Welcome to another week folks. It’s always nice starting off a working week off the back of an Arsenal win and when it is one in which you’ve just beaten two of the top teams in the league, it feels all the sweeter. The sun is shining a little brighter, the sky is a little bluer and the birds singing in the garden are a little….erm…chirpier?

Anyway, the point is that I’m feeling pretty good and I hope you are too. I didn’t watch the two games yesterday, but having read some of the results from the Chelski West Ham game, I guess you have to be happy with anything that potentially weakened an opponent. And Dawson being sent off does that. In my head in the morning I said to myself “West Ham won’t win, so if there can be a knock to a key player, or ideally a sending off, that’d be grand”. Well, we got the sending off and that will mean West Ham have further worries at the back which hopefully will give us more hope that we can win away at a very tough opponent.

And if we can beat what looks over the last few seasons like an impressive West Ham side, imagine the confidence that will give us going in to the final games of the season. These three matches looked to me like they would be our downfall at this part in the season, but if we can somehow overcome the Hammers next Sunday, it’ll be massive for morale and will also put us in a good place for the final four games. Go in to the Leeds game at  home three points clear of the Scum and it’ll be massive, because we’ll have Leeds at home whilst the Scum will have played Liverpool away on the Saturday evening. Now, we can’t count our chickens, but you’d hope that Liverpool would do us a favour, so for me the next two matches for Arsenal could be absolutely crucial in our Top Four hopes.

How on earth has it swung so mentally though in the last two weeks, eh? Two weeks ago they were ahead of us, we were staring down the barrel of some tough – and what felt like borderline impossible – games, with no confidence and not really knowing where the goals are coming from. But here we are on a Monday morning and I’m talking up the potential of being points clear of the Scum as we go in to that NLD with them. I guess it goes to show that at this point in the season crazy results happen and at this point in the season you probably shouldn’t be looking as far ahead as we are.

On Sunday next week the Scum will have played Leicester at home before we kick off. So they will have the advantage of the marker to lay down. I’d expect them to beat Leicester because Leicester have the same situation as West Ham i.e. they are playing for a European trophy in the Conference League against Roma. They play on the Thursday, then they have the Scum on Sunday, then they have Roma again the following Thursday, so I’m expecting that just like West Ham, they will rotate. The hope is that they don’t rotate too much but I suspect they will rotate as much as Moyes will rotate for our game on Sunday.

What I hope doesn’t happen is that the fact the Scum get to go first in terms of playing their game, puts added pressure on our players. We have seen how our players have wilted at times in recent weeks, so I’m just hoping that what we see is an Arsenal side that can step up after what will be an expected victory for them in the toilet bowl.

We have a whole week to worry about the permutations though, so I’ll leave the hand wringing until we get closer to next weekend.

Just before I wrap up for today though, it looks as though these Gabriel Jesus rumours are hotting up. The player has said he doesn’t have time to discuss it, Pep has even said he doesn’t know what the situation is, so with that as well as the fact that the noises are that Edu doesn’t want to talk about it, it all feels rather real. I think it would be a good move for all parties. Jesus is a good player, a goalscorer, young, plus with a year left on his contract he shouldn’t cost the earth. He’d be a big upgrade on what we have now and as one of two strikers hopefully incoming, it feels like the right type of approach for the club. Arteta will also know exactly what type of player he is getting and he is Premier League ready, which means the adaptation period will be short. It fits all of the boxes and feels like it should be one in which a deal could be done quite easily if Man City are doing to drop all the cash on Haaland in the summer. But as with all of these things I suspect we’ll hear nothing until we get to mid-June at least on this one.

By then we will also know our fate in terms of European competition and the revenues coming in. Let’s just hope that it’s the top competition that we’re in when we know that fate in the summer.

Right, that’s me done for today, so you have yourself a good one and I’ll be back tomorrow with more ramblings.

Laters peeps.