Proud to be a Gooner A hard slog ahead of us.
Every Arsenal fan who is only happy when Arsenal win is on a high, high, high, after Sunday’s result. In contrast to some Arsenal fans who are only happy when Arsenal lose, or so it would seem. We will remain on this high cloud of happiness until Thursday finally arrives and returns us to the reality of a two goal deficit and the mockery of those Arsenal fans ‘who told us so!’
The know-it-all scribblers and empty headed chatterers of the media have suddenly discovered that we don’t have another top team to play, whereas the other three have at least two swipes at each other. (Well we knew this when we got the fixture list.) The scribblers are screaming, ‘Arsenal have the easiest run in of the top four’. Ah, hmm! Let’s consider something they don’t scream and shout at us fans.
Our good neighbour and close friend planned a new spud hole for the start of this season 2018- 2919. Unfortunately not being made of Arsenal ability to do things right they couldn’t get the toilet seats to fit the hole in the ground and they found themselves homeless. The mighty spuds homeless! Oh dear! What a surprise!
So they went cap in hand to the ‘Old Curiosity Shop’ that masquerades as the FA who love breaking every possible rule and pleaded help, help, help, or in other words S O S = Save Our Spuds. Start the new season by giving us a lot of away games and we promise we will have our new spud hole ready by Christmas. The ever accommodating friends of spuds, the FA did just that. In the first 8 games spuds played 5 away games and 3 home games. To do this meant giving Arsenal 5 home games and 3 away games.
‘Oh thank you, thank you sweet FA’, and so it is. We come to the last 8 games and low and behold 5 of them are away. In contrast the FA’s beloved spuds are going play 5 of their last 8 games at home in their new spud home. I am joking of course. Just as the Spuds were joking when they said ‘Sweet FA we will be home for Christmas – promise! Well for Christmas 2020, you surely didn’t think we meant Christmas 2019?’
I hate to put a damper on Sunday’s great performance and result. The reality is we have a hard slog ahead of us. For a start we don’t play too good away. Then the teams we play will be fighting for their Premiership life. They are not going to roll over because we want to play in the Champions League this coming season.
This ain’t going to be an easy run in. If we fail how the scavengers will flock upon us whooping their delight.
If we make 4th or 3rd then we will be just another bunch of failures, cos 3rd or 4th ain’t a trophy when its Arsenal don’t you know!
I don’t care what they say. 5th,4th,3rd, 2nd, 1st I am proud to be a Gooner. Always.
Colario
Worrying about our fixtures is taking it overboard but I’d use the word ‘Extra cautious’.
It also must be noted that most of the game that we lost or drew (from winning position) were either due to extreme stupid error (Kola against ManU at Old trafford , Xhaka against Crystal Palce, PEA against spurs) or we had an injury or red card in the middle of the match. In general Emery’s substitutions are good but his make shift substitutions incase of unexpected injury in the middle of the game or a send off dont click.
His taking each game at a time approach is good.
Worrying is NOT taking it overboard, as you oddly think. Worrying is normal and is what ALL TEAMS DO ALWAYS, WHATEVER THEY MAY SAY IN PUBLIC. What I say is only the clear truth and that you deny it shows a lack of judgement. APART FROM THAT ODD STATEMENT, I AGREE WITH THE REST OF YOUR POST.
Away matches to Watford, Wolves, Everton and Leicester are tricky. We must treat all of them like finals. Especially Wolves are particularly difficult to beat at home. Our 5th away game against Burnley, should be a little easier.
Home matches against Palace, Newcastle and Brighton shouldn’t be a problem if we keep our level.
However, we have a huge mountain to climb on Thursday. It’s the last match before the break. We must replicate our display against United. I hope Emery got some motivation juice ready.
Nice article Colario ?
Our away form mixed in with that green kit – 5 away fixtures, doesn’t bode well… but as long as we go for it, that’s all we can do!
We do usually finish the season well though – there’s a lot at stake so come on Arsenal ?
Sue and the green kit. ????. I think we should take it one game at a time. Hopefully our competitors will have losses as well. Have a brilliant day Sue.
I’m sure they will lose some Pat ? you have a great day too Pat…. put your feet up ?
If we could play these tricky away games as we played on Sunday we will be OK,
Teams like Wolves mostly set up well to defend , getting through them will be very tough, as Chelsea found last Sunday , but I feel our Team from Sunday could do it . Leicester I feel will be the next trickiest game , but they will be more open I think. Watford ….I think we have the Cojonnes now Troy Deeney . I think we will beat Everton …but I agree with the article, we have to be at our best for this final run in
I hope we do it, I think we will, just!!!! Besides, we want to put a smile on the faces of Robbie, DT and Troopz… Forget Claude, he will never be happy…lol. Come on you gooners, St Totteringhams day looks like it could be back?
Pure and simple there are no easy games in the EPL. As the end of the season aproaches the lower ranked teams are either trying to avoid relegation, push themselves well away from the relegation zone or finish as high up the table as they can to maybe make the Europa League places.
Any side that turns up not taking the opposition seriously and not bringing their A game is doomed to drop points.
Arsenal needs to treat every game from now until the end of the season as a must win cup final.
Exactly right OG-And it’s our inconsistency away from home that is most worrying.Brighton,West Ham,Soton,we’re terrible performances.Spuds,Chelski,Manure away we’re so much better even if the results were not what we deserved.We have the squad to win every one of these games.We alsovhave thecdefence to lose them all.
We will need to take three of these games at the very least, and win all our home games to have a chance of top four. Our lack luster away form will likely be our undoing. These two points squandered against the Spuds may come back to haunt us!
I understand the tendency to guess at our potential for the remaining 8 games relative to the teams we compete with for a top 4 finish. Do you rather play City at home or Wolves away?
Who really knows the answers to these hypothetical. Leicester have a new manager and will be dangerous but would we prefer to play Liverpool?
It all comes down to our attitude IMO. If the manager can mentally prepare our team for “8 finals” there is no reason we should not have a good run in. If we, as we used to at times during the Wenger era, freeze under the pressure of being 4th and being in control of our destiny, we will drop many points for no apparent good reason.
This squad seems to have a good attitude and they seem to be able to focus for 90 minutes as we saw against Spurs and Man U. It is ours to lose and we would have no one to blame.
I respect what this manager had done and IMO he has outperformed reasonable expectations, my one fear is how he will bring creativity to the away games. Without Ramsey and or Ozil we seem to lack bite in the final third. I the manager reverts to benching Ozil, a lot will rest on Ramsey’s shoulders.
I know we need defenders in the next window but we also need a creative midfield player with Ramsey leaving and Ozil not trusted and too unpredictable. With a budget of 40 million this will be a tall order.
We are certainly living in interesting times, as per the old Chinese curse.
Emery is an experienced Manager who will have his troops focussing only on the next game.If you look at the run in each game could be perceived as “difficult” and may have an adverse effect on the confidence of the players.The same applies to the games involving the other top four contenders.Don’t even think about them.One game at a time and we’ll be fine.
One game at a time is what is always said by all managers. And that is said because it is the TRUTH!
Exactly Jon. Win Thursday, by win I mean qualify. Then we dont have a league game for a while, we play thar at home so then will only leave us 2 at home. I as a fan only ever look at our next game and hope for a positive result. I believe we can get a result Thursday and that’s the focus.
Im hoping for favourable EL fixtures the week we face Everton,Wolves and Watford.
By favourable i mean “not Napoli,Inter or Chelsea”