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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?

3 games and the truth? And so I managed it. I went to 3 consecutive matches in a row. All at home and saw 3 wins? Uh uh. But we should have won all 3. We were much better than Villa on the day but managed to let them back in. We learned quite a lot, though. Kai Havertz has a strikers instinct of getting in the right places to score goals, but he misses too many, Saka is badly needed back as Sterling cannot get around players, we are dominating teams but missing chances, the Spuds are still the Spuds, and Myles Lewis Skelly (below) is a strong little fucker. Yes he is I will get back to the 3 matches later but I want to talk about going to the Emirates with ASCB. The biggest joy for me is getting to see the familiar faces of which my closest buddy is the irrepressible Tsvetomir Tsekov. And we even got to sit together as Arsenal scored and we jumped for joy together. In fact he jumped so much that when he went down for beer just before halftime I spotted a phone under his seat. I asked around and nobody wanted to claim it so I guessed it must be his so I brought it down to him. It wasn’t his! It was a guy in front of us but not really near us and how it got there is a mystery, one of several that I was to encounter during my trip. Can we play them every week? First up was the Spuds. A pattern that was to be very familiar for the next 2 matches emerged, the opposing team couldn’t get out of their own half. Somehow the Spuds scored though with a goal from Son out of nowhere. The Spuds fans beside us found their voice, but not for too long as Declan Rice fired in a corner for Gabriel to head towards the net and Dominic Solanke helped it on its way. That was the end of the Spuds. Ange Postecoglou was probably hoping to say at half time “let’s pray to the gods that Arsenal don’t score because we will never get lucky again in this match”. He didn’t even get that chance as Leandro Trossard fired in a cracker on 44 minutes to send them in crying. They may as well have stayed inside as they never did score again. The anticipation was tremendous Last column I said I wanted 3 wins from 3. This was the first and it was truly superb to be among a noisy bunch of Bulgarians to celebrate victory over the Spuds. The constant refrain was the belting out of Daydream Believer with new words aimed at Postecoglou and Spurs fans. Possibly not suitable for family readers. In truth, this game, coupled with the win, meant that I heard the most singing of any match I have been at. All the way back home the fans kept singing. 5 of us repaired back to the Islington Sports bar for afters. Everyone was happy particularly as we had finally managed to get closer to Liverpool as they drew with Notts Forest the night before. The Guinness tasted so much better. How did Villa get a draw? Did I mention that I met up with Alex Sztranyovszky as I usually do at the Supporters Club? He said we will win 5-0 with Havertz scoring 3. I guess he could have. And did I mention that Myles Lewis Skelly is a strong little fucker? And so on to Villa on 17.30 on a Saturday. I once again met Alex Sztranyovszky and he said again 5-0 with Havertz getting a hat-trick. I also met again Tsvetomir Tsekov, who was also the only other one of the group to go to the 3 matches, and Chavdar Katmarov and Emilia C. Nikolova and we went to place the Plovdiv flag at the North Bank. A long haul around from the Clock End but we did get to see Gunnersaurus and take a few selfies. Emilia C Nikolova and Gunnersaurus are with the Arsenal mascot This time we didn’t allow the Villa fans to start singing as we scored twice and they scarcely ventured into their own half. Gaby Martinelli scored the first on 35 minutes and Kai Havertz finally actually scored from a good position on 55 minutes while Leandro Trossard had a strong 2 matches as he set up both goals. 2-0 and Villa scarcely had a kick of the ball. Easy. But no, Lucas Digne set up Yuri Tielemans and then Matty Cash set up Ollie Watkins for their second. And Kai Havertz once again showed he had the strikers instinct for getting into the right position as he scored again but it was ruled out for handball. Definitely unlucky there as his hands were in a natural position and most angles looked like it hit his chest. And did I mention that Myles Lewis Skelly is a strong little fucker? The dark side was all around us And the strange thing that happened in this match? Early on, around the 5th minute, Konsa of Villa clearly handled the ball in the penalty area. Only those behind the goal could see it and not the ref and players or most of the crowd. The Villa fans, also behind the goal, could see it and they were certain as was I, that VAR would intervene. But no. What is the point of VAR if they don’t pick up incidents the ref doesn’t see? There was no mention of it anywhere that I noticed. That would have given us the win. Mysterious forces are at work. Beer and food for us all Not so much singing then for us as Liverpool beat Brentford very late on to restore their 6 point lead. And my 3 win wishes were gone, and did I mention that Myles Lewis Skelly is a strong little fucker? They didn’t wind up their dynamo And so on to Dinamo Zagreb. The critical thing for all the ASCB members was that most of us got in to cheer the players as they came off the bus. The good humoured American girl, Kelly Coughlin checked our names and let us all in. The standard procedure is that Arteta’s bus comes first, then the players, then the opposition and we were assured of this by the steward. But another mysterious thing happened – Dinamo Zagreb’s bus was first! Life in the matrix, it seems! The special light show for Arsenal And I met Kelly again as I went into the stadium as she was going through the crowd to remind them of the special mobile phone lightshow that they wanted all the crowd to participate in. She told me she has Irish origins and she is a great ambassador for the Arsenal. She does the events and takes on all tasks. Tickets arrived from nowhere in my wallet If you read last week’s column you will know I said if we had to drop points I would prefer to do it here rather than Villa or the Spuds as we should beat Girona in the last match. But now, after the draw with Villa I badly wanted to go home with 2 wins and a draw which is a good return from 3 matches. Alex Sztranyovszky , after pouring me some medical refreshment, said we will win 5-0 with Havertz scoring a hat trick. The Zagreb group just before we greeted the players I needed that refreshment shortly afterwards as after I got in I noticed that I was at the top and I had thought my ticket was at the lower end. Mysterious, and it got more so. Daniel Dzhalev and Zdravko Talvi got on the phone to me to ask had I used the wrong ticket? Seems I had 2 tickets miraculously on my phone although I was oblivious to it. Because there was 60,000 fans in the stadium and the internet was scarcely working I resorted to ringing Daniel to try and sort it out. Frantic handing over of log-ins and changing passwords along with a lot of stress meant that I didn’t see the first goal go in from Declan Rice. I had to watch it on the screen. I had no idea whether the ticket transfer happened and I had resigned myself to going outside and handing them my phone to get in and I would watch the second half in the pub. So, at halftime I rang Daniel and they had got in. My relief was palpable. All the stress melted away. The genie nearly gave me my 3 wishes One thing, though, if Declan Rice hadn’t scored so early, we would have been very disappointed to go in 0-0 at halftime. We didn’t do enough although we dominated. We must dominate and score and we are not. Kai Havertz scored again waka waka to settle any nerves and Martin Odegaard got a very late one to make the scoreline look good. Zagreb looked a class below us, and kept wasting time even though they were behind and have a tough final match against AC Milan which they now have to win to stay in the Champions League. We should have run up many more against them and Alex Sztranyovszky’s prophecy would have looked accurate. Myles Lewis Skelly didn’t play but Nwaneri did and isn’t he also a strong little fucker? Neither of them allow themselves to be knocked off the ball no matter how many try to kick them. 2 gems from the academy. ASCB always do lots of stuff for charity but let's stop giving teams free points And so almost 3 wishes granted. The dream of the Premier League is still alive although we need Liverpool to fall apart. My dream of the Champions League is very much alive. If Atalanta draw with Barcelona and we throw in a few goals against Girona we could even get 2nd. There is no team to really fear there and I would feel we have a good chance against Liverpool if we get them at any point, and they are the best team so far. Another strong fucker I had a great trip with a pretty good points average. We are keeping ourselves in with a chance and I hope all of the team learn from Myles Lewis Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri (above) and become strong fuckers who show the other team they exist and let them know they are not afraid. Those 2 kids are right. We do not need to be afraid.