It’s the start of a new week, we have to look forward instead of back from a football perspective, unless you’re talking about Man United and the Scum. Both lost yesterday, both look shambolic, the only sad thing might be that Big Ange may not last until the end of January at this rate.

There are a few jokes going around about United or the Scum possibly getting relegated, which is fun to consider, but not a reality I think will come to light. There are worse teams in the league, unfortunately, but to see them both toil and sit in 13th and 15th respectively is a bit of a laugh. I still don’t understand how we didn’t progress in the FA Cup against that United team.

But then again I kind of do. Because home games against teams lower down the league have taken a specific shape for us this season: low block, no real intent to have a game, hope that a random counter leads to a goal with your only chance in the game. That’s what’s been happening to us. So the game in that FA Cup that we had suited United because it meant they could focus on flooding their own box with their own players and seeing if they could ‘do an Everton’ against us. All the while Everton were realising they can finish against Tottenham yesterday – try shushing the crowd now ‘Sonny’, eh?

The Arsenal news is – as evidenced by the fact I’m four paragraphs in to today’s blog – rather thin on the ground. There was some nice words said on social media last night about Dennis Berglamp, who was in town for the 2-2 draw and had a tribute dinner that a few of the journo’s on the beat were at last night. Arsene was there too saying some positive words and at a time in which we’re all frustrated after the weekend’s draw, sometimes it’s nice to roll back the years and delve into the archives of time to re-live some of the finer times in our history. And boy, what we would give for a time machine to be able to DeLorean ourselves one of our iconic strikers in to the current set up, eh?

The irony is – as James and I talked about on yesterday’s Same Old Arsenal show – that the front line actually did its job on Saturday evening. It was the defensive lapses that cost us a game that we really deserved to win. Teossard was great and arguably the man of the match with his two assists, Havertz was on the score sheet and was unlucky that the ball ricocheted off his hand for the disallowed goal, whilst Gabby Martinelli opened the scoring for us in the first half. If you’re talking about doing your job, you can’t really argue with that from the front three. I think the problem is that this hasn’t been consistent enough though. That’s down to a few factors and James and I talked about that yesterday too.

Is it fatigue? Probably. We are basically playing the same players every three days and having had to do 120 minutes in the cup and follow it with an emotionally charged North London Derby, to get what we got from that front three was good. But that isn’t going to happen every week. You need to have options and on Saturday the option was to bring on what I think we can all pretty much see is a washed Raheem Sterling. That’s not enough for a team currently in second in the Premier League and third in the Champions League. Those positions are being used to try to build context in where we are at, as is the fact that last season at this stage we had 46 points and Liverpool had 51 (this season they have 50 and we have 44). We’d also scored 44 goals and conceded 21 last season at that stage, where this season we have scored 43 and conceded 21 again. So it’s all feeling very similar, right?

I get it and that even provides me with a smidge of hope when I hear that, but the reality is that we were in a better shape physically this time last year than we are now. When we beat Palace 5-0 at the Emirates exactly one year ago today, we had Saka fit, Jesus fit, White was a regular and from the bench that day we called upon Smith Rowe, Nketiah and Martinelli in rotation. On Saturday the only senior attacking player we had was Sterling. Last season the team had also just undertaken their Dubai trip from 9th January, getting back the midweek before the Palace game. That was the catalyst as we all agree. This season the noises are the team might use that FA Cup exit to head to Dubai again, but before that’s even possible there is the game on Wednesday against Zagreb, the away game against Wolves, an away game at Girona before the not-so-small matter of a match against City. And it’s a City team who I suspect are finding their mojo again having smashed Ipswich 6-0 yesterday. All the while with us not having any re-enforcements looking like they are on the way.

I am not trying to sound like the harbinger of doom here, but although numbers-wise we are looking like we are in a similar place to last season and we could easily turn it on for the second half of the season, it doesn’t feel like the chips are as well stacked in our favour this time around. The Palace win was followed up by a good win away to Forest, but to cut the gap on Liverpool we also had to play – and beat – them on our own patch. We did that after the Palace game and that cut the gap to them to just two points at the 24 game mark. Liverpool have a three-point banker next Saturday against Ipswich, then a tricky away game to an in-form Bournemouth. Maybe we can put some hope in there but when they play Bournemouth we have City at home. So you can see how tough it’s going to be for us.

Having had time to digest following that draw I am not in the ‘it is completely done’ camp just yet. But I do worry that come 3rd February, we might be staring at that possibility. Let’s hope some things swing in our favour. Not least an opportunity opening up in the transfer market.

Catch you all tomorrow.