While things have taken on a much more rosy hue for Arsenal fans in the last week, the Gunners and Arsene Wenger are not out of the woods yet by any means, and unless the players keep up the sort of intensity that we saw from them yesterday in the hard fought FA cup semi-final win over Man City, while Arsenal could also do with rediscovering some of the fluent and free flowing football that we saw in the first half of the current season.
For now the squad and manager can forget about the FA cup final to be played at the end of May and get back to the business of trying to finish in the top four, but I have a nasty feeling that we may have just handed a big advantage in that respect to Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United.
They may have a horrendous fixture list including a double header Europa League semi-final with Spanish La Liga side Celta Vigo, but a look at the EPL table combined with their recent form shows, in my opinion, that they are the team most likely to take advantage of the weekend’s slip up from Liverpool who lost at home to Crystal Palace.
Liverpool’s loss means that winning our three games in hand would put us back above them but United also have two extra games to play and are only three points behind them. The first of those games in hand is on Thursday away to Man City, but I feel that City’s disappointment on losing the semi-final and the fatigue that extra time at Wembley can cause could give United a real advantage.
How annoying would it be if our return to form actually benefits United and Maureen more than us?
D.N.