Morning folks and welcome to Tuesday. We are less than a week away from it all being over and I am starting to get excited. The thought of three months away from having to shout at my TV because young men in their 20s and 30s can’t make me happy on a football pitch makes me positively giddy, I tell you.

Flippant responses to what has been a pretty tragic season aside, I do wonder how much the ‘relief’ feeling will last when the season is finished, you know. I think what is making it worse is also all of the ‘on this day’ stuff you see on social media these days. I saw one yesterday which was for the FA Cup Final when we beat Hull by coming from two goals behind to win 3-2. That was my first Cup Final as a fully paid-up adult not relying on my Dad’s mate Roy to have spare tickets to cup finals. It was – in the end – a glorious day and the high I got from that as I exited the stadium was unreal. I got similar highs from the Villa final, as well as the two Chelski finals, but that Hull City one felt special because of the nature of the fightback, as well as the fact we’d not one a trophy in year’s.

So even though I’ve just besmirched those ‘on this day’ videos, it has given me a little kick of adrenaline and enjoyment about just thinking and writing about it for a minute or two. But broadly speaking I’m not always the biggest fan because when that initial joy subsides you are reminded that where we are right now is so far from any kind of glory days it can be quite depressing. Bernd Leno – in coming out and saying he’s happy at Arsenal – has also spoken of how far the team is in an interview in a German media outlet Sport1 and in it he talks about how he’s had a good season, but the season of the team has been less so. He talks about how the club are battling against the history of the likes of Thierry Henry et al and just how far away they are from that. No Sh*t Sherlock! He also talks about getting some decent wins in the big games but as we all know the one thing that sets you apart in the Premier League is consistency and we’ve had none of that all season. The thing about Wenger teams was always that they could dispatch those smaller teams in the league. It’s why we managed to finish fourth each season; playing the role of flat track bullies may not win you a Premier League title, but usually it gets you easily in to the European spots and Champions League specifically.

But we have been far from that and losses to Wolves, Burnley, Villa, Leicester, as well as draws against Fulham, Southampton and Crystal Palace have all had a fairly big impact on us this season. If next season is going to be anything like success then that needs to be arrested. We need to miles better at home and the hope is that home fan support can play a part. It does make me chuckle at people online who talk about how rubbish the fans are in the stadium. Well, hopefully when fans get back in and Arsenal can start winning home matches again, we can see just how much of an impact the Arsenal fans can make on the team. As a collective we may not be the most vocal at times, but I do think that a lack of fans has impacted us.

It’s probably impacted the bigger teams more than anyone else. United, Arsenal, City – all of those teams have been rattling around in massive empty bowls for nine months. Sheffield United, Burnleyt, West Brom have smaller grounds and so perhaps it doesn’t feel as eerie playing matches in those types of grounds?

I dunno, perhaps that’s just me spuriously clutching at straws, but the thought of another season like the one we’ve just had fills me with dread, so in my head i’m trying to rationalise the season by filing it as an isolated series of unfortunate incidents that can all be explained away. As a fan I’m looking for a silver bullet; a panacea that when removed from the equation, instantly turns Arsenal Football Club back into one of the top teams in the division. Be it the wasters who were just hanging around on their big contracts that we needed to shift, or the lack of fans inside the stadium, or unfortunate injuries we’ve suffered – I’m looking for anything that when removed can mean that we instantly bounce back.

But as you will know as well as I, deep down I know that this isn’t a simple equation. There are too many variables in terms of why the team has failed this season. This isn’t just one of those ‘pull a thorn out of a lion’s paw and all will be well’ type things. When fans get back in we will still have a fair few of the players that have failed us this season in the team. The manager will most likely still make some baffling decisions that we are all confused about. We will still make silly brain dead mistakes that cost us games. That’s just bound to happen and we won’t just switch all of the problems off overnight next season. The hope just has to be that we can at least arrest some of the biggest issues that have arisen.

Right, that’s me done for today I think. There’ll be some kind of press conference ahead of Palace tomorrow evening I suspect, so it will be interesting to see who is fit and who’s playing in the next dead rubber in our season.