With such a barrage of football having been played in January and then ending for us this week, part of me is glad for a bit of a reset, but part of me is frustrated that it ended on a low of that Newcastle performance on Wednesday night. If we still had the taste of that City win in our mouths and in our minds, we’d probably be going in to this enforced break feeling a little more chipper about the remainder of the season I reckon. But that defeat – or rather more the manner of it – has left me feeling a little bit unsatisfied, I have to say. A bit like when you have an International break and the team has lost or drawn. It just feels like a bit of an itch that you can’t scratch for a prolonged period of time. That’s how I’m feeling in the cold light of day 36 hours after that defeat at St James’ Park.

I guess the good news is the type of competition it is means that most of us Arsenal fans will get over it a little more quickly I reckon. It’s the least important of all of the cups, it’s not something you prioritise at the beginning of the season, so the ‘mourning period’ – if you can call it that – will be relatively quick I think. I hope. It might be extended a bit because of the fact we aren’t playing in the FA Cup this weekend, but maybe that will last just an extra day or so, tops.

And after the Scum confirmed their exit with the same sort of whimper we did on Wednesday night, that provided a bit of a Schadenfreude shot in to the arm of Arsenal fans. I have no love for Liverpool, but they were definitely the preferred choice and because of some of the antics of Newcastle players and fans over the last 36 hours, I think I even have a preference for them to go and beat Newcastle now. Because for some reason, Newcastle players have decided to bust out the “Stay Humble” lines. Hang on a second – it was City who started this with Haaland being a dick to Arteta et al, so why are we being labelled with that stick, just because we gave it back to City?

Those Newcastle players will certainly need to win the competition now, because the Internet keeps the receipts and Anthony Gordon and Bruno Guimaraes will certainly cop a bit of it from Arsenal fans if they don’t beat Liverpool in the final, that’s for sure.

For Liverpool, they will now have to fit in an away trip to Villa and if you want to inject a little bit of Hopeium in to your veins, maybe that game will be played in a congested period towards the end of the season that could see Liverpool drop point. That’s where we’re at right now, because as it stands they will be playing two to three games a week every week until at least the end of March at this rate, because I think they beat Plymouth this weekend and that means they’ll have another game wedged in to the beginning of March too. They’ll have the Champions League like us, but our midweeks are basically clear other than that and playing Forest on 26th Feb – they will have gone to Newcastle a day later than us just before that game so hopefully that’s a small gain and then they’ll probably have an FA Cup tie after us, so maybe there will be some eyes on that for Forest, but for us after we play Forest we can ‘leave it all on the pitch’ because that weekend afterwards is the FA Cup weekend.

So for Arsenal fans I think our hope has to be that Liverpool go deep in all competitions – hopefully get knocked out in a semi final of the FA Cup, maybe get to a quarter final of the Champions League and bow out, because it will cause some fixture congestion for them and perhaps (trying to put some more Hopium into the veins here) that fatigue will catch up with them. Admittedly it hasn’t so far (Salah and Van Dijk have played 2,800+minutes so far this season so if they play all of the Premier League games, FA Cup and Champions League, they could be on more than 4,500 minutes for the season which would be crazy good for two players in their 30s) but we have to hope that it catches up with them somehow.

As for us, we go to Dubai now to reset. It was nice to see White travelling with the team and I think Arteta had even said he expected to have him back after the trip. Even to have him on the bench will be a boost because it’ll take some pressure of Timber, who we have been flogging of late. It was also massive to see Saka in a tracksuit and travelling with the team. And that picture will have absolutely have been done as a PR exercise folks. The club are so fastidious about these snaps, they make sure to give nothing away, but after the January window was a bist what better way to give hope back to players than to see Saka getting on a plane for training. It is a welcome sight, but my gut feel is that at best we’ll have him doing some light jogging and that even after we return from Dubai to face Leicester on 15th February, we won’t be seeing Saka any time soon. Gut feel is that he’ll be with the squad doing individual sessions whilst they train, he’ll be in the team bonding exercises that aren’t too physical, then he’ll return to team training probably around week commencing 24th February at the earliest. From there it’s probably a week or two and so perhaps we might be lucky enough to see him in a squad for Man United away on 9th March. But even then I think the club will take it easy on him. If he’s making any appearances in March we have to see that as a win.

And on that positive note I think I’ll leave it for today. Catch you wonderful humans tomorrow.