Arsenal 3-2 Aston Villa: Remembering What a Win Feels Like

Apologies for the lateness. I was having some issues with my keyboard- specifically the letters c, h and v were doing nothing. Very odd, but the problem has been resolved. Lucky, because ‘Jon Terry is a useless unt’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.

So, at half time on Sunday we were 2-0 down. The boos returned, although, I must say, I still think that’s a minority. Sitting in the ground, the reaction of everyone sitting around me was of ‘why are these morons booing’? I was extremely unhappy, with the performance, with the manner in which both goals were conceded, with the generally shit start to the year that Arsenal had made, but I don’t see why my negativity should be transmitted to the players, particularly when there was still a half of football to be played. Having said that, I can understand the frustration of the crowd. Here was a team that, despite not playing that badly, had gone two goals behind to a totally inferior team through nothing but defensive mistakes and laxity. A team that has lost its last three league games, and that only has one realistic hope of winning a trophy this season. A team that had shown that promises of a renewed strength were false. All in all, a bit of booing was perhaps to be expected, if not enjoyed.

The second half was one of those rare times that make watching football great. We came out, attacked, attacked, attacked, scored, attacked a bit more, scored again, attacked a bit more, then scored again. I was delirious. We had had a similar amount of possession, but had seemed to pose a much more direct threat than in the first 45 minutes. Everything we did ended up at least in the penalty box, rather than fizzling out. I said at the time that had we been 3-0 down at half time, we probably would have scored 4 goals in quick succession. Aston Villa’s collapse played a part. It was almost Arsenal-esque on their part- to turn victory into defeat that comprehensively and quickly was straight out of the Arsenal playbook, but we can’t put is solely down to that. Our players showed some of that character that we are all so desperate to see. I loved it.

Make no mistake, we can win the FA Cup this year. Why not? We will have to beat Sunderland or ‘Boro away in the next round, and why shouldn’t we? Do that and we are in the quarter finals. I still maintain that there is no team in the country that a fully-firing Arsenal team couldn’t beat. If I were in charge of Arsenal, I would tell the players that this is what we are going for this year. Obviously, 4^th place has to be a priority, but then so does silverware. If you asked me whether I would prefer to win the FA Cup or come 4^th, the reasonable side of me would say that the latter would be the best for the club. However, we can do both, and we should attempt to do both. I’ve got a good feeling about the FA Cup.

The news about Jack Wilshere is a huge blow, but not anything that most of us didn’t know, in our heart of hearts, we would be hearing sooner or later. Long-time readers (ha) will remember this piece I wrote, where I said that Jack not returning at all was one of the things I least wanted to see this season, but probably would. A huge shame, but what can we do? Part of being an Arsenal fan these days is coming to terms with long-term injuries to our best players. I won’t go into the myriad arguments about why all of our best players are so injury-prone, or why minor injuries become major, or why it’s always us. Life’s too short for that. My reaction to the Wilshere news (besides a knowing sigh) was to think immediately about how we can best manage that loss. That means the rotation of Arteta, Ramsey, Song, Coquelin, Diaby(!), Rosicky and Benayoun. Without Wilshere, we have the makings of a decent, top-four midfield, just about. It’s a matter of managing our remaining resources wisely, something that I’m sure Arsene is devoting much of his time to.

Tomorrow we face Bolton away. I despise Bolton. A remnant of the Allardyce years. I have complained before about the myth that Owen Coyle has instilled in them a free-flowing, passing game. It’s a media creation: just watch them play tomorrow and decide if they have moved away from the cloggers that they are rightly seen as. We need a win tomorrow, no two ways about it. Anything else will rightly be considered a disaster. We are 5 points behind Immoral Post-Soviet Oligarchs FC, who play in Swansea tonight. Assuming they win, that gap will be 8 points. Anything less than a win tomorrow and we really will have to start planning for life in the Europa League. Let’s hope that the Aston Villa game will be the spark needed to reignite our push for fourth and beyond. Stranger things have happened.

Till next time,

Joe

Arsenal 1-2 Man United: Third Loss Running

Well, that was inevitable.

Where to start? I suppose one positive to be taken from today was that... erm... well... we didn't lose 8-2. That's a start. Also, Spurs lost, meaning that in terms of the race for fourth, we dropped a single point further behind Chelsea this weekend despite this totally dispiriting defeat.

Enough of that. In reality this was a real low. We have now lost 3 games in a row in the league. Even at the start of the season I don't believe we hit that number. Too depressing to check. We are 5 points off Chelsea in fourth place. Ten, ten, off Spurs, with 16 games to go. Eighteen off Man City. I believe that we now need to seriously begin considering life without the Champions League next season, something that Wenger has already admitted would be a disaster. It's not guaranteed, we could still sneak into fourth, but we are five points away and seemingly going backwards. As I've said before, even a team in form would struggle to overcome that gap, and we are not in a team in form. Well we are in form, but that form is shit.


The atmosphere at the game was largely positive and encouraging, but I do notice a great deal of frustration now. One gentleman behind me was expressing his views loudly throughout the match. From his erudition, I assume he was some kind of professional football analyst, perhaps a correspondent for the Times or the Telegraph. 'TAKE THAT FAKKING COAT OF WANGER YOU CAAAAAAANT!!!', he opined, rightly annoyed by Arsene's choice of clothing. 'DO SUMFING YOU USELESS MUG!!!', he posited, seemingly disappointed that the manager wasn't warming up himself. The booing at the substitution of Oxlade-Chamberlain was the nadir of this crowd unhappiness. I was disappointed at the decision but told myself that there must have been a reason for it (turns out AOC had cramp). Not so the rest of the crowd. A chorus of boos greeted the decision, which no doubt inspired the struggling Arshavin. I can't understand that attitude. In a team that desperately needs a goal, surely support has to be the first priority? Wenger wasn't taking AOC off for Almunia. I can understand frustration, but not booing, and not on that scale. An argument for another day perhaps, but it certainly left a bitter taste.


In terms of the actual football, I am finding it hard to put my finger on what is going quite so wrong. Certainly today, but also against Swansea and Fulham, we struggled going forward from midfield. The tired-looking Aaron Ramsey looked... tired... today, and Rosicky was poor in the first half, though improved significantly in the second. It's tempting to say that we miss Arteta, which we clearly do, but it's not like he's a barnstorming central midfielder who unlocks defences with mazy dribbles. What we miss is his ability to 'turn over' the game, from defence to attack fluidly and with a minimum of fuss and mistakes. All that said, in the three games we have lost recently, we have scored four goals, so it's not like they've totally dried up. Our focus needs to be more on our defence, which is quickly beginning to resemble the February-September vintage. The main problem in the first half was Djourou, who looked totally lost at right-back. Seemingly every time United got the ball, they pinged it over to Nani, who looked up at Djourou's positioning, chuckled, and played in cross after cross. The last one of the half, unfortunately, was a goal. Why Vermaelen allowed himself to be outjumped by Valencia I don't know, but that error aside it was a goal that everyone could see was going to happen sooner or later. Djourou looked totally downtrodden. I know he's not a full-back, and it is quite a lot to ask, but when he kept getting sucked in to the middle so obviously, why didn't someone, Wenger or Rice or Vermaelen or Mertesacker or Szczesny, have a word and explain what he was doing wrong?


Anyway, Djourou was replaced at half time, and Wenger deserves credit for that decision. (Maybe not  a great deal of credit, but at least better than 'ABOUT TIME YOU USELESS TWAAAAAT!!!' from the scholarly gent behind me.) Yennaris did a lot better and most United attention in the second half came down the right. With the fact in mind that Yennaris is capable of playing against United for a half, you have to ask, why not two? A question that others will be asking, I'm sure.


Overall, you've got to be very, very worried. The points gap above us increases, the number of games we have left to get rid of it decreases, and the mood around the club is certainly lower than it has been for a few months. Three defeats in a row is a rarity, and not the good kind. As ever, I'm not totally pessimistic. We have players returning that will change this team for the better. Arteta, Wilshere, Sagna, Gibbs and Santos are all going to return at some point. In the astronomically unlikely event that our starting eleven strings a few games together, we will all be a lot happier, and I suspect results would improve. Chelsea aren't a great team, and stranger things have happened than us making up the requisite five points on them. However, for now, it's going to be one of those weeks where football websites are avoided. Try doing something productive instead.


Until next time,
Joe.


Follow me on Twitter @JoeBlogsArsenal

Swansea 3-2 Arsenal: Falling Away from the Top Four

Gloom. Doom. Two words that sum up quite nicely how I’m feeling about Arsenal at this moment. On a weekend when Spurs dropped points to Wolves, a win against Swansea was pretty much a must. A draw would have been massively disappointing. A loss is not far short of catastrophic. It’s not just the fact that Tottenham gained ground on us despite their own wretched result. Chelsea, the only other team we could conceivably catch, completed a fairly routine win over Sunderland. Four points now separate them and us. Further, Newcastle beat QPR today to move level with us on points. Had we beaten Swansea, we would have pulled away from them once again. As it is, we are looking over our shoulders and realising that Newcastle are not actually behind, they’re neck and neck. Seriously worrying.

I would now like to officially revise my position on Tottenham. I don’t think we will catch them. It’s not impossible, of course they are more than capable of bottling it, but they now have a 10 point lead with 17 games to go. That would be difficult enough to overcome even if we were a team in decent form, but we’re not. In the league, we’ve taken four points from our last four games. None in our last two.

It looked like it would be easy. Four minutes in, van Persie’s superb finish caused Martin Tyler to pause in his fellatio of Swansea City, albeit briefly. I worried over the next few minutes that the mistakes from the Fulham game would be repeated, and I was right. We failed to build on our early lead, and Swansea fought their way back into the game well. Their penalty was never a penalty, but at that point there were 16 minutes gone and we should have had enough to retake control of the game. Sadly not. The déjà vu continued after the break, with Dyer’s goal not against the run of play. Even at this point, though, we were in a better position than against Fulham, in that we had plenty of time to get back into it. The removal of Benayoun and the arrival of Henry was a move in the right direction. I actually thought that Ramsey should have made way as he had an absolute nightmare. Even apart from giving away the penalty and Swansea’s second goal, he seemed affected by the crowd’s booing of him when he was on the ball. He gave it away too much, something that quite a few Arsenal players could be accused of today. Even so, we got the vital second goal, a wonderful Djourou through ball splitting apart the Swansea defence and finding Theo Walcott, who finished calmly. It is almost certainly too dramatic, but I will say it anyway: our season hinged on the next 10 minutes. Would Arsenal play like the Arsenal of October, November and December, killing off the game and wrapping up three points? If so, they would gain ground on Tottenham, and go into next week’s clash with United in a confident mood. Alternatively, would Arsenal play like the Arsenal of February-September 2011, totally bottling it and conceding almost immediately? Sadly, you know the answer, and we will host Man United next weekend with a serious lack of confidence and form.

So where is the problem? This being Arsenal, injuries take some of the blame. I really thought we missed Arteta today. Ramsey did not do well, but neither did Benayoun. The midfield in general, including Walcott and Arshavin, should have dominated possession and chances after van Persie’s opener, but allowed themselves to outplayed. Injuries to full-backs and Vermaelen also affected us: Miquel looked alright at times, lost at others. Not a great day for Szczesny either, who was beaten somewhat too easily for the second goal and was probably at fault for the third. Injuries and off-days aside, I don’t know if there is some deeper problem with this Arsenal side that will prevent them from achieving their potential. I am tempted to say that there is not; the psychological demons of last year appeared to have been more or less exorcised until the Fulham game. Time will tell if they are resurfacing or if this is more of a blip that can be put down to an unusually makeshift back four, even for Arsenal, and a midfield missing one of its key anchors of this season in Arteta.

What did not aid my foul mood was the stream of bullshit emanating from the mouth of Martin Tyler. I don’t know if anyone else found him unusually irritating today, but I was reaching for the mute button every three minutes. His obsession with Swansea’s style meant that every pass they completed was evidence that they are on their way to the pantheon of football’s greatest sides. At one point in the first half he said that Arsenal were ‘being given a lesson in the way they like to play’.  Not one of their goals, indeed not one of their chances, came from wonderful football. The first was from a very harsh penalty, the second a mistake when Ramsey gave the ball away, and the third a hopeful through ball and a hesitant goalkeeper. Not quite the triangles that Tyler was trying to portray. At one point he mentioned how they were emulating Barcelona. That’s not to take anything away from Swansea. They beat us, and they deserved to beat us. Now we need to work out why.

All in all, then, not a good weekend. The chances of us getting into the top four are now entirely dependent on Chelsea and Tottenham, and once again we have to start looking over our shoulder at those in 6^th place, when we should be looking ahead. All is not lost though. Tottenham are still Tottenham. For now, we need to look at where we went wrong today, and fix all the problems before the visit of Manchester United in a week’s time.

Gulp.

Follow me on Twitter @JoeBlogsArsenal

This Blog does an Henry

OK, so I owe my innumerable legions of readers an apology. My form of late has been terrible. Since the Aston Villa game I have given you nothing. I know that, for many of you, your days are incomplete without reading my semi-drunken witterings. I should imagine that some of you have stopped functioning as human beings at all, stirring from your beds only to refresh this page, mumble about the lack of updates, and wonder vaguely if some ill has befallen your blogger. I can only apologise and hope that my forgiveness can be bought with some disparaging remarks about Spurs and perhaps a comment or two about John Terry. It's all I know.

Circumstances and geography have been the two major factors holding me back from my blogging destiny over the last few weeks, so I will try to summarise very quickly the matches that have gone uncommented on in that time. Here it goes.

Aston Villa 1-2 Arsenal: YES!
Arsenal 1-1 Wolves: Meh.
Arsenal 1-0 QPR: YES!
Fulham 2-1 Arsenal: Eurgh.
Arsenal 1-0 Leeds: YES!


As you can see, my analytical skills remain undiminished. Seriously though, the league results over the Christmas period were a mixed bag at best. Beating QPR was lovely, particularly given the other results that day. Drawing with Wolves was not, and losing to Fulham was all the worse for the crushing inevitability of the result when we failed to go 2-0 up and were dominating possession. All things considered, taking 7 points from the possible 12 above is not a disaster, but nor is it the form of a resurgent team who showed they can push into the top four and beyond in this half of the season. If I were a teacher, I would give the team a B- in terms of results over this period. Not terrible, but the nerds ahead of us all came out better. If it were a real school I'd give them all wedgies and steal their lunchboxes. Let me know when this analogy runs out of steam...


Anyway, away from the league, which I will visit tomorrow in more detail after the Swansea game, there was the small matter of the return of the greatest player ever to play in the Premier League. Maybe. TH14, rechristened TH12, came back and did what he used to do best. For me, the best thing about his goal was not the fact that it sent us through to the next round, or even that it was a returning hero that scored it. It was his celebration, the pure, angry joy of it, the hug with Wenger, the screaming 'I'm back' at the crowd. This man loves Arsenal, and clearly, scoring winning goals for Arsenal makes him very happy indeed. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Not that I would know, as I was watching in a pub in Geneva, Switzerland, continuing a fine run of missing iconic moments at the Emirates that started with us beating Barcelona last year. Even so, I made do, going appropriately mental and trying hard not to openly weep.


Away from the chest-thumping and feel-good factor, Henry's return is practically positive as well, meaning that Gervinho and Chamakh can go to the ACN without feeling guilty that their stream of goals will be missed, ahem. Naturally, RvP is still the main man, and fingers crossed he stays fit and scoring. But having as back-up one of the deadliest strikers ever to have played football can  be no bad thing, even if he does look slightly more Lampard-esque, physique-wise. That didn't stop his perfect first touch from that Alex Song ball, nor the trademark finish. Hopefully, we won't need to rely on him for goals, but if we were forced to, I wouldn't be altogether distraught. It might also take some of the pressure off of van Persie, which is going to be relentless in the coming weeks. I know Arshavin is expected to play a bit more during the ACN, but don't kid yourselves that a lot of the extra work isn't going to fall to van Persie in the absence of his African colleagues. As our best player, much of what we do is going to go through him, assuming he is fit and playing. Henry might provide some welcome relief.


Tomorrow we face Swansea away. The pressure on that game will be to some extent determined by results this afternoon, with three of the four teams above us in action. Fingers crossed that Bolton, Wolves and Sunderland can buck combined odds of over a trillion to one and win their matches. In particular, I would like to see Spurs lose. My confident prediction that Spurs can't go on like this due to the simple fact that they are Spurs is looking less convincing by the week. They are now nine points ahead of us, having won their pesky game in hand in midweek. Worrying, but there remains time to reel them in and dispatch them like one would dispatch an irritating mosquito. We just need to pick up some consistency again. Harry's date with Her Majesty is looming, and they have some African players shipping out. Theirs is a shallow squad with a huge discrepancy between their starting eleven and most of the rest of their players. Let's hope this works against them in the week to come.


Until tomorrow, fellow Gooners. And for those readers who suffered in my absence, my apologies again to you both.


Joe.
Follow me on Twitter @JoeBlogsArsenal

Aston Villa Feels Important

I don't know how many will agree with me, but Sunday's defeat to Manchester City just didn't feel that bad. Maybe it's because it's nearly Christmas, maybe it was because it was a significantly better defeat than our last trip to Manchester. Whatever it was, I just didn't feel as gutted on Sunday evening as I usually do after a defeat. I suppose it goes back to what I said before the match about us being underdogs.

Further mitigation came from the fact that we not only have no fit full backs, we also lost Djourou mid-match. Miquel came on and there was a reshuffling at the back, but City's goal came not long after. I blamed Koscielny at the time, as he gave Balotelli far too much space down our right, but I suppose it's only natural that he would be drawn into his natural position in the centre. If we are to blame anyone, it should be that clown Phil Dowd. The habitually-useless tubber failed to give what I thought were two pretty evident penalties, Micah Richards' handball, which was admittedly arguable, and the very obvious foul on Ramsey in the box. If that sounds like bitter excuses, that's because it certainly is. We didn't deserve a win, but I think a point would have been pretty fair.

As it was, though, we lost, Spurs, City, United and Liverpool won. Chelsea drew (ha) but still gained a point on us. My fear now is that, because the City defeat didn't feel as painful as some of our others this season, we will take for granted that we will get back on track against Villa and continue our rebuilding. That is a dangerous assumption. I know that Villa are dire, and that they have no forwards. I know that watching them play at the moment is akin to watching a pay-per-view paint-drying marathon. But make no mistake, to keep this top-four push going, we need three points tonight. Spurs and Chelsea play each other tomorrow. so one or both of them will be losing points. Only three points tonight will do, otherwise we will go into tomorrow four or five points behind Spurs and two games out of hand. Not a position I fancy at Christmas.

So, whilst I am glad that the loss against Man City was not the kind of loss we suffered twice earlier this season- namely the confidence-sapping, month-ruining disasters of United and Blackburn- I hope that we can ensure it is just a blip in a run of form that was beginning to look really impressive. That starts against McLeish's yawn-inspiring bore-circus tonight, and continues on Boxing Day.

In other news, we drew AC Milan, as everyone knew we would. Anyone surprised? The gloss of coming top of the group is certainly lessened when you come up against a team that came second only because they were in a group with Barcelona. Milan are a great team. We will have to see if we can do what we've done in the San Siro the last two times we've had the pleasure of visiting. More on that nearer the time. For now, let's focus on collectively asking Santa for three points tonight, and hopefully a foul-ridden goalless draw between Spurs and Chelsea tomorrow.

Until then,
Joe

Round-Up and General Ranting

As I’m back in the swing of things, I thought I’d write a quick summary of the state of the Premier League, in light of the games that we have seen take place over the last weekend. We’ve all now played 15 games (well, except for teams whose fan bases are formed of trainer-stealing criminals who decided to break up the dreariness of their summer with a spot of rioting) and so the table is starting to settle into the shape that it will maintain until May.

Firstly, a look at the relegation zone. My birthday wish, which sadly is going ungranted, was that Stoke ‘Football’ Club would be relegated. I put the word ‘football’ in inverted commas for obvious reasons. They are a football club in name alone. A better moniker might be ‘The Stoke Association for Woefully Untalented Cloggers Who Can Throw a Ball Quite a Long Way’, or SAWUCWCTBQLW. Apparently, this was considered but wouldn’t fit on the badge. Sadly, SAWUCWCTBQLW are well away from danger, so the bottom of the table is made up of Wigan, Blackburn and Bolton. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Some snobbish types will tell you that they want Wigan to stay up because they ‘play good football’. No they don’t, they’re shit. They play football on the ground, which I suppose is admirable, but with a group of players who are seriously ill-equipped for the task. The only problem with them going down is that it means Wolves will probably stay up. I’m not sure why, but I hate Wolves. I also hate Blackburn and Bolton, the other two seemingly-doomed clubs. It may seem irrational, but consider this: both have been managed by Sam Allardyce. That man immediately makes me dislike any club. I have genuinely woken up at night sweating from a dream that he became manager of Arsenal and set about selling any players that could use both their left and right feet. Worrying.

Skipping over the rest of the dross that makes up about 70% of this league, it’s the top 6 where it gets interesting. I’m not just saying that because I’m an Arsenal fan. Look at the teams in between 7^th (Newcastle) and 17^th (Wolves). All achingly mediocre. Villa? Meh. Everton? Yawn. Newcastle, to be fair, have played some entertaining stuff this year, as have Swansea on the very few occasions I’ve seen them play. A few exceptions aside, this league really is average below 6^th place. Maybe I’m just in a mood because I remembered my Sam Allardyce nightmare. Shudder.

So, the drama that will most occupy us, as Arsenal fans, this season, is the four teams fighting for the two spaces below the Manchester clubs. Some are predicting that Tottenham might be able to make a title challenge, or overtake United in second. 'Win their game in hand and they are two points behind United,' these misguided fools mumble. Don’t make me laugh. A Spurs title bid looks about as likely at the moment as an Andy Carroll hattrick. They will soon hit their first hurdle, be it injuries, suspensions, or a bad run of form brought about by Del Boy’s upcoming trip at the expense of Her Majesty. They’ll soon be looking about, trying not to be overtaken by the rest of us also-rans.

This weekend was a good one for Arsenal, in the sense that our three points made sure that Spurs’ dropped points at Stoke didn’t go unpunished. For anyone who didn’t see the match, can I suggest you see the highlights? Well worth a look. Spurs were absolutely robbed by a hilariously bad refereeing performance. I would have sent Chris Foy a letter of congratulations, except for the fact that the main beneficiaries of his incompetence were Stoke, and I refuse to celebrate Stoke victories. Man United’s simple win against Norwich means the only other team we gained on was Man City, and I don’t want to countenance us catching them up when we’re this far behind. I know I have just shot down Spurs’ chances of catching either of the Manchester clubs, but I don’t see it as impossible that we should overtake United. Unlikely, but stranger things have happened. I think we’re more likely to do it than Spurs.

Finally, a congratulations to United and City for their well-deserved qualification for the Europa League. When faced with a group like United’s, containing the likes of FC Basel, Benfica, and Otelul Galati, it was always going to be tough to get into the Europa League, but United just managed to shade Galati into third place, meaning they will have the chance to cement their place among Europe’s elite. Teams like PAOK Salonika, Red Bull Salzburg, FC Metalist Kharkiv, and the Mighty Stoke City Football Club stand in their way, so best of luck to them.

Reading through, I realise that wasn’t a coherent analysis or summary so much as it was a simple way of allowing me to express my disdain for Blackburn, Bolton, Wolves, Sam Allardyce, the Premier League in general, Chris Foy, Manchester United, Andy Carroll, Harry Redknapp, and lest we forget, the wonderful Stoke City.

Until tomorrow, when I’ll have a summary of our inevitable draw with AC Milan.

Joe

Follow me on Twitter @joeblogsarsenal

The Long-Awaited Return of the Blog

A wise man once told me that the blogosphere waits for no man. I have seen that this is true. In recent weeks I have had to put this blog on hold as the real world has intervened. Deadlines and work have all got in the way of what some have described as my true calling in life- writing occasional musings on a team of men paid to kick a ball into a net. The wise man’s prophecy came true. As soon as I stopped writing regularly, ratings went on a downward curve steeper than the profits of Pukka Pies when Frank Lampard instigated his New Year’s resolution. Luckily, with deadlines met and Christmas approaching, I’m back and better than ever. Or at least, no more ill-informed and misguided than previously.

Since I last posted here, we have played two matches, losing to Olympiacos and beating Everton. Certainly, both matches deserve posts of their own but I won’t bother as they were both some time ago now. I’m a forward-thinking kind of guy. Suffice to say that the Olympiacos game was sort of embarrassing, and the Everton game was sort of brilliant. I love 1-0 wins: the sensation when the final whistle goes makes the previous however-many minutes of agony almost worthwhile. I think it is fair to say that a hard-fought, ‘ugly’ win like Saturday’s can sometimes be more enjoyable than delivering a thrashing. Hmm, unless that thrashing is delivered at the home of your foulest rivals, and involves scoring 5 goals, a heroic hat-trick, and your rival’s beloved captain plunging to the floor in despair as the world’s deadliest goal-scorer glides away effortlessly, carrying both the ball and his foe’s dignity. In cases like that, thrashings are more fun.

The purpose of this post is not to comment on what I have missed, though, but on our current position and what we can expect over the festive period. Firstly, there is the matter of Manchester City at the weekend. Whilst I always want Chelsea to lose, I did at least see the benefit of their beating City on Monday, namely that the Invincibles will not  be matched for another year. I’m not sure if that feat gets enough coverage. If it had been a Ferguson side, members of the press and public would be queuing up to get commemorations of the feat tattooed on various parts of the body. As it is, the anti-Wenger media like to wash over the fact that the man achieved arguably the greatest accomplishment possible in football. Did you know it’s been 6 years since we last won a trophy? Where was I, my paranoia has sidetracked me?

Ah yes, the Manchester City match. Abramovich’s deprived paupers showed in ‘El Cashico’ that City can be beaten. I won’t be all that nervous on Sunday morning. We’re the underdogs, after all. If we lose, it’s more or less to be expected. It’s not like we ever get beaten that badly in Manchester anyway, ahem. If we win, it will be something of a coup and we would start to be seen as a team that can actually do something this year. The media (back to them) might start treating us as a team that has taken 22 of the last 24 points available to us. Did you know we had quite a poor start to the season? My paranoia pills seem to be wearing off. The reality is that the media have already woken up to the fact that this Arsenal team that they wrote off is actually beginning to look decent. Luckily, our star player is involved in some contract wrangling, so the hacks have got their Christmas present.

After the Manchester City match, and I hate to write it, our next few matches look winnable. Villa away, QPR and Wolves at home, Fulham away. I won’t put a number on it but if we take a certain amount of points from those games, and you know roughly what number that is, we will be in good shape going into the new year. Look at the table. We are only 2 points behind Chelsea, who are in third. I don’t think that a push for third is out of the question. Neither Spurs nor Chelsea fully convince me (as football teams, not as individuals, the nature of whom I am fully convinced.) Spurs are Spurs, and Chelsea have reverted to the tactic of giving it to Drogba and allowing him to plough his way through defences. When he goes to the ACN in January (has he retired from international football or was that a bizarrely-specific dream?) they will perhaps have to return to the method that saw John Terry exposed for the lumbering playground defender that he is. Maybe I’m clutching at straws, but I feel that their position is far from secure. As for Spurs, they look good now (Stoke hilarity aside) but soon their manager will be doing time and their current goal-threat, GreedyBarnDoor, will soon do his usual, and simply stop being good for a while. What then? Having Donkey Kong racing up the left wing is no good if his crosses are being met by Roman Pavlyuchenko.

So, all in all, Sunday aside, I’m pretty confident. Of course, there’s every opportunity for things to go wrong, but that’s football.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a bit of analysis of other recent results. For example, Stoke-Tottenham, a game that had me wishing there was a way both teams could lose a football match.

Until then,

Joe

Follow me on Twitter @joeblogsarsenal