Morning folks, we all good? Have you been basking in the delights of a North London Derby victory still? I certainly have. Yesterday wasn’t exactly my most productive work day, I have to admit, as I intermittently found myself getting on to social media to watch the occasional short video of Spurs fans filming their reactions to the goals from Sunday. The most enjoyable ones were of course with the guy repeatedly shouting “you let your country down” to Bukayo Saka, right before our Starboy delivered the corner that put us one goal up. Then there was the mop-haired looking fella who was giving Rice some stick before he delivered the ball that Havertz nodded in to make it 3-0. Delicious stuff. More so when you see him trudge back to his seat from a certain angle, clearly muttering expletives under his breath knowing that his efforts had been completely in vain.

We talked about that particular moment on last night’s Same Old Arsenal pod and how, frankly, weird it is that people do that. I sit on the edges of the North Bank, in Block five and 11 rows from the corner flag. I can honestly say that in all my years of having that seat, I have never had the compunction to trundle down there to abuse an opposition player. Even one from The Scum. There’s just no point. These athletes are tuned to zone out anyway, so it’s a complete waste of energy to try to do something as pathetic as trying to put them off on a corner. And as those individuals found out, it only makes you look even more moronic when your team concedes immediately afterwards.

Egg, meet face. I’ll leave you to get acquainted.

As for us, we now have almost a week for the players to prepare for the visit of Bournemouth to The Emirates and having gone through quite a frantic April in which there were games what felt like every five minutes, we now drop in to a weekly cadence of games between now and the end of the season. The way the season is shaping up in terms of the fixtures too, there will be a bit of a ding-dong between us and City if we can keep pace with them. City play after us next weekend, then before us the weekend after that, so there is going to be a bit of back and forth as both teams try to maintain that perfect momentum as the season reaches its climax.

And this feels like it’s going to be quite a nail biter. I’m not sure I’m ready for it, to be honest with you, because the last time we were this good and competing towards the end of the season, I was a Uni student and we’d already won it in 1998, then in my first year of Uni in 2002, then in my third year in 2004. And in both 2002 and 2004 we had built up such a lead that the final games were just processions anyway. Not this season though. This season I feel like the best outcome we will have will be if we are still in with a chance of winning the league on the final day, because City aren’t dropping points to Wolves or Fulham and by the time their game comes around against The Scum, I suspect they’ll find that a little easier in itself. That’s because Tottenham have Chelsea this Thursday and Liverpool on Sunday and I don’t see them winning both of those games. By that time Villa might have dispatched Brighton. Hopefully not, because we do need the Scum to believe they have something to play for when they play City in a couple of weeks time.

Eugh, doesn’t it feel just dirty thinking that we might need to rely on that lot up the road, eh?

But enough about them, let’s focus on us, with some news emanating from the socials yesterday that the away kit for next season will be a black, red and green number, which you can have a look at Arseblog here for more info. I have to say, I don’t entirely hate it. I’m not sure about those weird marble patches under the arms, or the green, but it’s a darn site better than this season’s abomination of an away shirt, that’s for sure.

The reality is that ultimately it’s just a football kit though. If I like the look of it I might buy it, if I don’t then like this season’s kits, I probably won’t buy it. Hopefully it can become one that can be associated with the big trophies though; that would be nice.

I also think it’s nice that David Raya moved on quickly from his error at the weekend. He acknowledged it, owned it, then did well after that initial mistake and I think it speaks to the mental strength of this young Arsenal team that they were able to hold on to all three points in what was a bit of a cauldron of pressure after that second goal had gone in. It was horrible for us, but for the players perhaps holding on to their nerves in that moment can be good for them; we still have three matches to play and I’m sure there will be more scenarios in which mistakes will be made, but how the team responds is more important than the mistakes themselves.

And I would say that this is one of the key improvements from last season and previous Arsenal iterations: These players overcome adversity quickly enough. I looked at our April fixtures in March and I couldn’t see how we were going to get through it unscathed; we had a heck of a lot of difficult fixtures, across a very short time span, so this was where our season could derail. Then when we drew at home to Bayern, lost to Villa and drew away, it did kind of feel like that. But the response thereafter was phenomenal. Wolves is a tough place to go, you never know what you’re going to get with Chelsea and the North London Derby had absolutely been built up as the day our title dreams died. But these players showed the minerals to step up and the outcome is that we find ourselves top of the league (albeit for now because of City’s game in hand) and STILL fighting for this title.

There needs to be big credit given to these players and to Arteta and I for one certainly feel like I’ll need to have some time to appreciate the season they have had when it’s all over, regardless of what the outcome is.

I think I’ll leave it there for today. Back tomorrow with some more midweek thoughts. Enjoy your Tuesday.