Having improved our Premier League finishing and also showed some brilliant form and consistency in the second half of the season to do so, Arsenal fans are reasonably happy and optimistic about next season and a more sustained title challenge.
But we still need to complete the job in the FA cup and beat Aston Villa in the final at Wembley to give us a real trophy to celebrate, although Arsene Wenger reckons that the pressure and expectation on him and his players is nothing like it was against Hull City a year ago.
As reported by Sky Sports, the Frenchman still insists that the Gunners are totally focused on winning the cup and becoming outright the most successful club in the history of the world’s oldest football competition.
Wenger said, “I cannot measure the pressure on me,” Wenger said at his pre-match press conference. “But personally I am always the same when I go to big game like this – I just want to do it.
“Maybe last year the expectation level was more demanding – the demand was absolute last year. But we have our own demands inside the group here and we have high expectation for our game on Saturday and we want to do it.
“It’s not easy [to equal George Ramsay’s six wins as a manager]. I would love to do it but I’m not honestly focused on that. I like to beat records but that’s not the most important thing on Saturday.
“I’m more focused on the fact that we have fought so hard to get there. We went to Man United to qualify and we had to win big games to get there. Now we want to finish the job. The most important thing is that we come back home all together and happy.”
That win last year was very important after nine years without a trophy and that was why there was so much pressure on Arsenal. It showed in the final as well as we started slowly and only got going when our backs were to the wall. So is there really a lot less pressure on us this year and will that help with the performance?
Maybe but I still think there is a lot of pressure on the players as they know that losing the final would put a big black mark on the season and make it not such a happy camp after all. What do you think Gooners?