit by coming on later in the game and making an impact. The prospect of not having Kai for anything longer than Fulham next weekend was very real, so having him potentially available thereafter is massive.

The next worry we have about this week is the volume of games within a week. Jamie Carragher pointed it out on Monday Night Football last night, but we play Wednesday-Saturday-Tuesday, at a point in the season in which we still have players not fully fit and back to form. It’s going to be quite some gruelling week, and when I look at tomorrow night’s game against Atletico Madrid, I can’t help but think it just needs to be one of those “just get through it” games. Get through it, try to keep it tight, then see how much you can rest up before playing a Fulham side who have had a week off, plus will be coming off the back of a morale-boosting 1-0 victory over Villa last weekend.

I didn’t watch the game Fulham played, but I’ve looked at the numbers, and it looks like a classic one in which one team (Villa) had all of the possession, but Fulham created more chances and ultimately like us had that one moment of magic. Before that win, they had just one win in six games, so their form was patchy, but as we know, so was Newcastle’s, and yet they made us look very leggy indeed at times on Saturday.

I don’t know how we overcome that, to be honest, because Arteta has very much just patched up players and sent them out of late. I doubt Saka can do many 90-minute games, and given he was only given around 20 minutes on Saturday, surely he can’t start in Madrid?

Odegaard and Eze will also need to be managed carefully, so despite our big squad, it’s all feeling a little paper-thin in certain positions right now.

We’ll know more later on who is likely to start, and wouldn’t it just be nice to get some positive news about Jurrien Timber, eh? Let’s see what the boss says later.

Otherwise, I’ll be back for a match preview tomorrow, so I’ll catch you then.

And at this stage in the season, when we’re all looking at how neck-and-neck this is, we’re looking at teams like Newcastle and saying things pre-match like “out of form, lost their last four matches, few players out injured, plus ours have had a week off – we should be having a go at them today.

But on what basis, and by what evidence, did we think that would be the case yesterday? It was always going to be a tough one, a grind, separated only by that moment of magic as Eze swept the ball home in 10 minutes. The timing of goals often impacts games, and I remember turning around to those around me in block five and saying things like “no, we need to go on and make this a big win”. But the stage of the season we are at, the fragile nature of some of the psychology, I believe, is in this Arsenal team, meant that this was always going to end up being a nervy one. These sorts of games always happen when you don’t get that second.

I hear there were some comments from Sky saying that the Arsenal fans were nervous, edgy, and that was impacting the atmosphere. Nope. Sorry, not for me, because what I saw and heard was a collective of Arsenal fans who were loud and vociferous and were behind the team from the first minute. Of course, when you get down to the last 10 minutes of a game, and there’s still only one goal in it, there will be some tension. That is natural. But this wasn’t a day in which the crowd supposedly played their part in Arsenal dropping off.

I think the drop off in performance in that second half had something to do with the fact that we had to once again endure Madueke, Martinelli, and Gyokeres as an attacking trio. And as we all know, we’ve all talked about, we’ve all listened to various Arsenal fan-focused media, and heard that trio doesn’t work. There are too many runners, not enough ballers, evidenced at the end too, when Gyokeres had the simplest of passes square to set Saka in on goal, to which he couldn’t even execute. The Sweded is somebody who is essentially a bit useless unless he’s able to get a shot off or is in the right space inside the penalty box. I tell you now, if that was Havertz in that position, or maybe even Gabriel Jesus, they’d have found Saka in on goal, and we’d be talking about a late goal to prop up the performance.

To give him some props, however, I thought Gyokeres did ok when he came on. He hassled, he harried, he chased, and he held the ball up well. He was fine. He didn’t get into the kind of positions you want your centre-forward to get into, but there was one moment where he’d peeled away on the left-hand side, and instead of slotting him in, Odegaard just squared the ball backwards to Zubimendi, who tried a little flick/dink that didn’t come off. Odegaard should have gone to the Swede the first time, but I think some of those Arsenal players just can’t work out where to get him the ball, probably because, unless it’s in the centre by the penalty spot, they know he can’t trap it.

But, like I say, he wasn’t too bad, unlike Madueke and Martinelli, who I thought both had poor games overall. But that’s par for the course this season. Madueke did show a little more to his opposing fullback Dan Burn in the first half, but I thought once he got him on a yellow, he should have had more of a run at him. He didn’t, and when Saka’s number came up to come on, I think we all couldn’t be happier. And he almost instantly made an impact, forcing a deflected shot out for a corner. He’s clearly not fit enough to start, but hopefully he gets more minutes in midweek against Atletico, then we can look to start him against Fulham for the home game next Saturday evening.

And hopefully both Kai and Eze are fine too. Both came off, Eze seemed to be ok afterwards and said it was just precautionary, but I’d be wondering whether or not he’s at risk in midweek now. Arteta gave his usual “we will have to see” commentary, but he didn’t seem too worried about either player. Kai would be the one I’d have more concerns with. I think a lot of us probably suspected that it might be Kai starting yesterday, with maybe Gyokeres in midweek against Atletico. I think you certainly have to think about that now.

One other player that Arteta is going to have to think about in midweek is Martin Odegaard, as well, because I thought he faded in the second half. In the first half I thought he looked lively, I was pleased to see him getting on the ball and dictating play, but he was hardly mentioned amongst the gents in Block Five in that second half, which I think speaks to how he was probably feeling the fatigue of only just returning. He played the full 90. Can he go again in midweek? If we’re not going to risk Eze, he might not have a choice.

It’s similar to Zubimendi too, who came off on 81 minutes and who I read had been sick at halftime. If that’s a bug, then you wonder why he didn’t play, but it was interesting to see that Myles came on for him, although I suspect it is only because Norgaard hadn’t made the match-day squad.

And so we saw out what was a really nervy 1-0 victory. If we do four of those in the Premier League between now and the end of the season, we will all have aged quite significantly, I suspect, but for now it is good enough, and we move on to a big game in Madrid on Wednesday night.

I’ll be back tomorrow as we start to look ahead to that semi-final.

Quick P.S. on the Pope non-sending off. I know Arteta was insistent on it being a red card, but I’m not so sure. I think it probably is a little closer to a red than a yellow, but I can’t be saying that I 100% agree hand on heart – hence not really going in to much detail on it for today’s blog.

This could be the biggest game for Arsenal football club in over two decades.

In 2022/23, we had to go to the City and win. That was an Arsenal team that was a surprise challenger, who were up against a City team in their peak, that ended up winning a treble. Arsenal had lost William Saliba a few weeks earlier and had to go with Rob Holding at the back. It was always an outside bet.

Today, the situation is different. As usual, Arsenal have a load of injury questions to consider, but rather than “have to win”, this game still leaves things in the balance, regardless of the result.

But a result that sees Arsenal anything but it means that we are in the driving seat to win our first title in 22 years. Just typing that has me shaking with nerves this morning.

The problem we have is that rather than going into this game with swagger and confidence, we go into it having lost three of our last four games, with one of those being against 115 Charges FC at Wembley in a cup final. The momentum is with the financially doped football club, and Arsenal’s is patchy, to be generous.

My normal approach to talking about these matches pre-game is to do a bit of a data look at the situation, but that feels a little futile right now; we know that these games always throw up tactical nuances that change throughout the match. We know that Guardiola and Arteta are masters of tactical adaptability, so looking at the data for patterns of play, to my untrained eyes, feels a little spurious. So instead, today is more of a ‘feelings’ and ‘vibes’ blog, with some thoughts on which Arsenal players I want to see in the starting line-up today.

HandOfArsenal posted last night that Odegaard was with the travelling Arsenal squad, but a decision will be made tomorrow morning if he makes the match-day line-up. I doubt he will from the start, but if he can do 20-30 minutes, then that would be a huge welcome boost. He adds a layer of technical security on the ball, and with Saka already ruled out, it feels like every body we can get into that squad who can keep the ball and give us more security, is vital.

And with that in mind, if I’m picking a starting XI I am hoping will play today that has the right level of technical quality on and off the ball, here’s what I am going for:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Gabriel Jesus   –   Havertz   –   Trossard

Gabriel Jesus is the weirdest one out of that lot, but he is good on the ball, he has a massive incentive to up his game on a former home ground, he will chase, harry and defend as well as getting forward, plus he looked alright for his Sporting cameo in midweek. I think it is too much to ask Dowman to start. Madueke has been poor in his last couple of games, as has Martinelli, so throwing a little bit of a curveball could be something that surprises City. And if it doesn’t work, if he’s terrible, then you can decide to get Dowman, or Madueke, or even Martinelli, on the pitch at some stage.

If Odegaard is available, that’s where this is also interesting, because suddenly, for that second half, we have options. If we need to Hincapie can sure us up at the back, I doubt Timber (I’ve made a wild hoping gesture that he’s fit today) could do the full 90, so I’d have Mosquera ready, you have Odegaard in midfield, Martineli/Madueke/Dowman as your wide attacking options, plus, if you really need to go for it, you give Gyokeres 20 minutes and tell him to get into those box spaces and being ready. In theory, we could have a very strong bench.

But that’s not the problem today. The problem is Arsenal needing to stay mentally on it and up for it, because I don’t want to have to think about the fallout if we take a pasting today. And that could happen. We are TERRIBLE at that stadium:

• No win in 11 years
• Seven defeats in 10 games.
• 25 goals conceded.
• Eight goals scored.
• Five goals conceded in five of those games in the first 25 minutes.

We just don’t have any kind of historical backing behind us in this fixture since the oil money came in. That 2-0 win, in which Cazorla starred, is the lone island of green amongst a sea of red, dating back to 2010, since City received their ill-got gains. If you go back to 2010 for the numbers, it reads two wins in 25 years, with nine defeats and four draws, and it is a rather depressing tale of an Arsenal side that has never really been able to consistently deliver blows against the best team of the last decade.

Which is why I’m not super confident about today. How can I be? I have hope. I am praying that Arsenal show up. But form, history, injuries and the situation dictate that today, unfortunately, I fear the worst. I am hoping to see something different, I really am, but there’s a reason most people are predicting a City win, and it’s not just because so much of the footballing world seems to have a vendetta against The Arsenal. It’s because City are good. Very good at attack. Cherki, Doku, Haaland, Semenyo, Savinho, Foden, Marmoush, and Rejinders – all have goals in them. And we’ve struggled for that of late. I hope that we have more space than usual and that some of our out-of-form attackers realise who they are, but I am worried about how this game might unfold, especially if they score their customary early goal against us.

We need every player, to a man, for Arsenal to be 100% on their game today. We simply cannot afford any lapses in concentration on passing or a lack of tracking runners. It will result in disaster if we have even two or three passengers today. That’s why I am hoping Arteta goes with the full complement of technically gifted footballers. We can’t be having any eight-touch Gyokeres games, or 10-touch hugging the touchline Martinelli games. Nope, we need guys stepping up, showing for the ball, finding space, delivering in the right moments.

I’m absolutely sh*tting myself today. So I’m going to fill my morning and right up until kick off with jobs and other things, in an attempt to take my mind off of what is unfolding later.

Amanda, James and I will hopefully be doing a post-match reaction to the result on the Same Old Arsenal pod after kick off, so join us there at some stage – we’re still working out exact times.

Mikel Arteta

• Perspective before performance – Mikel started with humanity. A reminder that context matters, and that leadership isn’t just about the next result – it’s about grounding people before asking more of them.
• Adaptability is the real constant – He talked about how injuries aren’t drama, they’re data. The message is simple: we’ve dealt with it all season, we’ll deal with it again. No noise, just solutions.
• Control the controllables – No chat about draws, permutations, or what others might do. He was very binary about the preparation – you play to win the next game, full stop.
• Mindset isn’t fluffy – it’s decisive – Talent gets you in the conversation. Mentality keeps you there. Arteta was explicit that this is an area they’ve worked hard on – and now have to prove again.
• Pressure reframed as privilege – Instead of fearing the moment, he reframes it. Being here is earned. That mindset shift matters when the stakes are high.
• Learn fast, don’t linger – Past losses and external noise aren’t baggage – they’re fuel. Take the lesson, feel it briefly, then channel it productively into what’s next.

I think it’s the right approach ahead of a huge game and, unlike last weekend, there wasn’t any need to do the whole ‘fire’ or ‘bring your dinner’ stuff. He knows that this game is already being built up so much by everyone that we need to dial it down a bit. I do wonder if the players are feeling that, though. We heard from Eze ahead of Sporting, and he was chill; Rice was also very focused but saying all the right things in a Sky Sports interview. But I worry that the actions of the players of late have shown a different side, a side that is feeling the weight of expectation, a side that is running out of gas whilst also dropping like flies on the injury front.

To that end, the absence of Saka is a real blow, and I think at this stage, we probably have to start thinking about him as an optional extra now, for the rest of this season. He’s struggling with an Achilles injury, and he won’t be in the squad tomorrow, meaning his last game was over a month ago. There’s no way he’s going to be back in the starting XI next Saturday against Newcastle, which means we’ll probably also only see him as a bit-part player for the first leg of the semi-final of the Champions League. It means we need to see more from Noni, who, at least, Arteta confirmed, should be ok. As usual, he wouldn’t be drawn on which players are fit, saying that some players are ‘close’, but he said that last weekend and ahead of Sporting, so whether they are fit remains to be seen. I think all of us are desperate to see Timber back, for sure, because Doku might be licking his lips if he’s up against White or Mosquera. Equally, having Calafiori available would be a big boost, even if he’s not fit to start, with Hincapie and him able to share minutes. Hincapie was restricted in the League Cup Final because of that ridiculous yellow card that wouldn’t have been a yellow, but I wonder if this time, if that were to happen again, Arteta would bring on Riccardo earlier if he had to. I certainly hope so.

Pep Guardiola

• Calm realism, not drama – Pep was a little matter-of-fact about injuries and circumstances. Players will be missing, that’s the season. No emotional charge, just acceptance and adjustment.
• Success is contextual, not emotional – He was clear that winning the title this season wouldn’t be framed as his “greatest achievement”. That’s telling. Perspective matters when you’ve been there before.
• Respect without obsession – He acknowledged that Arsenal are the benchmark this season – consistently strong, improving year on year. Respect is clear, but it doesn’t tip into fixation.
• Big games are still just games – Even with the stakes obvious, he strips the occasion back to performance basics. Execute well, compete properly, and control what you can.
• Pressure reframed as opportunity – Six points is a gap, not a crisis. Home crowd, sold-out stadium, everything aligned to try – not to panic. His was a message of readiness over rhetoric.
• Clarity on what will decide it – Guardiola was precise about the challenge: physical duels, aggression, second balls, build-up quality. No vague talk of “desire” – just clear performance realities.

For them, the requirement is clear, and I wonder if ‘the title is over if we don’t win’ will work in their favour tomorrow or not. I think it will certainly fire everyone up, and I think those first 15 – 20 minutes or so tomorrow will be a bit of a cauldron, as their fans are unusually loud, whilst their players will be massively aggressive in trying to get ahead early, I suspect. As I said yesterday, the numbers favour that early goal, so we have to make sure we don’t go behind. As I was on my run yesterday, I was listening to the always excellent Arsenal Opinion Podcast, and the lads were quite bullish about our chances. But what Matt said on his ‘hot take’ really resonated with me: The first goal wins the league. It’s a deliberately provocative take, which is kind of the point, but it does feel significant. When Arsenal go behind, we tend not to win football matches, and City have a history of scoring early against us and going on to win. But even against other teams, we know we’re not a side that goes on to win football matches if we score first. This season, we’ve beaten Newcastle when going behind, but that’s all I could find for this season. In 2024/25 it was three wins in total. In 23/24 it was three times again. So we don’t exactly have a habit of making comebacks. The data tells us City scores first, and we don’t do well coming from behind. If we’re going to get anything from this game, it does feel like we’re going to need to score first.

And that is what I will leave you to ponder on today, my friends, so have a good one, and I’ll be back tomorrow with a match preview.

Laters.

Today the managers will give their press conferences. A week ago, Arteta tried the rousing speech to get the home fans to bring the noise. In midweek, he talked about ‘fire’. I have a feeling today he will lean in to the ‘enjoy the ride’ narrative. He can’t get the home fans on side as this is obviously an away one, so it has to be a message to his players via a public medium, so I think that message is going to be “look at what you have achieved so far, embrace the challenge, show everyone what you are capable of”.

And let’s be honest, everyone is basically calling this a City win. I don’t blame them. They have the momentum. They have the recent results. They have the home advantage. They have the attacking talent. Conversely, our form has been poor, our performances have been patchy, and we are away from home. I had a look at what the pundits are saying, and it is no surprise that they are all basically backing City to win this. Chris Sutton says 1-0 City on BBC Sport, Merse goes for a 1-0 City, Shearer says a City win, Paul Scholes (unsurprisingly) thinks City will win ‘easily’, DAZN have said 3-1 to City Sports Mole goes for a 41% chance City do it, 34% chance we do it, 24% chance it is a draw. The only person who seems to think we could get something is Gary Neville and Lewis Jones on Sky Sports, who say they are thinking it’ll be a 1-1 draw.

That would be a dream scenario, let’s be honest, because the way I feel right now, even I’m struggling to make a case for us getting a point, let alone a win. We’ve scored three goals in our last five football matches for crying out loud.

I think we’re all just praying that some sort of good news on returning players is found out. I say “found out” rather than announced, because we all know Arteta will give us nothing, so we’ll be reliant on HandOfArsenal dropping some kind of news that certain players are back in training and have made the match-day squad for the weekend. Otherwise, we’re looking at probably Ben White against Doku and, like the cup final, that worries me.

What I am trying to find solace in is some of those interviews of the players, like Decaln Rice, who has said he and his teammates are ready for the ‘ultimate test‘ this weekend. I have no doubt he is. That man has prove time-and-time again that he is made for this type of match-up. But unfortunately, this season, our attackers have proved they are not. Just look at this goal return from the forwards on this chart:

• Bukayo Saka = 6 (26 Premier League appearances)
• Trossard = 5 (27 Premier League appearances)
• Madueke = 2 (21 Premier League appearances)
• Gabriel Jesus = 2 (12 Premier League appearances)
• Gabriel Martinelli = 1 (26 Premier League appearances)

Saka gets a bit of a pass because he’s been injured, but that’s pretty crappy across the whole team, it has to be said. I really want to dig in on Martinelli for that, but looking at his time on the pitch, he’s basically been a sub for most of the season. He’s played 900 minutes in total in the Premier League, coming on as a sub in 16 of those 26 appearances. But when you think about what he gave us away at Southampton and at home to Bournemouth, you can see why. It’s just not good enough at this stage of the season.

And it’s these stats that are the reason I am so worried about the weekend. These games always feel like a ‘first goal wins’ and when your attackers aren’t delivering the goals, it already feels like you are playing with one hand tied behind your back. I’m probably going to talk more about that over the weekend, I think, because it does feel like the first goal wins it and, annoyingly, more often than not it is City. I also feel like they seem to get that first goal really early, too. In the game in September, we started better, looked better, but Haaland scored within 10 minutes, and we were left chasing the game the whole afternoon. We did score very early in the 5-1 last season, with Odegaard bagging in two minutes, but in the 2-2 draw in September last year, it was Haaland again in nine minutes that put us on the back foot. When you look at games at the Etihad, other than the 2-2 just mentioned and the 0-0 from the season before, the wins City have had have had first goals scored:

• 2022/23 = 7 minutes – De Bruyne
• 2021/22 = 7 minutes – Gundogan
• 2020/21 = 23 minutes – Sterling
• 2019/20 = 45 minutes – Sterling
• 2018/19 = 1 minute – Aguero

That’s an appalling record in terms of early goal concession, pointing to a historic issue with keeping the temperature of a game down. And, once again, we’re going into this one in which those normally quiet City fans will be in full voice. You look at those numbers, and it doesn’t exactly feel like history won’t be repeating itself, eh?

If I’m going to try to find some positivity today, it is that if we score at their ground first (it hasn’t happened since 2015, guys and gals) then perhaps it opens the game up, or alternatively if we keep them out in the first half they might start to commit more bodies forward and leave even more space in behind, then maybe we can get something. But as of right now, looking ahead to this one, without any idea of player availability, I’m just not sure.

I’m really sorry, guys, I feel like I’ve been a proper neg this week, which doesn’t exactly make for fun reading. But let me assure you, I love this club as much as you, I want only the best for them, and I will spend the entire game in a praying position on Sunday. I am hoping for the football gods to smile down on us, but I’m a bit like Paul Ashworth in Fever Pitch; I tend to look at the glass half empty when it comes to The Arsenal, because I feel like any time I get a little too positive, something rocks me. The last time was when Villa defeat when we were on that amazing run in 2024.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for today, then be back tomorrow when we can have a look at what the managers said. See you then.