Arsenal

I’ve decided to off set the torture of the run in by embracing the wild swings of emotion each results.

Pre Tuesday night I was feeling “we need to rebadge as chokers FC”.

After Tuesday night “I’m getting the double tattoo booked”.

Apologies in advance strap yourselves in.

Morning lads.

Just a quick update, Spurs are now officially in the relegation zone.

Happy Saturday.

Feels like this will be a long hard slog to find a goal with little creativity in the side. Hope Eze can make an impact when he comes on. 

Oh well it was a nice season. We go again next season. 

Arsenals final ball has been terrible all match. Raya is showboating and taking outrageous risks. Such a frustrating watch.

An absolute disgrace. They all need a rocket.

Pathetic.

At least if we end up winning nothing we'll get a new manager next season.

Manager better be dishing out some suicides before they leave the ground & a reminder of the efoggin standards, being upset about losing duals etc.

Update: tattoo still booked but am redesigning it so it still works by looking like something from an alternative timeline than our current reality.

Soo disappointed. Just like wtf is going on?!? Seems like the players and the coaching staff have all got the wobbles. Next week is already 3pts to city. By the time they've played their catch up games, we will be on equal points, if not behind. Gah. Fuck this fucking season. 

How many years now? Would romp in but choke at the last hurdle and come second.

Under Arteta April has been our worst month statistically.
Something about the headspace, or weariness maybe?
This lot have the talent and the set up to win, but something crashes at the end of the season. 
Need a refresh to close out the next 6 weeks

Couldn't give less of a fuck about midweek at this point. It will no doubt be a stressful and draining game and we'll go into next weekend running on fumes.

TBF to city if they overtake us I think the difference will be we purchased Madueke and they got Semenyo…

The midweek game in the CL is the killer. We have to not lose that to keep good mood up, but City getting one less game to prep for it is huge.

For a similar price.  Semenyo had said he was an Arsenal fan and wanted to play for us too. It was such a no brainer to try for last summer. The money spent on Madueke never made sense but we have a strategy to raid Chelsea's bins every summer. Who will it be this summer?

at least 'spurs are now in he relegation zone after todays games!

Enzo, obviously. 🙄🙄🙄

Not sure if he meets the definition of being in their bin, but admittedly when him being dropped was announced my first thought was where he fits into our team next season.

If we can make it past sporting, we have Athleti waiting for us. I think that is a good result for us as our tactical setup is better against a team like theirs than how Barca sets up.... Just need to get past Sporting first. COYG!!

Proper make or break week for Arteta. If we get eliminated from the CL tomorrow then lose in the weekend does he survive? Tbh we could really do without this midweek game ahead of the weekend. In an ideal world we'd be 3-0 up at half time and make all the subs early. But it feels inevitable we'll be taken to extra time and pens.

we should beat sporting at home, yes the awaay win was untidy but they are now chasing the game so should be easier to break down.
it's the City and Newcastle games in the league I'm concerned about. We are only 6 points ahead of city and they have a game in hand. So we can only afford to draw against then and then need to win all the rest. 
Fulham, Burnle, Palace are all beatable, but we seem to struggle against these teams at the end of the season.

If we dont win the league and get into the finals of the CL this year then Arteta will have some very tough questions to answer - he's had the time, he's had the money to get the players he wants so now is the time to show results.

Bit of an ugly first half but this second half has been better. Hope kai and max can spark something 

70mins and 0-0
56% posession plenty of shots, come on boys!
although Sporting are the ones who need to chase the game not us.

Well, bar a Raya brainfart, we looked defensively solid. But there is no way this team is laying a hand on city. 

0-0 we move on, 
4 days till City, loads to improve on.....

Well at least we are through.

I'd bite your hand off for another 0-0 on Monday morning at this stage.

Also think Atleti is a very tough prospect in the Semis.

Did what was needed and it's only our 4th ever CL semi final to put it in perspective.
But other than maybe getting a penalty it's difficult to see us scoring a goal again this season. And not even sure we spend enough time in the box to get a penalty.  

It feels like an effective counter to our tactics has been discovered and suddenly we’re entirely neutralised.

Also, do the team have psychologists? Seems like there’s zero belief.

Even if we beat City, winning the league is so far from assured.

It is possible to 0-0 your way to a knockout cup (Portugal won the Euros with 1 win and 6 draws and even Messi's Argentina lost a group game and drew their way through the knockouts). But we still need to find 5 wins and a draw in the league which is the worry. 

RIP Alex Manninger. Shocking news.
Remember him fondly for heroics in the 97/98 season when Seaman was out injured, in particular a penalty shootout win in the FA Cup QF and kept a clean sheet at Old Trafford in the 1-0 win as part of 6 clean sheets in a row in the league. Was also the first Arsenal player in my time to have my first name.
Had no recollection of him ending up at Liverpool at the end of his career but doesn't look like he played a game for them.

Edit: Turns out he even got PL player of the month when he had that run of clean sheets in 1998. That's only ever been won 10 times by a goalkeeper.

Someone asked me where I’m watching the game on Sunday. The only appropriate answer I could muster was behind the sofa.

Watching the Brighton Spuds game tonight, and when Spuds do go down I’d love to see us go for van de Ven. Another Sol Campbell scenario, and a quality heir to Gabriel M.

Absolutely not to someone who has downed tools in the way he has. We've has enough players stop trying over the years when going has got tough and tried to engineer their way out.  Also as fast as he may be at running he's just not a defender.

I disagree, behind Simons he was their best player on the park yesterday. Put him in a proper set up and he'll be one of the best in the world. Speaking of, Simons would be an upgrade on Trossard too.

Side note, watching them over celebrate at 2-1 to then collapse at 2-2 was the perfect distraction from todays game. 

As of the 70th minute City are just a far better side. They’re quicker to every ball, they shut us down so fast we have to rush, they win headers they have no business winning. Not a fun watch.

Madness from Gabriel. He should be off. Any other game it’s a red card. What a selfish thing to do in such a big game.

I can actually stomach that loss much more than the cup final. Tonight we competed and created chances but failed to convert. You play that game ten times I think it works out 4 draws and 3 wins each.

Yes I'm oddly heartened by that loss. Like the title is now city's to lose but if we play like that every week, it'll go down to the last day and we could still take out the CL

Havertz...

Now I’ve had a few minutes to think about it I agree with the above. Much better performance than in recent weeks. We were far from the best team but had some great chances to pull level. Let’s assume both sides win all their remaining games, this becomes a battle of goal difference. Odds are against us but we’re still in it.