With all of the noise around the Madrid win still beautifully ringing in our collective ears, it’s easy to forget that we have another game in to days time, which will be the trip to Portman Road to take on the Tractor Boys.

As it’s Good Friday, I wondered whether we’d have a Mikel Arteta press conference today, but I guess after the effort he and his coaching staff, as well as the players put in, perhaps they’re having an extra day off? After all, they’d have got back yesterday at some stage, maybe a day off and then training tomorrow would be just what the players need.

There’s also the game itself we have one Sunday, which will be as low-key an affair as I think we might get all season. Sky will inevitably try to big it up, but let’s be clear on this: you can’t put lipstick on this particular pig.

As I briefly said to Amanda and James on today’s Same Old Arsenal podcast, this game is basically nothing to either side. Arsenal probably need to win three, maximum four, of their last six, to probably get second spot. If West Ham win tomorrow at home to already relegated Southampton, then Ipswich need to win all six of their remaining games and ‘hope’ that West Ham don’t pick up a single point from their remaining six. I think it’s probably unlikely and so in all likelihood what we’ll get on Sunday is an Ipswich side who know they are down in all but maths and name. Hopefully it might mean they come at us a bit, because I watched the game against them at The Emirates over the Christmas period whilst in Africa and, if I’m hoenst, it was the low-blockiest of blocks that we got that day. I can’t believe a side who have nothing to lose but already know they are down are going to try and play in front of their home ground and home for a 0-0 draw.

What it might do is bring them out a bit more and that might make it a little more like a Champions League game than the defensive displays we’ve had to endure from every team that comes and plays us over the last three or four months. So there might be space and hopefully Arsenal can feast.

But in all reality, I’m still very ‘meh’ about it. I’m still thinking about the positive repercussions of the game against Real Madrid. The players will be back at London Colney and the place will be buzzing I’m sure. The vibes will be positive, the mood lifted and whilst in the league we’ve had to endure two pretty turgid draws over the last couple of week’s, rather than lamenting a domestic season that fell away a long time ago, there will be life in NOrth London. Not least as well because the Women are also in the Semi Final having also dispatched Real Madrid too. Funny how life creates symmetries sometimes, eh?

That Arsenal Women’s game kicks off tomorrow and because we’re playing on Sunday it’s a great opportunity to get a sell out crowd tomorrow lunchtime. Let’s hope that we can have some more symmetry going our way with the women beating a French team, so we can start claiming planetary alignment by having the men doing the same against PSG in a couple of weeks.

The other repercussion from the men’s result, I hope, is that the plans the club have for the summer are also positively impacted. If you’re watching an Arsenal team dismantle the current Champions League holders 5-1 on aggregate and you’re a player who has been linked with us, maybe your agent has even had some informal chats, then a result like Wednesday night is going to have you more convinced that it’s a place to be. Players watch games. That’s a fact. And if players are watching this game – as I’m sure half the world was – then they are looking at how well that Arsenal played and how excellently coached the performance was and you are thinking “I wonder what Mikel Arteta could do for me?”

It’s an exciting thought that we could be in the driving seat on many of our targets this summer. We have to act on the good vibes around the club though. There will, of course, come a time in which we will talk about transfers a lot more and right now it is merely footnote with there still being stuff to play for, but for new arrival Andrea Berta I’m sure things like Wednesday don’t hurt when you’re ringing around agents at all.

We will need to make sure we make the right choices though. We can’t have any more ‘Don Raul’-style ‘favours’ from super agents. The process still needs to be trusted, the right players still need to be found, the due diligence needs to be done. Making hay whilst the sun is shining – aka making use of your current standing in the game as one of the top clubs in Europe by results like Real Madrid on Wednesday – will only last so long if you make bad moves in the market. Look how about five years of bad moves has put Man United in the position they are in? Look at the position we were in when Mikel arrived – so we know all too well what you have can quickly be taken away. You have to cement your place at the top table and that happens on the pitch, but it also happens off the pitch too, so there is a careful bit of planning and work that needs to go in to this summer to make it a successful one.

We’ve got ourselves into a great position though by being in the semi final of the Champions League. Sure, the Premier League has turned out to be a busted flush, but there are mitigating circumstances to that which we all know and can compartmentalise. But the summer will be the time to take that next step so that we can be this competitive across both domestic and European competition.

Back tomorrow with some more thoughts.