Feel a bit down this morning. After the highs of the midweek win against The Scum, yesterday we were brought back down to earth and sadly, I think our title chances are probably all but gone now. We have 16 games left to play, Liverpool will beat Everton with their game in hand and that means we have a nine point swing to make up in that time. It is absolutely possible, but in reality we’ve had too many times this season where a door has been left open for us and we’ve not taken it. yesterday was another example of that. Liverpool won earlier in the day and so it was merely a weekend where we had to ‘make par’ i.e. match their result. We didn’t and because of a few factors in yesterday’s game, I think it just shows that this is not going to be our season. Ever sign I see points that way.

The first sign yesterday was the rumours that Saliba was missing. Arteta confirmed afterwards that he was ‘worried’ about Saliba and that would be just our luck if he’s now missing for a few weeks. The response was to put Partey in at right back and I think all of us at this stage know that it was the wrong call by Arteta. It just doesn’t work. A few season’s back Arteta didn’t want to shift Ben White from right back to centre back when we had injuries, instead opting to play Holding there instead. I’m sure I read at the time that he thought it disrupted too many other positions. Yet that’s exactly what he’s doing when he plays the Ghanaian there, because he moves him out of midfield, he moves Timber out of right back and so instead of having to change up one position (centre half), we change three (centre half, right back, number six). And that mistake was laid bare with the second goal we conceded to make it 2-2, because Partey let Watkins ghost in behind him at the back post. You cannot do that to one of the best strikers in the league, it just isn’t acceptable. And I tell you what, I suspect if we’d have had Kiwior in the central defensive position and Timber at right back, it wouldn’t have happened. Arteta’s decision to make the shuffle he did has cost us this game, I think.

But what has also cost us has been injuries and the lack of summer action. It’s becoming a bit of a broken record now, but we had one forward option on the bench and it is a pretty pitiful option, because Raheem Sterling is no longer good enough to be at a club challenging towards the top of the table. He came on, he had a couple of runs, but I never felt like he would add anything new to the game, it didn’t look like there was any spark. We just didn’t look like we would find that winner (even though I think we did and it was unfairly chalked off – will come to that in a bit). We had a bunch of kids or players who are probably out the door within the next six months (Tierney, Kiwior, Zinchenko, Jorginho, Neto) and when you need to shift things up you can’t be relying on a washed up Raheem Sterling to be a game changer. The injuries have smashed our season, but we need to act and act now, because the season is fading away.

It probably already has, as I mentioned above, but when Martinelli put us ahead after a lacklustre first half, I wondered if we might have enough to just get over the line. That’s what we’ve needed to do in January as we wait for re-enforcements to arrive from the transfer market (fingers crossed) and players to return in the next few weeks. Martinelli gets his goal and at halftime it’s a case of ‘we’ll take that’. Villa had a couple of slightly interesting moments when they broke in transition, but that was it.

Then in the second half we started with much of the same; we had most of the ball in their half, we were creating chances and when Kai put us two up on 55 minutes you’re thinking that we should be able to shut this game out now. But Villa’s fightback through Tielemens was a result of Partey’s ambling over to prevent Digne from the cross and Merino letting the Belgian get in front of him at the near post. It was poor defending. But the second goal was even poorer from Partey – I won’t go over it again as I’ve already mentioned above.

The response from Arsenal was of course to search for the winner and when it went in off Havertz for the deflected goal, I thought we’d found it. The replays showed it probably did hit Havertz’s arm, but here’s where I am frustrated on this:

  1. If that hits a defender in the box and the ball goes wide when it is going in and is by the defenders side like it was for Havertz, does VAR intervene and call a penalty?
  2. If that is at Anfield and it’s Liverpool finding a winner, is that goal chalked off.

On both counts the answer is ‘no’. I have absolutely no problem if we’re going to say that the goal is a handball, but Lewis Dunk had a ball to hand in the game at the Emirates in the box earlier in the season and nothing was given. The VAR ruled it out within 30 seconds. Once again we’re looking at the marginal calls going against us and when Ollie Watkins is saying “we got away with one there” after the game, you know you’ve basically once again been robbed by refereeing. We’ll get gas lit next week from Howard Webb, Dermot Gallagher and the rest of the media telling us that it was clear and obvious, but there’s nothing clear and obvious in that for me.

And that’s why I’m getting close to the point of saying “let’s just chuck this season in the bin and move on”. It feels like everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong for us this season. Merino injury, Odegaard injury, Gabriel injury, Saka injury, Rice coming in to the season not fully fit, VAR calls you’ll never see again…the list goes on and on and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn we’ll be missing Saliba for a couple of weeks now too. Heck, even when we find somebody to spark the season in Nwaneri who has looked brilliant, we lose him at a critical point in the season.

It’s a tough one to take, but it just feels like this season is a ‘take your medicine’ season. We need to go big on attacking options in the summer and see if, in fact, it is next season where we need to go to the next level. Because the football gods are telling me that it ain’t this season.

We’ll be doing a Same Old Arsenal podcast this lunchtime at 2pm UK time – join here if you fancy it.