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Matches left Newcastle -Liverpool/Spurs League Cup 2? League - Leicester, West Ham, Forest, Man U, Chelsea, Fulham, Everton, Brentford, Ipswich, Palace, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Newcastle, Southampton 14 Champions League 7? Total 23 An impossible dream? So, we are still in 3 trophies. Scramble a win over Newcastle and we are one game away from the League Cup, possibly against the Spuds. If that happens, and the Spuds lose, they will be devastated beyond words. We will be disappointed if we lose, but accept it and move on. I reckon that Spurs would prefer not to get us because we might beat them and they won’t be able to handle that. They will know on Thursday whether we have beaten Newcastle. Will their fans cheer Liverpool? Will they be singing You’ll never walk alone and The Fields of Anfield Road? Will Ange Postecoglou spontaneously combust as his famous talk of always winning a trophy in his second year is not even wanted by the fans? Will he walk into the crowd and start beating up the fans who are cheering for Liverpool? Cheer up Postecoglou Strangely we have never faced the Spuds in either the FA Cup or the League Cup final. Probably we won’t this season either. But you never know. Would that do us? Winning the League Cup by beating the Spuds and qualifying for the Champions League? For lots of fans no. Expectations are higher now. For me, with the injuries we have had, and bad luck in decisions, I would take that and look forward to next year, hopefully with a top notch striker in place , whether emerging from our own ranks ( e.g, Havertz not only getting into great positions but actually scoring), or we buy in a great one finally. The first cup gives us strength 2 matches will give us the League Cup. It might help us with stress, knowing we have a cup in the bag. And we would have a happiness inducing win over Liverpool as we fight them on the final 2 fronts or seeing the Spuds crying helplessly at Wembley as their worst nightmare happens. We will remember and sing about that forever. We owe them a tanking It is only 2 wins after all. Not an impossible task. We have 14 matches left in the league. The list is above. Winning the league is probably impossible without beating Liverpool at Anfield. We are 6 points behind now and hoping for an Everton victory in the game in hand. We can’t afford to drop any points and we have a massive task to win the league. It will go down as one of our greatest ever if we somehow manage it. I am not sure if even our biggest optimists believe we can do it. However, we are above all these teams except Liverpool at the moment so it is possible. They do have to go through a bad spell and they have been lucky in many matches. Bournemouth outplayed them for quite a bit of the match on Saturday but came out 2 goals behind. This pattern was the same last year under Klopp but when they started to lose, they dropped like a stone. Will it happen again? We have to stay in touch and hope. Big Ears is the trophy I want On to the one trophy I have never experienced – the Champions League. It is my dream and this year looks more likely than most. Big teams will go out in the playoffs, and Liverpool have been the best team so far. I would feel we have a good chance against them over one or two legs as long as we have a strong team. Saka should be back. We have seven matches to play to win it. It is never going to be easy. Big Ears would look very nice in our trophy room Man City face Real Madrid and honestly I would prefer to play City as their confidence is not too good at the moment. Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Juventus make up the rest of the Champions League royalty who might just go out. Throw in PSG and it could be a strange looking final 16 this year. We did beat PSG very comfortably at the Emirates earlier on. We mustn’t fear anyone Can we say that there is nothing to fear? In comparison to other seasons, less so. If all goes well for us we can beat anyone. Our defence, at full strength, is very strong. We don’t get tankings. A good end to the season with injuries is crucial. We could win enough of these 7 matches to finally march up the steps in Munich as winners. We have to go there and win That would make me the happiest Irish fan ever. No longer would we be second class. We would have a new trophy to sing about. Arteta would become an Arsenal great. Would I take that over the league? In a heartbeat if you offered that now. Liverpool look strong for the title anyway. and even winning all our matches doesn’t stop them winning the league as that only gives us 3 points against them. We don’t even have to win all our Champions League matches to lift the trophy. Dubai gives us power? That is what is left now, maybe 2 matches in the League Cup. Maybe 7 in the Champions League and definitely 14 in the Premier League. Win them all and we might just get a treble. 23 matches for immortality. Will Dubai perform another miracle? Looking at it from a February perspective it is hard to feel confident. But our first step is Newcastle. We are still in 3, and I would prefer our players to believe we can win all. And if it turns out to be an Arsenal Spuds final and we win it as our only trophy this year it will be truly great fun to see the poor Spuds fans streaming out from Wembley knowing their team are beaten. We will never forget that. Beating them in a final would be incredible Oh, and by the way, did I ever say that Myles Lewis Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri are strong little fuckers?

Arsenal were garbage? And so we were rubbish. Chelsea were much better than us for most of the game. I am struggling to remember any recent match when we couldn’t hit a pass so often. And our shots on goal were so pathetic that it must have been embarrassing for the players. Poor Jesus must have wondered what had he got on his feet. And for those criticizing Raya, I am sorry, he certainly wasn’t the worst. He at least made some good saves. Zinchenko, Gabriel and Saliba were poor at most things. Our midfield were overrun and we had scarcely a pot at goal for the whole match, certainly up till we scored. We seem to have a lot of managers at Arsenal So were we bad because we had a bad day or did Chelsea simply outplay us, did Pochettino out tactic Arteta and leave us confused as to what our roles were? It is hard to give a definitive answer but I feel that latter explanation was a bigger factor than the former. We looked bewildered by what was happening on the pitch and didn’t seem to know what to do with the ball. My mouth fell open as I watched pass after pass go astray, tackles missed and the ball constantly taken off us. All subs were on the pitch with a fair bit of time left. We could not afford a late injury. Arteta pushed on players to try and make a difference. A bit of luck, absent for most of the match, got the belief back and Chelsea’s fragility from their bad run helped us to get in control late on. Our good players are bad? Now, I know what you are saying. Gus, you don’t do post-match analysis, you leave that to the experts at ASCB and that is true but I do want to comment on bad matches that we have and scapegoating players because of it. We have several per year. Leeds away in the first half of last season was one such. We got a win we never deserved. We played poorly. And we got a draw at Chelsea on Saturday we didn’t deserve, even though the penalty was dubious and Sanchez should never have been allowed to get away with smashing Jesus. Given our penalty prowess we probably would have scored and won. The earlier we scored against Chelsea would have affected their self belief and bolstered our confidence. We once again would have played badly and won. Eboue's life was destroyed by fans This is one of the strong points of this team. We are starting to get to that champion’s level where we are playing rubbish and get a result. Honestly, though, it was our usual stars that looked lost, heavy footed, and incapable of rudimentary control of the ball. Odegaard was subbed, Zinchenko was subbed, Saliba, Gabriel, White and even Rice were giving the ball away all the time. The whole team seemed nervous, not just Raya. I will declare now that I prefer Ramsdale as I think he brings a better presence at the back but I always liked Raya at Brentford. Arteta’s way or the highway? Arteta seems to like players to follow his instructions and Ramsdale and Tierney seem to have lost out because of that. As my friend Stan won’t give me that job, I have to accept that Mikel's decisions are what matter. We do seem to be moving in the right direction but playing the ball constantly out from the back is a bit of a nightmare for fans to watch. Particularly like on Saturday when we didn’t know how to pass the ball. Would we accept the level of success he had as a player? But I do want to say one thing loud and clear. Targeting players never helps. It is bad enough for the opposition supporters to do that without us joining in. If Raya is our goalkeeper then he should be supported, simple as that. Otherwise we weaken our team and surely we don’t want that? I can remember many players over the years getting targeted, Emanuel Eboue being the worst instance I can remember, the poor guy was relentlessly hounded and could never achieve his potential. We should never ever target our own players nor, in truth, players from other teams. The bully boys in the crowd are wannabe dictators It is pure bullying. Destroying a player from our position of anonymity in the crowds. Every player is different, with different emotions and reactions. How many players careers have been devastated by abuse from fans? Could you imagine that happening in your workplace? That insiders and outsiders decide you are useless and give you a hard time when you are trying to do your best? Unai Emery - the miracle worker of Aston Villa Granit Xhaka survived all that. He went about his playing business relentlessly, taking dog’s abuse all the time, but mostly putting in good shifts. In the end it was “Granit Xhaka we have” ringing out from the fans. I doubt if anyone wanted him to go. But he was blessed with a tough mentality. Not all are capable of taking abuse from your own. I know I would want to get out. Emery is now having a good evening We hounded out Unai Emery and made constant fun of him. I suspect if he had been given the latitude Arteta was he could have come very good for us. It is almost miraculous what he has accomplished at Villa. They might even finish above us. He has come back from challenging times at Arsenal and PSG to show he is a warrior. A gentleman one, yes, but still a warrior. He has not managed to fully correct his difficulty with English but he has restored his reputation. Could Arteta survive the fans turning on him like they did with Emery? If we are lucky we will never know. Will anyone ever win this again? My point is that it is cowardly to attack the team we say we support. We wouldn’t walk up to them and abuse them, we do it from the safety of the crowd. It never helps and we have seen even top teams drop down heavily. And no-one is safe from that mob mentality that says we should eat our own. Arsene Wenger, our greatest ever, had to endure such tribulations. It wasn’t right then and it is not right now. What is success for Arsenal fans? Let’s be realistic about Arteta. The giant teams all around him will want to gobble up all trophies. What is success for Arteta, according to the fans? Winning the league? Never going to be easy. Champions League? Ditto. And if he doesn’t? Picking up an occasional minor trophy and CL qualification? Would that be enough? CL qualification by itself? The problem is that he has set the bar high last season. He has left himself in the position that if he doesn’t better it, he has failed. He has gone backward. Does Mikel have to win Old Big Ears? I will say one thing now. I think he is the best option we have. Who do we think out there could do a better job? We need to keep the faith and give him the backing. If Raya is his choice, then we should support that. If this season turns out to be disappointing, then he should be given the chance to do better. He is up against teams that have better resources, both here and in Europe. Being up there challenging is a great achievement. Being up there winning would be stupendous. We must never forget that. C’mon the Arse!