Blog rising to a crescendo. (And I meant the full stop there for dramatic effect)

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Nervous?

I’m nervous. But I guess that comes with the territory when so much season salvation relies on the outcome of one particular football match. It’s crazy actually, because even if we navigate today’s tricky fixture against Wigan, we still have more nail biting to look forward to in the form of a cup final, which we’ve shown we can implode against even the most relegation-foddery of opponents. So to be this way for a semi final seems a little over the top. But it’s because we’re expected to win today that it makes it more nervous. Had Moneychester City steered past Wigan in the last round, we’d be hopeful, but the expectation wouldn’t have been as high and as a result I’m not sure I’d be as nervous as I am typing today’s thoughts out for you.

Still, life could be worse, I mean, I could be rocking a pair of well worn Spliffy jeans like some sort of early nineties throwback. Or I could be made entirely of lead, which really wouldn’t be too conducive to any kind of movement. I’d also probably be an inanimate object incapable of any kind of emotion too, so y’know, swings and roundabouts and all of that jazz.

Anyway, I guess all of this pre-amble is merely an unnecessarily long prologue to today’s blog, mainly because I don’t really have any kind of inkling as to how today will evolve. Well, actually, that’s not quite true: I know exactly how my day will develop up until about 5.05pm, but beyond that I am a mere passenger being carried along the East Australian Current (“The EAC dude”) that Nemo’s dad hitches a ride when he’s trying to find him in that cartoon by Disney that I forget the name it’s called. I am hopeful that I – and by proxy as an Arsenal fan, you – will arrive at our destination (safe passage to the FA Cup Final), but who knows what kind of ensnarement might befall us by the time we get to 8pm this evening (dodgy defending? Own goals? Penalties?).

It’s either rapture or dejection: there are no middle paths to take here people. We’re either cup finalists or we’re bottlers on what feels like a never ending road of purgatorial trophy nothingness that we seem destined to tread. The media will have their way with us regarding of the result, we know that, but all the same we hope it’s the ‘plucky Wigan outdone’ headline rather than the ‘giant killers’ script.

I was never a fan of David anyway. Fluked himself a sweet spot against poor old Goliath in a match up that really should have had only one winner.

Again, the fact I have managed to rinse through a number of paragraphs of prose without actually having to delve into tactical analysis, probably shows my apprehension about today’s game all the more. I’m worried because we’ve got injuries. I’m worried because the spark in the team seems to have gone. I’m worried because I fear the players mental fragility if the worst were to happen. What happens if we go behind? What happens if after the first 15 minutes it becomes clear that we look as leggy as we did last weekend against Everton?

Yet there is a common saying from which I am attempting to draw strength from (if you’ve got to this part of the blog without dismissing me as a ‘Ned the Neg’, and no, you probably haven’t heard that phrase anywhere before because I literally just made it up):

It is always darkest before dawn.

Well, it’s pretty effing pitch black if you listen to most Arsenal podcasts, or read any other Arsenal blogs. There isn’t exactly a majority of the fanbase confidently predicting an Arsenal whitewash, which tells me that most of us are in ‘glass half empty’ mode, that’s for sure. So perhaps, just maybe, today is a time for a redeemer in red and white to appear from amongst the confidence rubble and see us over the line in the season. A hero, a star, a saviour, perhaps even coming from the strangest of sources. A man to throw open the curtains and let glorious and warming sunshine wash over us with goals and a victory.

Step forward Olivier Giroud (didn’t expect me to say that, eh?). He’s looked all kinds of toilet for the last couple of months. Not even a fancy toilet. One of those public ones that’s had the plastic white seat ripped from it, smeared in all kinds of bacteria and pubes that I dare not elaborate on, with four walls that have more ‘Sharpie’ inspired profanities that you can shake a permanent marker at. I have much maligned his inability to deliver on many occasions, but wouldn’t it be so very Arsenal, so very Giroud, to bag a winning goal today? It wouldn’t surprise me at all.

But he’s just one potential match winner. Santi, fresh from the newspaper comments about team mentality, has it in him to Ray Parlour the ball from thirty yards and in similar fashion etch his name further into our hearts. Or Rambo, who’s lung busting efforts coupled with some sound goals this season, have seen him propelled to superstar status in our minds.

Who’s fit? Who’s not? Who are Wigan going to play in their team? How should we approach the game? What will the first fifteen minutes of the game look like? All of these questions are ones that I am disinclined to debate and dissect, because right now I am focusing on one thing and one thing alone; preparing my pipes for an early evening of extreme working out. I am going to go – as my wonderful friend and fellow Suburban Goonerite Ben Leeder says – ‘full tropic thunder’ on the game. But not in a negative way, in a ‘if my levels of craziness can help the team team in any way, they’ll get a whole heap of Crazy-Chris today’ way. I’m up for this. And I haven’t even started the first pint of the day.

Today is, to all intents and purposes, a home game for us. London is our town. It houses our club and we will come together to see our team win. There’s estimated to be around 55,000 Arsenal fans today. That’s 5,000 short of the Emirates so we have to make sure it sounds like an Arsenal game.

Sing loud, sing proud, and sing Arsenal.

What are the ‘basics’?

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Perhaps in a similar way in which many of us fans have wanted to ‘get this week over and done with’ after last weekends debacle, Arsene’s press conference was brought forward to yesterday, meaning he has more time to prepare the players today. That’s fine by me, because I’ve had enough of reflecting on what’s going wrong at Arsenal, and thankfully the FA Cup tie against Wigan gives us the opportunity to wash our mouths of the slightly bitter taste that the Premier League competition has left us recently.

Of course, the fact that we are in a cup semi final doesn’t banish the lingering thoughts of a funk at the club, which is the very reason why so many Gooners are approaching this game with trepidation tomorrow. Fearing a Championship team is not something we should probably be doing, but our form coupled with the ghosts of 2011 still fresh in the memory seem to remain in our minds eye, as clear as a high definition 46′ plasma screen picture.

What doesn’t help was the news that yet more players could be added to the ‘Inujured XI’ team that the medical department are treating right now. The Ox, Rosicky and Gibbs are all doubts, with Arsene giving The Ox the best chance of return at 50:50. It’s a concerning enough situation that we have so many players out already at a crucial stage of the season, but also brings in to sharp focus every little issue such as the suspension Flamini has for picking up yellow cards. More on the team news and my thoughts of a possible line up tomorrow.

Arsene spoke of the fact we’ll be respecting Wigan tomorrow and, in perhaps an echo of what Szczesny said earlier in the week, I think those words ring very true after what Birmingham did to us. That we are approaching this game with caution can only be a good thing in my opinion. We sauntered up to Wembley in 2011 wondering when we would actually get to lift the trophy, such was the expectation and probably arrogance of both fans and players. But if our more humble approach to the game tomorrow results in greater concentration and eventual success, let’s hope we use that between now and the end of the season.

Arsene mentioned that we have to ‘go back to basics’ yesterday again, reiterating his stance from the Everton game and whilst I agree with the sentiment, I’m not really see what that means for a top Premier League side if I’m honest. I mean, if you’re talking about a Sunday league side, then that might mean telling the team to always find a man, go to the nearest player with the ball to give him an option for a short pass, etc. In defence it means lumping the ball into touch when you are in defensive difficulty instead of playing out from the back. For a professional football team, I’m not sure exactly what the ‘basics’ are, but perhaps Arsene is talking about mentally.

Perhaps he’s talking about looking at the teams morale and getting them to do things that don’t require something special. Pressing is something that is very basic and easy to teach anybody, yet that seems to have disappeared from our play of late.

Of course, if the team is running on empty, then I’m not sure how you can achieve your ‘basics’ mentality that you want to instil into the players. Just thinking out loud here, don’t have any answers I’m afraid, but I certainly hope Arsene does.

Maybe ‘the basics’ are a simple case of reminding the players, as Rocky once said, of ‘who they are, what they are and who they represent’, plus ensuring that they are fired up enough to give that extra bit of effort that a cup semi final should demand. You can be damn sure that the Wigan players will do that, so it is imperative that the Arsenal players show infinitely more drive than they did against the Toffees. Maybe when Arsene talks about ‘the basics’ he’s also talking about his own ability to et the team fired up. The perceived lack of energy from the touch line on Sunday has been picked up by a few, so perhaps he knows he has to ensure his role is played by getting some sort of Churchillian message to the starting eleven come 5pm tomorrow.

For me, if you’re talking about basics defensively for a professional football team, you have to look at the way in which the team is set up. Leaving vast gaps of space in between defence and midfield, like the space Naismith occupied last Sunday, would be a basic bit of instruction that the manager would need to consider. With no Flamini available, that means that Arteta has to revert to his last season position where he almost exclusively holds his position in front of the central defenders. He is always the outlet from the back and so will need to forgo any desires to push further forward in pursuit of goal-y happiness.

In terms of attack, the ‘basics’ we need are clear. We need to populate the area around Giroud with players, giving him options for knock downs and runners. Ramsey provides one such individual willing to do that, but with him just returning from injury last weekend, is it too much to ask for him to produce his early season lung-bustingly awesome form? Again, I don’t really have any answers here, just musings I’ve plucked from by cranium.

Not long now until we step into that famous old-new stadium, so let’s hope that the players spend today with clear heads and are building their convictions for what will be a tough game tomorrow.

Laters.

We fear the players’ fear of failure. But we shouldn’t

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It comes to something when even the Wigan Athletic manager is trying to ‘out mind game’ Arsene, doesn’t it?

Uwe Rosler has already begun to turn the pressure screw by claiming that Wigan are already winners – regardless of the result – and that Arsenal can only lose it themselves. To an extent he’s probably right; we’re the Premier League ‘big boys’ with the expectation of the whole world that we’ll roll over ‘plucky Wigan’, but as we all know that tag of favourites will count for nothing come 5.07pm. The whole world will be behind the Latics and we have to expect that.

And look, under normal circumstances, if this week were a Premier League game against Wigan at home, we’d expect to win, right? Even if it was at the DW Stadium we’d expect to win. So why, given that it’s going to be played in London with vastly more Gooners than Wigan fans (effectively turning it in to a pseudo home game anyway), are we all so worried?

Fear of failure. The implosions this season have hit us and hit us hard. The team has shown a mental fragility that we thought had been consigned to the history books. We fear the players’ fear of failure and freezing up against a team that will undoubtedly be weaker than us technically, but will attempt to combat that with drive and pressure on Saturday to even the score.

Failure is not an option and because the margins are…well…there aren’t any margins, this game feels like it’s all or nothing for Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal. Of course we know that’s not true, we know there are five league games remaining and an opportunity to secure Champions League again for the nine millionth time, but I would guess that if we lose on Saturday just about every Gooner will be looking to Stephen Hawking to manufacture us lots of regional black holes to be swallowed up in. There will have to be a media blackout of millennium big proportions for Arsenal fans and Twitter will certainly be a ghostly place. Well, I certainly won’t be venturing there for a few days afterwards if the worst happens.

It’s that fear of mental freezing the players could experience that we are worried about, so when an article which features Santi Cazorla supposedly saying that he’ll re-evaluate his position in two years time because he wants to win trophies comes out, you raise your eyes at the timing.

Of course, I don’t doubt that he probably undertook the interview a few weeks back and it’s been saved until Arsenal seem at their lowest ebb, but it doesn’t help the fragile feeling many of us have and the current emotional state we’re in when it comes to The Arsenal. And of course, as a Spaniard, it’s natural for him to talk about returning home one day. He comes from a large Spanish family and his time in England, to my mind anyway, is always going to be more of an extended stay than a permanent lifestyle change. But ideally you’d rather players kept those things to themselves. Actually, although we like hearing from them, half the time I do wish that the media weren’t allowed to interview players at all.

Santi also talked about the mentality of the players improving and that we have to believe we can win more, which if we’re all honest we’re questioning ourselves right now, but hearing it from a key player doesn’t fill me with the greatest of glee. Of course, the press have hyperbolised the situation as is their remit, the article itself not really being as damning attack on his club as they would have you believe. But there are some snippets in there which suggest that all is not right. I’m sure Cazorla is probably going to get himself in Per Mertesacker fine territory, but we’ll not hear anything from the club, hopefully they will respond in the best possible way. On the pitch.

That’s what Santi has to do now. If he leathers in a 30 yard screamer to set us on the way to a comprehensive victory sending us into the final, then has a huge contribution to the final himself and helps to win it for us, then he will be the master of his own destiny when it comes to winning silverware and his own questions about mentality and trophies will have been answered. If he under-performs like he and many of his teammates did against Everton last Saturday, he can only look at his own failings and see why he hasn’t won anything at The Arsenal.

Anyway, time for a bit more positivity before I knock off for the day, and that is we’re just two days away from a welcome return to Wembley. Come on Arsenal!

Puppy sacrifices with no repercussions

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I learned quite some time ago that life isn’t fair, but I’m still coming to terms with the fact that in football, there’s ever anything that is fair in this world.

I was all ready with my ‘har-har, chortle-chortle, Chelski lost to a team that plays with an RnB singer from the nineties’ jibe, when I find out on BBC News at Ten that they’d scored a last minute winner to get through to the semi final.

I mean, really? Do you think that the footballing gods could just give Chelski some sort of karmic comeuppance, just once, just at some stage? Probably not. John Terry, dressed in an all white Ku-Klux-Klan ensemble, surrounded by puppies to which he bullets each one, then finishes off by eating them on national television, probably wouldn’t see any kind of karma come back to haunt them.

Jose Mourinho can make all the jibes about rival managers he likes, but you just know that the second Arsene have it a go, we’d lose 12-0 to a Tony Pulis inspired Crystal Palace side. Actually, Arsene might as well start making derogatory quotes about the opposition, because when he doesn’t it still doesn’t keep us immune from batterings.

You might want to take a step back from today’s blog, because I’ve filled it with some sour grapes and they’re really starting to turn…

What we really need to see ‘turn’ is our form and, as the Everton debacle begins to fade slightly (but unfortunately cannot be forgotten), I find myself trying frantically to return to some semblance of positivity. After all, come Saturday night at around 8pm UK time the world could look like a slightly brighter place. Of course, it could also look like an unfair wasteland of ripped Arsenal shirts and broken cannons, but as Billy said on GunnersTown in his piece yesterday, hope is a much more powerful and thoroughly enjoyable feeling than that of bitterness and anger.

So my plan for the rest of this week is to recapture that feeling that all is certainly not lost in this season. An FA Cup semi final victory followed by victory over West Ham in the league will provide some much needed belief to all concerned with Arsenal. The hope, however, is that the team can handle the pressure against lesser opposition.

If I can offer any glimmer of positivity to you in the days leading up to the semi, it’s that our season success has been built on the back of beating teams further down the table to us. Wigan are certainly further down the table, as are all of the sides we now face in the Premier League, so whilst our fate does not reside in our own hands for the race for fourth (eurgh), the team have shown they have the minerals to dispatch teams this season.

Aaron and Wojciech have been the chosen mouthpieces for talking up the Arsenal response this week, which I can understand because Rambo’s return appeared to show no major ring-rustiness and despite being partially culpable for the third goal on Sunday, there’s not really a lot wrong that Szczesny did against the toffees and so both players emerged from the second Merseyside debacle of the season relatively unscathed.

It will be good to see Ramsey line up in midfield – probably alongside Arteta – at the weekend and whilst the Spaniard has looked a little bit war-torn and weathered of late, having someone with the energy of the Welshman will do him the power of good I’m sure.

We’ve still got a few days before Arsene or anyone at the club emerge to talk all things cup competition, so perhaps it’s a good thing that they’re getting down and concentrating on trying to rediscover some form. What we really need them to be doing is having another group meeting and some home truths laid down a lá Tottenham away last season. There needs to be a team reboot because it hasn’t been working for some time now. A fresh approach can come from a bit of team bonding and motivational speaking, but if ever there was a time to try and re-jig the first eleven to inject some pace, it’d be right now.

More on possible team line ups in the coming days.

When the moderates start turning…

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I don’t think I’ve seen the tide of support for the manager so quickly dissipate as I’ve seen these last few days. There’s always been a hardcore following of people who have been firmly entrenched in the now well known “Wenger Out” school of thought, but this weekend just gone by seems to have pulled many moderate Arsenal fans into a school of thought which is pondering life after Arsene and also questioning his ability to motivate the team.

Those moderate Gooners questioning – and I include myself in this – do so with a heavy heart as it’s uncomfortable to see a man with which we thought could do no went at some stage, seemingly void of the spark needed to drive the team forward. You only had to look at the limp way in which the team approached the game to see that there didn’t seem to be the heart there.

For me, what makes it worse, is that it feels as if Arsene is clutching at straws a bit, trying frantically to find a reason as to why his team has seriously under-performed this season. He’s trying to find reasons that don’t lead back to him and I think, in his heart of hearts, he knows that they are not there.

What’s more worrying for me is what lies ahead. If the players cannot be motivated for a massive game like Sunday’s, then a tricky run-in over the next month may turn out to be calamitous. Yesterday I read Arsene’s comments about the FA Cup being a different competition and therefore maybe that is a good thing and it really worried me. He’s like the alcoholic saying to himself that one more drink won’t affect his rehab. How on earth does the type of competition affect how a team should set up? How does it affect the mentality of the players? Is he saying that perhaps the players are a little worn down by the Premier League? Because that doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence if you ignore the opportunity of an FA Cup trophy and just look at our fourth place trophy. His comments on the official site sounded to me like a man very much clutching at straws.

This saddens me. I never thought I would not have enough faith in Arsene to deliver what’s needed as I do now. I want to extract those negative thoughts out of my brain and put them in a compost bin round the side of my grandmothers house where I will never realistically go to. But I can’t and the net effect is that I see the end looking like it is in sight for someone who is undoubtedly one of our greatest ever managers. Nobody can deny that, nor can they take it away, but right now it feels like a chapter is closing.

My wife has family up in the North East and I speak to her uncle all the time about football. He’s a mad passionate Newcastle fan and I remember talking to him about Bobby Robson when he left Newcastle. His response was to tell me that all Newcastle fans love him, but he went on a few too many years, as football evolved and he couldn’t cope. I see a repeat happening at the moment.

It’s all been a bit doom and gloom so far on today’s blog, so I’ll try to scratch around for some positives, to see if I can’t end today’s ramblings feeling a bit better.

We’ve got a semi final to look forward to. As terrifying as it might be on Saturday, we’re two wins in the FA Cup away from ending ‘Wenger: The trophyless Years’ and that would be amazing. We’ve also got five Premier League games (three at home) against opposition that you’d hope we can get the better of and if we do, with the tricky games Everton have got, you’d hope that we could secure fourth place.

Heck, in two weeks time we could be looking at an FA Cup final on the horizon and an Arsenal team that has wrestled the initiative from Everton in the Premier League to give us the chance to end the season successfully. If we achieve both of those aims this season, I will still see it as a success and we should still view 2013/14 as one in which we moved forward.

I think I’ll leave it there for one day. Have a good one peeps.

Abject Arsenal are in trouble

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Hold on tight, strap yourself in and mentally prepared yourself, because today’s blog isn’t going to be pretty.

Yesterday I sacked off a match preview because, after a night on a Monopoly bar crawl, I couldn’t really be arsed to write anything an hour or so before kick off. Hey, it happens, but the consequences of that are minimal to anybody.

Arsenal must have taken the same approach, because they couldn’t really be arsed yesterday either, the result of which was an all too familiar capitulation in a big game in which we needed to see a spark from the players. We got nothing. Literally nothing from the team. Actually, that’s not quite true, because we did get a fabulous dismally of misplaced passes, lack of pace and creativity and effort across all aspects of the pitch.

Let’s give Everton some credit first though. They hassled, pressed, hurried and looked hungry. They were hungry for a Champions League spot and had a clear line of sight towards what they wanted to get by putting an Arsenal side to the sword that quite frankly looked like they were all practicing for a ‘who can be the least arsed’ competition.

I’m getting tired of this. I think it was Le Grove that said on Twitter last night ‘let’s be honest, did anybody not expect this?’ and I have to echo those sentiments I’m afraid. Nobody does implosion like this Arsenal team. And, by golly, haven’t they had enough practice at it this season?

I’m getting tired people. I’m tired of talking about the same frailties. The defence which looked so solid for so long now looks like a rickety old fence that you could just give a nudge to before it falls over. It offers little protection to Szczesny and the result was a defensive lapse after defensive lapse. We lost 3-0 but there were plenty of other times that we were cut apart and you do have to wonder whether or not we were blinded by Vermaelen’s goals in his first season at the club, because his regression has been staggering over the last two years. He’s been ok filling in for Koscienly in the most part, but he was terrible at times yesterday, ball watching for the first goal, flailing a leg for the second and generally looking like a lost boy.

What makes me sad is that it doesn’t look like the manager can motivate the players any more. How else can you explain a game in which the team had a week off to prepare and yet still looked like they were running through treacle. We can talk about ‘tired lets’ and ‘fatigue’ until the cows come home, but I’ve seen a few teams over the last couple of weekends who have played just as many games as our players and yet they don’t look nearly as lethargic. A week! They had a week to be ready for this?

But herein probably lies the crux of the matter, the main area of focus and root cause of the problem: the manager. We all know he doesn’t look at the opposition and adapt his game to suit. We know he likes to send his players out with their own game plan and to play ‘Arsene’s Way’. But the trouble is, the only teams that could play that way were ones that had the best players in most positions, across the whole park. Intelligent players who had the ability to be given freedom of the park and express themselves. This Arsenal team isn’t good enough to do that. Sure, Arsene can rightly point to injuries and say that with those players fit we’d be challenging, but they’re not fit! So when you haven’t got the best players at your club available, you have to try something different, hence why looking at your opponents and changing your style to suit would make sense in light of so many first choice players being out.

But not Arsene, oh no, he sends his team out with the same instructions, the same expectations, yet expects different results. I believe Einstein famously said that is the very definition of insanity.

Arsene got out-tactic’d yesterday. Big time. He got shown that unless you have the 11 best players in their position in the league, you ignore the opposition at your peril. Martinez knew the joy Lukaku would get if he played out wide and so put him on the right and told him to wreak havoc. And he did. And there was no response from our manager, who is looking like he is showing his age from a footballing perspective. Modern football has moved on, Arsene, sadly hasn’t.

There’s not one player that started yesterday that can come out of the game with their head held high. The closest one that got to that was Sagna, yet he was guilty of dwindling on the ball too long and conceding possession which led to the third goal.

I don’t want to start singling out players, but after his woeful attempt at trying to look like a centre forward yesterday, I’m finding it hard not to mention a player who is called ‘the lamppost’ by some of the fan-base because when the ball hits him it bounces off in any direction. He was well into double figures of losing the ball when he was hauled off for Sanogo yesterday. Sanogo having that ‘X-Factor’ from the bench that we were looking for of course. Or rather, Sanogo being the only attacking player available because of the managers negligence to strengthen last summer or this winter.

Arsene said after the game that he cannot question the teams spirit. I hope that’s just talk for the papers, because I’m sorry Arsene, but that’s exactly what you should be doing right now. There was precisely 0% spirit in that team yesterday. We could have played for a week and we still wouldn’t have scored. There was a total lack of effort from the first minute until the last and I am just thankful that the Ox and Rambo came on and looked lively, because that will at least give us some home that there is some pace that can be injected into the side.

We’re on the ropes here people.

Heh, wouldn’t you know it, as I’m writing today’s blog my train has stopped outside Wembley Park station, as if to serve as more of a reminder of what lies in store next weekend. The players found it very difficult to motivate themselves for a Champions League spot showdown, so what makes any of us think they’ll be motivated for a cup semi one? Wigan fans, players and management must have been rubbing their hands together with glee having watched that shower of the proverbial yesterday, because now not only are they going into a game with nothing to lose, but they’ll be doing it against a team that looks as strong as a Rich Tea biscuit slam-dunked into a cup of tea.

If we lose next weekend, it will be almost impossible to argue a case for the managers defence, because if all we have to play for come May is another ‘fourth place trophy’, then all you can say is that he is now treading water with this team at best.

That’ll do for today. Perhaps some more thoughts tomorrow.>

Twinges, switcharoo’s and Everton

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See Arsenal? See what happens when you leave me to my own devices on a Saturday? I head into the City to engage in a bit of beer-swillingey Monopoly-inspired goodness. I hold you fully accountable for what transpires on this Saturday afternoon.

Mind you, at least Arsene has managed to plug a boredom gap by giving me something to write about whilst I wait for this horrific monstrosity of public transportation (London Double-Decker – I have a deep-seated detestation of all buses going back to my university days reliance on the horrible things) to take me to my destination. Rail replacements…pffffhhhhh.

Anyway, you don’t care about that, so I’ll move my mutterings squarely into the Arsenal topic corner. Arsene took on the press yesterday and was able to talk up the positivity that Rambo’s return (sounds like a film that Sly would make when he realises he’s probably too old to get any other gig) would have on the team. It is a timely boost to the squad, but much like Gnabry and as I mentioned yesterday, Arsene confirmed that he didn’t expect him to be firing on all cylinders for at least another two to three weeks. That’s fine by me. I can handle the ‘he’ll improve on the pitch’ stuff, it’s the seemingly never-ending dreaded ‘three-weeks’ when players are out, that I find difficult to stomach.

I’d expect him to play some part in the latter stages of the game tomorrow, but let’s hope the victory is secured with 20 minutes to go when we can ease him back in, rather than us desperately chasing something against an in-form Everton.

What he will eventually bring to the team is a much needed shot of adrenalin to the team. His all-action energetic style brings feels to me like it brings us a bit more urgency and in addition to his goals, it’s not surprising to see that he’s a fighter in defence as well. We may have to wait a couple of weeks before we see the lung-busting Aaron, but he’ll get there and we’ll profit from it as a team as a result.

The return of Monreal is quite fortuitous too, as it appears Gibbs has a slight ankle twinge (love that word!), so I think Arsene will be happy to give it the old ‘switcharoo’ (that one too!) in at left back. Anyway, more on team squad line up tomorrow, with maybe even some thoughts on Everton too.

I always find the headline grabbers in the press quite amusing at these press conference thingamabobs. After he had his usual presser yesterday, I saw headlines about Arsene talking about ‘six pointers’, little horses and the like, but it was only when I actually watched the press conference that I realised that he didn’t actually say those things at all. He was asked a question by a hack which included the word ‘six pointer’, to which he could either respond ‘yes’ (WENGER SAYS CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GAME A SIX POINTER), or ‘no’ (WENGER DISMISSES EVERTON GAME IMPORTANCE). I know I’m big enough and ugly enough to realise that it’s all part of life’s eclectic and rich tapestry, but it still doesn’t make it any less irksome.

Arsene was also asked about whether the morale of the team had been dented by recent displays, to which he admitted we were a little ‘flat’ against Swansea, but that a corner had turned with the City result. I’m sure that did restore a little belief, but the only worry I have is that our belief seems permanently balanced on a knife-edge. We’ve take. Quite a few batterings this season compared to our so-called rivals, so I’m always wary when you hear comments like ‘we’ve turned a corner’. It’s fine to turn a corner, just don’t turn four corners on the same side in quick succession lads, because you’ll end up standing exactly where you were and be doomed to repeat your mistakes. For me, the only time I’ll truly believe that we have ‘turned the corner’ is when a very large milestone has been achieved. I’m sure you know where I’m going with this, but for me it’s all about getting that monkey off our back; delivering silverware.

We have a very real chance to turn a very big corner. I hope Arsene and his team takes it. We all do.

Catch y’all tomorrow.