Ahh man am I tired. I know it’s ‘first world problems’ n all that, but sometimes in the middle of a working week you just want to go home and vegetate on the sofa, not entertain clients. So apologies if today’s blog seems a little more incoherent than usual. My head is pounding and my vision and brain is fuzzy.

I did check in on Sky Sports to see how United got on last night though and a draw to managerless Leeds yesterday is a pretty decent result for us I think. They’re just seven points off us – albeit having played two games more – and given how the pressure is going to be ratcheting up over the next few months, owe need to get those games in hand off the ‘hypothetical’ list and on to the ‘done and dusted’ list. Hopefully through two victories that would take us 13 points clear of them and therefore mean that they have to probably win every single game between now and the season to catch us. Because if you think about it we would have to lose five matches with them being flawless in five matches too. So it would be a big swing to play catch up.

But like I said, it’s all just hypothetical at the moment, because if we lose those two games in hand then United are just seven points back and whilst that in itself is a clear buffer, we’ve seen them catch us far too many times not to see it as a concern. Granted, it isn’t a Fergie-driven United, but Ten Haag has them picking up results and looking more cohesive than probably most people thought they would. At least for this season anyway.

So we have to take care of our own destiny and we’ve now learned when one of those will happen, which is Everton at home on 1st March. That’s during the midweek that the next round of the FA Cup is played and so whilst it is a shame we aren’t in the competition any more, one can’t complain too much because City will be playing during that midweek, as will United and the Scum. It means that fatigue will be a factor for all teams and so the fact that we play in a Premier League game during that time feels a little like we aren’t being disadvantaged by the fixture schedule. In fact, because there will be Premier League games on the weekend before, it won’t be one of those occasions where Everton have a full week to prepare. Everton play on Saturday afternoon at home to Villa at the same time as us going to Leicester to play Rodgers’ side, so in terms of recovery time it is evens Stevens from that perspective. Which is a-ok for me. The following weekend we are home to Bournemouth and whilst they’ll have had a full week of rest and ability to prepare for visiting the Emirates, you’d hope we’d have enough at home to be able to beat them on our own turf.

But that feels a fair distance away in itself, because we still have the small matter of Brentford at home and City at home within the next six days, which may well prove pivotal to our season. Lose both and we could be going away to Aston Villa knowing that both City and United could be breathing down our next come next weekend. It’s when the pressure really starts to tell and it is when we will truly see what this team is made of. We’ve done amazingly well to build ourselves this current buffer, but so much of elite sport is about psychology as well as good players with great technical ability and good tactics. Sometimes chasing is easier than leading and we’ve been leading all season. It has just felt like a ‘nice’ feeling up until this point, but I feel like now it could potentially become a bit of a millstone around the players’ necks, if they are not careful.

This Arsenal team is still so young, there are players who are not used to being at these lofty heights, so whilst it has all been good so far it can easily be turned on its head if we aren’t fully focused. There is definitely a three horse race going on and the horse that leads for 75% of the way doesn’t always cross the finish line first. That’s why Mikel is essential in the way he helps his players I think. He’s seen how to win a title first hand as Pep’s assistant. I think – and hope – that the players recognise this and are reminded of this when it starts to get scary like it will do in the coming months.

There’s not really a lot else going on at the moment, other than Gabriel Jesus returning to London Colney, but I doubt he’ll be anywhere near the first team any time soon. I suspect the club might be looking at a March return to the match day squad and that is fine by me, because the injury and surgery he had was a serious one and they need to make sure that he is fully ready for the run in. If that means waiting a couple of week’s longer than we thought then I say ‘so be it’. We are going to need him as the season starts to hot up.

That’s me done for today. Catch you all tomorrow.