Me having suggested that perhaps they’d take the day off yesterday, of course Mikel Arteta rocked up to do his press conference in the afternoon after I’d posted some thoughts, such is my luck. I don’t mind, it gives me something to have a look at on an Easter Saturday morning, although aside from some of the obvious team news updates, there’s not a load of difference in this weekend’s updates from the manager.

Calafiori is still out, although he is close to a return according to Mikel, whilst Jorginho is apparently ‘still struggling’ with what happened to him at Brentford. With Thomas Partey now not able to play the first leg of the game anyway, I suspect that there’s not a lot of change from that position on Sunday or indeed against Palace on Wednesday too, so it’s not really too much of a challenge for us that he is out. It’s the same with Riccardo, to be fair, although that’s because of the scintillating form of Myles Lewis-Skelly since he broke in to the team. I’ve just watched another little comp of his from Wednesday night and in it there is one section in which he just blitzes through the Real Madrid midfield from deep. You know how we’re all starting to say that Nwaneri has that ‘trademark goal’ in which he cuts inside and curls it? Well Myles has his own signature move too, which is that driving through the middle of the park. He ain’t the tallest guy in the world, but his body strength and balance to stay upright with the ball at his feet amongst pressure from the opposition, certainly feels elite. I’m also thinking back to that Everton run he had before being poleaxed by Tarkowski a few weeks back. Mesmerising stuff.

Mikel did offer an interesting soundbite on Kai though, saying that although the semi finals would be too soon for him, but he suggested that he would potentially be back before the end of the season. I remember just before he picked up his injury Arteta was saying that Kai was an absolute machine in terms of his fitness and whilst at the time that had looked like he’d cursed him, if he does return then it does speak volumes about how his body is well suited to adapt to injury hits and also fatigue. Having Havertz back for the last few games of the season would be amazing; I think there’s a few of us looking at Big Gabi in a leg brace on Wednesday night (great video of him celebrating Arsenal scoring at home on Instagram if you want to search it out) and worrying about the start of next season, which for me given how Kai also had to have surgey, had me worried about him from the start. But even if he comes back for the final few games we at least know he’s ready to go for next season. That in itself offers comfort.

A lot of the other questions from the media were obviously more focused on talking about the game on Wednesday night and the semi final against PSG. Arteta’s comments about having to find alternative solutions to Partey’s European suspension were of course naturally vague and it was put to him that MLS could be that option. I guess when you see run’s like he has been making as part of my hypothesis of his ‘signature move’ you can see why people are saying that, but I seem to recall that Arteta doesn’t really like to move too many of his chess pieces around. It’s why two season’s ago we say Rob Holding against City rather than the more preferable option of having Ben White at centre half. It’s why we saw Kiwior come in for this run of games – although admittedly he’s been brilliant so that’s vindicated, but I saw people suggest moving White in there (he’s been injured so has been difficult), for example. So for me I think he’ll probably go with an option which keeps as many of his first teamers in their natural positions. Of course, if Calafiori is fit, then perhaps it becomes an option because you could play Riccardo as the left back and Myles centrally, but I suspect the most natural move we will see will be Declan dropping in to the six.

A lot of this is just speculation though and with us not knowing who exactly is fit it’s difficult to call. It’s also one for another day I think. For this weekend it is Ipswich and whilst Arteta dished out his usual platitudes for Kieran McKenna and his team, I think he’ll have earmarked this as one of the ‘we need this one to get over the line’ games. I’ve already said it a few times, I think I mentioned yesterday too, that I think we probably need to win four out of six of our last remaining games to finish second. Maybe even three. If we pick up three points this weekend and then can follow it up by beating Palace on Wednesday, then that might get us close enough to it.

And that’s about it really. That’s what we’ve got to do. Just get over the line. There’s nothing more to it, there’s no more real jeopardy in the league, we’re just trying to do enough to cement second (which Arteta kind of referenced yesterday as well) so we can all just move on with our lives and forget about the joke that this domestic season has been (and I mean that in terms of volume of injuries, PGMOL and the fortune of a certain other team sauntering their way to the Premier League).

Back tomorrow with some more pre-match thoughts.

Laters peeps.