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The FA, UEFA and FIFA got it right? If I could paraphrase Jeremy Bentham, (the 19th century philosopher) it would be that be that the more teams that achieve a happy outcome, then the better football is for all. And this season has epitomized that. In years to come, pub quizzes will ask what had Crystal Palace, Newcastle United and the Spuds got in common in 2025, it would be that they all won major trophies after a long wait. So have the footballing gods of the FA, UEFA and FIFA got it right at last? Have they listened to the spirit of the great utilitarian philosophers of the 19th century and finally created a system that gives a chance to the many instead of the same boring old teams whipping up all the happiness? Did the ghost of Jeremy Bentham permeate the football gods? But is the real question whether or not the teams, their owners, staff and fans are actually happy? Are Liverpool’s fans happy or are they worried about their bad results at the end of the season, possibly particularly being second best to PSG over the 2 legs of the Champions League? Or the Spuds having an abysmal season but pulling a beautiful pearl out of their final oyster after a year of eating rotten ones? Only the above mentioned stakeholders can answer that but I can tell you as an Arsenal supporter that even when we were winning things there was always grumblings and discontent no matter what we achieved. Should Arsenal be happy? Let’s look at Arsenal. We finished second with 74 points as opposed to 89 and 84 in the previous seasons. So we should be unhappy, yes? But we did much better in the Champions League reaching the semi-finals with some great results along the way ,as opposed to the quarter-finals the year before that and the previous year getting knocked out in the Europa League round 16. Progress each year. So we should be happy, yes? We were knocked out in the 3rd round of the FA Cup this season and last with being beaten by Man City in the 4th round the previous year. So we should be unhappy with no progress, yes? But we got to the semi-final of the League Cup this season, being beaten by eventual winners, the happy Geordies as opposed to reaching the 4th round last season and the 3rd round the season before that. So we should be happy, yes? Was a fight between Edu and Arteta the reason we couldn't sign a striker? We had good progress in 2 competitions and sort of similar results in the 2 others over the past 3 seasons so maybe overall we should have a level of happiness. We have not gone backwards but probably slightly forward this season, particularly coupled with the amount of injuries we sustained and the unique sendings off we have had, not seen before or since. If the argument is that a manager and staff can coax better performances out of their players than seems likely then they can be happy that they have done their best with the resources we have. Jose Mourinho, one of the most decorated managers ever, claims that Man Utd’s second place season he achieved was his best ever as a manager, testament to the belief that getting the best out of the players you have is the ultimate test of a manager. That means Arteta and his staff can be happy. Are they? I doubt it. But I don’t know for sure. There is no way of predicting such a series of outcomes and we were left without crucial players all season. It may well have been a better conclusion, given the circumstances, than could have been expected and a large credit should be given to the backroom team for being competitive in 3 of the main trophies. Fans are never happy I think it is fair to say that Arsenal’s fans are not happy. City’s collapse should have been our opportunity, and big teams stuttering in the Champions League meant we lost one of our best opportunities to win my most coveted trophy. Not buying a striker is the familiar refrain and it has resonance, for sure, but Jesus, our only recognized striker, was out for most of the season, Kai Havertz, his replacement, was also injured for many games, as was Bukayo Saka, possibly our best player, and Gabriel Martinelli also lost quite a few games. Coupled with our main supplier of assists, Martin Odegaard, missing a huge chunk of the season meant we were short of the possibility of scoring goals, the hardest thing to do in football, yet we still managed 69, the 3rd highest in the league. That is a good achievement under the circumstances. I emphasise that this is with the players we had on the pitch, not phantom ones we could have bought. Man Utd are surely miserable but one win would have made them happy? Salah had 29 in the league, Diaz 13 and Gakpo 10, by contrast, in their 86 goals, whereas none of our boys managed 10. Man City had 72 goals with 22 of them coming from Haaland who had an up and down season. It is fair to say that the management team got good outcomes with what they had to work with. It’s all Edu’s fault? The loss of Edu may well have played a part in why we could not nab a striker. Something was going on behind the scenes for sure. Possibly a disagreement between Edu and Arteta over who to sign that would gel with Arsenal? The story never leaked as to what went wrong with the relationship but I feel it is a good bet that that was the reason no striker was signed in January. One pearl in a rotten season for Tottenham made all the difference I feel we should be happy. Such a combination of events rarely happen often. Some good new players in from outside and the academy plus a normal season regarding injuries and I feel we have the players and the hunger to succeed. Happiness is on the way, folks, you read it here first. Most teams should be happy? I do want to finish with the main point we had at the start. If we disregard the 3 relegated teams who surely could not be happy, and throw the once mighty Manchester United in there as well, who else deserves to be unhappy? Not many, I posit. The Spuds managed an unlikely end to a disastrous season and they are celebrating. Chelsea are back among the elite. They do look happy Aston Villa are disappointed but this was their first attempt at the Champions League, a long way from their success in the European Cup over 40 years ago. They could not cope with fighting on two hard fronts and lost some points along the way. Bad luck on their last game cost them and even that was by a tiny fraction because of goal difference. I think they deserve to be more happy because they showed they don’t need much improvement to stay up there amongst the best. The old order has changed? Forest, Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth all had their highest Premier League points totals, Everton jumped up the table and while West Ham are disappointed, they did finish midtable and can have some optimism for next season. And by the way, the Champions League win will go to a team outside the usual suspects, although Inter do have a Champions League pedigree, meaning that possibly we will have a new winner and both teams surely regard it as a good achievement to have got there. Will PSG be among the ones who grabbed a new trophy? In short, a lot of happiness for the maximum amount of teams have been achieved. So many fans have had their lives enhanced by the buzz around their team and perhaps the FA, UEFA and FIFA can take solace that an element of utilitarianism has surfaced. Football has become fairer. Or has it, really? Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea are the top four. And maybe this season with all the lesser teams becoming happy is just an anomaly, like Arsenal’s run of injuries and weird refereeing decisions, and everything reverts to the rich next season? We can only hope Arsenal becomes that giant next season, the one who conquers all on behalf of the super-rich. Will that make us happy? I will ask Jeremy Bentham.

ASCB - The Best? Of course they are And so, finally, we headed off to Arsenal vs Chelsea, our big day spoiled by Chelsea pretending they could win a trophy without Abramovich by cancelling our match to play in the FA cup. There was never a chance a bunch of Pensioners could win without the magic Roman. And so April 23rd, 2024 was our big day instead, new plane tickets and maybe new hotels for people, but we are ASCB, we don’t give in for anything. Our own programme Some 33 of us were given the chance for a VIP experience to greet the players and even a lucky two got to turn up on the pitch for an interview to blaze a trail for Arsenal Bulgaria. Everyone now knows who we are and what we represent. And we never forget that as we showed and which I will talk about later. The biggest surprise for me though was after we were given our armbands to allow us into the media centre. We got our own programme welcoming us to the Arsenal with our own name on it. That, and the armband will be passed down the generations. We love you Arsenal, we do! One for display We were there, we saw the players, we saw the staff, and we saw Super Mik Arteta and sang and cheered as they all filed past, some stopping for a low five with Gunnersaurus. Was I the only one worried as he entered the glass doors to the inner sanctum? Luckily the giant remembered to duck his head. A Gunnersaurus without a head would not be the same. Of course he mingled and low fived many of us including some young, excited kids from Romania. We show our class Mertesacker and Edu were prominent figures who came in by themselves prompting great excitement . But we were asked to wait for Chelsea as we also greeted the Pensioners as they struggled to make it off their bus. We were asked not to boo them but we have too much class for that anyway so we cheered for the Arsenal again. Honestly they didn’t look very happy filing past. Maybe they knew what was awaiting them? Without their talisman Cole Palmer maybe they felt that they had no chance. They were right. A nice shot from Alex sets me up For me, a trip to the Arsenal is not complete without a visit to my old friend, Alexander Sztranyovszky from Hungary who is Mr Arsenal. He turns up for every game and is a permanent fixture at Peggy’s refreshment stand at the side of the Arsenal Supporters club near the old Highbury. And Alex never fails to disappoint with his own refreshments always on hand, some nice strong shots to warm our hearts. Declan, you are my darling The real excitement came when I took my seat in the Clock End. We were all together, bundled into a top spot just high enough to see everything yet not too high that you need binoculars. It meant there was a big booming section of Bulgarians (and me) ready to give their all for the Arsenal. It was a magical time for me, being part of such a large group. Often I am by myself, this time we all celebrated together. We probably shouldn't have forced Chelsea to play on a sloping pitch And it didn’t take long for us to celebrate. Chelsea looked poor from the off, or was it that we were so good? Trossard was causing mayhem down the left hand side and we had a few chances straightaway but then Declan Rice boomed forward, flicked the ball over to Trossard who tucked it into the corner of the net. We were delirious and only 4 minutes had passed! The pattern continued but somehow we didn’t score. Havertz had a few chances but didn’t put any away. Maybe he didn’t want to score against his old club? We dominated our section of the Clock End as much as Arsenal dominated Chelsea Who was this new striker? Wright or White? I was hoping Chelsea wouldn’t transform in the second half but it was whoop de whoo many times as all sorts of improbabilities happened. We had a new striker called Ian Wright Wright White who whacked in two goals and Kai Havertz, freed of having to score against the away Chelsea fans at our end, suddenly became super striker, firing in two great goals to make it five and it could have been ten. Chelsea were hopeless. They were afraid all game to keep the ball and kept giving it back to us. Fifteen minutes of fame for ASCB The only time I watched Arsenal live slam in more goals, to my memory, was when Alan Ball brought Portsmouth up from the old second division back when I was living in London in the late ‘80’s. We were 5-0 up up half time and Alan Smith kept banging in the goals. We got only one in the second half to make it 6-0. Portsmouth fans left en masse at halftime and the Chelsea fans did the same as the goals flew in second half. We were delirious. Go home you bums And did I say the Bulgarian Arsenal fans had too much class to boo the Chelsea players? It didn’t stop them screaming “Your team are shit” (they sang slightly different words, but this is a family blog) at the departing away fans. No need, people, they know their team are shit. The strange thing is, they could still get 6th place as Manchester United and Newcastle are also shit this year. It is a weird season, for sure. They looked to me to be already on the beach, though. Still, that is Arsenal’s best win ever against Chelsea and yes, we owed it to them for humiliations in the past. Waiting patiently for the team to arrive 4 games to go and if we get the win against a white and black team on Sunday, then we have to believe we can do it. Ì had an English guy sitting beside me on the train back insisting we will win 2-0 against the Spuds and go on to win it. Man City and Liverpool will be shitting themselves. And that leads me into the table of doom. Update to the Table of Doom Table of Doom Fixtures Current Max Arsenal Spurs (a) 77 89 Liverpool Spurs (h) 74 86 Man City Spurs (a) 73 91 Ah, Jurgen Klopp, I am still waiting for you to apologise for your teams unsporting behaviour against Forest. Everton gave you a tanking and you are now on the cusp of leaving the Table of Doom. Another draw, even, and your maximum is 84. Our goal difference will not be bettered now, I feel, so if it matters at the end, we will win. If we draw against the Spuds we can still get 87 but will it be enough? I say yes. City have a lot of matches to cram in and they are not that simple, the Premier League rarely is. If we win 4 they have to win 6. We are putting them under pressure. We can’t ask any more from our boys. Be proud. Gunnersaurus with Tszetomir Tsekov Commiserations to poor old Sheffield United. The door is just about to close on Chris Wilder. He was talking about preparing them for next season but will he really get the chance? It is surely such a difficult job managing a team trying to make it in the Premier League. He seems a good manager and a very decent human being but I suspect they will want a change. I would be happy if he gets his chance and one day bring them back to stay.