We’re in to Wednesday, we’ve got to contend with the possible fact a crazy man now has the power to nuke us all, but at least we’ve heard from Özil and Alexis both saying positive stuff about the club. Right?

I read both of the comments from the players over at Arseblog and the official site and perhaps I’m reading too much in to it, but it very much feels like a rally cry from our two best players. I guess that’s totally understandable, if we take the disappointment of our last game into consideration, but it also underlines to me the importance of keeping these two talismen for longer than just this season (and next if there’s contracts running down and the club don’t sell). 

Özil’s comments about always wanting Arsenal are nice and you can understand how that sort of deal for that sort of money could be done so quickly, when you hear about the talks Arsène and Mesut had whilst he was still at Madrid. Wenger clearly wanted him quite bad and when it became a reality that he was leaving Madrid, he’d already laid the foundations of the move to happen, so kudos to Arsène for that. Mesut is now in his fourth season at Arsenal and he’s talked up how happy he is and whilst his isn’t a direct “we can win the league” like Alexis’ is, It’s still good to hear such positivity even after a pants result.

It’s no surprise that Alexis mentions the word ‘running’ in his description of going for the title, as the guy is a machine, and has been since his arrival. Sadly though, sometimes machines break and it appears we’re going to have to deal with the consequence of this now, after the Chilean FA confirmed he’ll miss the first of two games for the national team this week. He’s picked up a calf injury and I think I speak for all Arsenal fans worldwide when I say:

DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM ABOUT THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL. 

He will tell the Chilean’s he’s fine. He’ll go full Monty Python Black Knight “it’s only a flesh wound” on the coaching staff there, so I hope their strong enough to think of his long term health rather than the short term gain. 

If he does play in the second match, you just know he’ll be gone until the new year, which would be a massive blow to us. Giroud has done well when coming on from the bench, but we lack mobility across the whole of the front three when he plays and that mobility is what has allowed us to flourish at times this season. There’s also the fact that teams know there are different ways Arsenal can approach games. Without Alexis they will know that we will revert to last seasons style. Granted we have more form players right now, but the back-to-back home draws have given teams a blueprint to stifle us and so I for one am just praying that Alexis is rested and comes back to us in one piece. Especially given the game we have coming up next in the league.

Calling for common sense amongst national teams is like asking Americans to make the right choice in a presidential candidate though. Just doesn’t happen these days. So I expect we’ll be greeted with some unwelcome news when Arsène next takes to his press box.

Anyway, enough of this jibber-jabber, as I need to devote some time to building my deep underground bunker that will prevent me for the evtnual nuclear holocaust that is sure to befall us now Trump is about to take charge.

Catch you all tomorrow. Maybe.