Well I must admit I did not expect Everton to do us any favours yesterday, so didn’t bother watching the game between them and Liverpool at Goodison. It helped I was out for dinner with friends, I’ll admit, but when I asked the Management to check her phone for the score (superstitious fan in me and all that jazz), I was very pleasantly – nay, extremely – delighted to see that they had dropped points. It means that we’re three points clear of Liverpool at the top and with a better goal difference, which I don’t think is going to swing that much (or at least I hope not) in the next few games to mean that we get caught by Liverpool.

I don’t think in the cold light of today, however, that any of us Gooners will be getting too carried away. Not with the looming North London Derby on the horizon (the worst game of the season in my opinion – away from home I mean). Everton showed that the old cliché rings true: form goes out of the window for a derby and when you look at the fact that the Scum are a much more potent and better side than Everton, our task this upcoming weekend is infinitely more difficult than they had last night and look how that served up.

Maybe Arteta can use that as a warning signal to his players today? “Look at what could happen if we aren’t 100% prepared and ready for what we’re walking in to on Sunday” should be his mantra. But what is also essential is today, tomorrow and Saturday’s training sessions. Who is looking the sharpest? Who has recovered the best? Will he go for the same side as Tuesday night and can he even do that? I’m thinking specifically with the likes of a fully fit Tomiyasu and Partey. Both of those players have long injury records and I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that there must be a question mark over whether they can do it twice in a week. I’m crossing everything in hope that they can, because a 100% Tomiyasu and Partey would be a huge boost for us this weekend.

On Tomiyasu, it’s his ability to win those one-on-one battles in that left back spot. The Scum played Johnson on the right wing and he’s quite rapid, but they’ve also got the tricky Kulusevski who has some trickery and pace about him, so it does feel like there will be an individual battle that will needed to be won there.

On Partey, we finally got to see the Partey-Rice-Odegaard trio and it looked pretty tasty. Having that up against the Scum midfield feels like it would give us a chance, but it is also an intensity-fuelled and physicality-driven midfield three but it feels like Partey needs to be at between 90 – 100% for us to get what we want from him, because when he was first being introduced over the last few weeks, he looked very leggy and rusty. Thought Tuesday was the first time we saw him at more like his old self and perhaps that’s because Arteta has been biding his time and building his fitness to a level where we get a proper Thomas Partey from the start? That’s me putting my ‘hopeful hat’ on, because I’d love for us to go to the Toilet Bowl and absolutely boss them this weekend and it feels like Partey – if fully fit and on song – could be a big piece of that particular puzzle.

It’s Man City tonight and I think much like Liverpool yesterday I won’t watch it. Pep has been complaining about fatigue but they’ve done this before and they know how to get results – just look at the FA Cup semi final on Saturday. They were leggy, they didn’t look like their usual dominant selves, but they got over the line. I am expecting more of the same. But what is interesting is the difference in commentary coming from Pep versus Arteta right now. We’ve just completed four games in ten days, whereas City did four in 14. Pep has been repeatedly talking about how his players are tired, that the schedule is a joke, that they are clinging on and something needs to be done, but Arteta post the Chelsea game talked up his team and the energy they have been transmitting, talking about how we even went up a gear in the second half against Chelsea. I saw it too; a gear just suddenly switched and given that against Villa and Bayern in the second leg we looked like a team running on empty, I can’t say I saw that coming at all. But they just found another level within themselves and blew Chelsea and their Panini ‘shiny’ badge out of the water. It really was quite impressive. And at this stage of the season too, when it just becomes a ‘get over the line’ slog, I was genuinely amazed at how the team did in that second half.

Don’t get me wrong, we all know that Chelsea threw in the towel as soon as the second goal went in, but there were little things that just made me think that this side looked to be growing in stature; like when Gabriel shepherded the ball out of play when we were 5-0 up for a goal kick and then just roared and raised his hands in the air in triumph at another great defensive shut out. That’s the kind of mentality you need to get over the line and I just hope it is enough for us. And enough for this weekend too. This feels like a serious Arsenal team and this weekend it’ll be a serious football match that we’ll get involved in. If we can restrict the Scum like we have the likes of City and Liverpool, then maybe we can all start to dream about what could be.

I’m still not there yet though. I’m still going through my own Arsenal PTSD demons and I’m still dreading this weekend. Just look at the fact we’re only two days after a 5-0 win and usually I’d be basking in that victory, but there’s no time for that when you have an NLD hanging over you.

Back tomorrow with probably more apprehensive – but excited – thoughts.