It is sometimes hard to find anything positive to think about after your football club suffers a disappointing result or puts in a below par performance, but we Arsenal fans have had more than enough practice so I reckon I am getting quite good at it.
There is no doubt that we have good reasons to feel down this morning. November is turning out to be the usual kink in the road of our season with players underperforming, poor results and a general feeling of deja vu among the fans. We have also blown another great chance of topping our Champions League group and so must wait and hope for an unlikely slip by PSG in the final group game or a favourable draw.
To the positives then, and the main one is that we have actually made it to the UCL knockout stage, unlike some clubs I could mention (cough, spuds, cough) and the fact is that the two groups seem more even this year with the big names spread around more.
The team that Arsene Wenger suggested this week was the one to fear most is Real Madrid and they look set for second spot as they need to beat an in form Dortmund in their final game and it comes just a few days after an El Clasico clash with Barcelona and it looks like Bale will be out with injury. We also have Bayern Munich in the runners up group and with our luck we would probably have got one of those two had we won.
The Gunners may still get a very tough draw but I do not think coming second is such a bad thing this year. Another positive for us to take from the game with PSG last night is that just like in the away tie we did not lose but managed to get a draw in a game that we could easily have lost.
Of course we want to play better and to win but we often hear that the mark of champions is the ability to dig in and grind out results when not at your best. Do not forget that Arsenal have been awesome at times and will be again, so if we can keep in touch and suffer no disasters while struggling, it bodes well and we have not lost a game since the opening day when our side and especially the defence was wracked with injury problems.
Finally we now have a better run of fixtures after a run of games that was always going to be tough, so for now at least I think we can still be positive, don’t you?
Sam P.