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Out of the frying pan…

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The god of fixtures really did get out of bed on the wrong side when he insisted that we should start this season – the one with the biggest change at the club since 1996 – with two of the hardest matches of the season. It’s certainly been a baptism of fire for the new man.

If you pick your team based on form (form after one game – is that form?), then I think we’ll see Lacazette start today, as he really was up for the fight on Sunday. I’d also be inclined to play Lichtsteiner at left-back. We had several undercooked players on Sunday (Xhaka being a good example, but not the only one), so having another in Monreal might be too risky. Our new Swiss spring chicken added a spikiness and nous to the game, even if it came to naught, and personally I’d be happy to see him retain his place.

I think we might see Torreira ahead of Guendouzi too. More caution away from home was largely anathema to Wenger, but Emery is (by all accounts) a more tactical manager, and he may opt for a more cautious approach. Adding Torreira to the midfield may stifle creativity, but it should also tighten us up.

I’m not sure what I expect from this game, other than to see some players come into better form, and to see the system Emery wants a percentage point or two more effective. It’s a tough ask, but this is the very beginning, so expectations, while not lower, may be different.

Patience really is a virtue

I listened to the Arsecast yesterday, in which the issue of early criticism / patience came up. It seems extraordinary to even be talking about it now, but it bears repeating: nothing happens immediately in the aftermath of a wave of the managerial wand. This is especially true given the previous spell lasted 22 years.

I think Emery should be judged after one year at the earliest, at which point we should be able to see if his blueprint is beginning to work. But preferably, he should be judged after two years, at which point the players will be more his, and the plan will be more settled. Anything sooner than that – barring a complete collapse – serves no real purpose.

Being there on Sunday was a salient reminder not only of how good City are (and they really are superb: powerful, quick, organised and ruthless) but also of how much work needs to be done at Arsenal. There’s so much to do. It’s going to be fascinating watching Emery try to make his mark, which is why as well as being a bit heart-in-the-mouth stuff at times, even if playing out the back is as a bit Keystone Cops for several months it’s worth persevering with. We all cried out for something different. That’s what we’re getting, that makes it exciting, and as the players become more comfortable with it, it will become clearer and more natural.

Right, into the fire we go…

 

Up for the Emery era

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Like Arsène Wenger, I’ve almost certainly been going on too long, but I’ve convinced myself that I’ll be honest enough to bow out gracefully when I’m no longer delivering the goods. Except here I am, having another tilt at this blogging lark.

Decent metaphor, except that Wenger had a really successful first period, and was one of the greats of the game *checks stats, coughs, shuffles off*.

Well, anyway, here I am again. Blogging season number 16.

Out with the old

This time though, Groundhog Arsenal has been consigned to history – or so we hope. With Emery, we have a fresh start, and whether it turns out to be the start of another golden age or a difficult second album is neither here nor there to some degree. It’s just something different, and something different is good enough for me.

It would have been an interesting A/B test to have started Emery’s first season with exactly the same squad as Wenger’s last, just to see whether what many of us suspected – that things had gone stale and the existing squad was underachieving – was true.

But of course football doesn’t work that way, and with Arsenal last year it wasn’t simply a case of the players underachieving: it was also true that the squad was, man for man, poorer than those that finished above it.

In with the new

Which would explain why instead of standing still – Wenger tried that one summer when only Cech came in, and look what happened there – Arsenal have been busy from the get-go. Cover at right-back, an experienced centre-back, a new keeper, a holding midfielder and a ‘prospect’ in the shape of Gwen Doozy. Who if he goes on the lash is Gwen Doozy’s boozy do. Who if he goes on the lash at a square dance is Gwen Doozy’s boozy do do-se-do. But anyway, I digress.

Where was I? Ah yes, gaps have been filled.

Whether this is enough is of course a moot point, and certainly when you compare it to this summer’s transfer pacesetters Liverpool, you could argue that it’s not. But we’ve also got two £50m strikers whose careers at Arsenal are pretty new, so it’s an ongoing rebuild. And we don’t have £120m from the sale of one of our players burning a hole in our pocket either.

Whilst I’m sanguine about the forthcoming season, I’ve watched pre-season with the required detachment – it just doesn’t mean that much, some players aren’t here, match fitness is short, and overall whether we win or lose it’s hardly a reliable harbinger of things to come. The crunch will come soon enough – just a week now – and we couldn’t ask for a more daunting challenge than Man City.

What do I expect from this season? As I said, just something different. A commitment to ironing out the endemic issues that plagued Arsenal for years. A desire to go head-to-head tactically and beliefistically with the teams above us – against whom we’ve got a poor recent record.

It’s something new, and that’s exciting. The Guardian has us down for fifth, and while I don’t agree with everything the article says (I don’t think there’ll be any people questioning the wisdom of getting rid of Wenger, for example, even if results aren’t what we’d like), I’d say the position is about right. We have new players to bed in, a new manager trying to make changes at somewhere that hasn’t really changed much for years, and we have old players who need teaching new tricks – all  these things need to happen at the same time.

A kick up the chops

But for me, it’s less about the final position and more about reinvigorating a team that had run out of ideas and had become too predictable. And – because of course it’s all about me – it’s also about invigorating myself. I’d got a bit too cynical and a bit too disengaged, and while the fun is as much in the going as it is in the winning, taking a leap into the unknown after 22 years of being cuddled up in the Wenger comfort blanket feels exciting.

I can’t wait for it to begin again and I’m not the kind of reactionary who’ll be all #EmeryOut by September if things don’t work out. These things require patience.

Of course, if things haven’t picked up by October there’ll be hell to pay 🙂

Bring on the new era.

Au revoir Arsène, and thank you

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In the end, the announcement came out of the blue, pushed onto the Arsenal website and social channels with the simple words: Merci Arsène.

That’s it, it’s over. Wenger finally pulled the plug on his 22-year reign with delicately chosen timing. There’s long enough to think, to weigh it all up, and to soak in some of the extraordinary memories he created. There’s time to give him the send-off he deserves, to find someone new, and to focus on ending his final season at Arsenal with a final hurrah in Europe.

So yes, thank you Arsène. Thank you for transforming our club, for building those teams of grace, power and panache, and for going head to head with the best teams in the land, for the biggest trophies there are. Any history of his reign will be nuanced, some would argue chipped around the edges, thanks to the latter half of his tenure, where in league and European terms at least he presided over a slow decline, but as time goes by I have no doubt he’ll be remembered for what he is: one of the best managers, if not the best manager, in Arsenal’s history.

The good, the bad. The mostly good.

Some legacy. The results, trophies and near misses – three titles, seven FA Cups, one Champions League final, one Uefa Cup final, a few League Cup finals and just the one FA Cup final defeat – are just a part of it. Beyond that there are the well-documented changes to things like player nutrition and diet. There’s the rapier-fast, ruthless football that changed Arsenal’s tune completely. There’s his role in the move to the Emirates Stadium, there’s his intelligence, good grace and social conscience. His humour and ability to delve into deeper societal issues. The way he trusts and defends his players, even at times when, quite frankly, they don’t deserve it. OK, in the interest of balance there’s his stubbornness too, and his myopia. But how many managers aren’t a bit like that?

So that’s Wenger the manager; Wenger the man. But for me, as for most Arsenal fans, it’s more complicated than that. His astonishingly long tenure means there are Arsenal fans out there in their mid-to-late twenties who’ve known nobody else at the helm of their club.

The end of an era

I’m a bit longer in the tooth, but I was 25 when he took over. It’s heading towards half my life ago. I look back at 1996, and it genuinely feels like another time. A different world, a different England and a different me. So as I’ve grown up, moved jobs, got married, had kids and experienced all of life’s peaks and troughs, there’s Arsène Wenger, a constant, there or thereabouts, a big part of my life. And there’s me, there or thereabouts, experiencing all of Wenger’s peaks and troughs with him.

That’s why I’m in a bit of turmoil, because memories blur into one and it’s made me more emotional than I thought it would. I’ve advocated a change for several years now, and I’m glad (for the direction of the club) that it’s happened. It’s the right time. I’m also genuinely excited at what next season and beyond holds. But at the exact same time, I feel sad, a little nostalgic and sentimental.

To all the Arsenal lovers, take care of the values of the club. My love and support for ever”.

Well, that tipped me right over.

So thanks Arsène, thanks a million. For a long while you gave us the best football we’re ever likely to see.

Au revoir, and good luck.

Europa League: the last shot at a European trophy for Wenger?

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I’m still here, just about – much like Arsenal this season.

Moving on up

Last time I posted here, about a month ago, I pretty much couldn’t see anything other than a summer exit for Wenger. Things felt bleak: it’s been a season that has careered from one statistical zinger to another. The stats still don’t paint a pretty picture, but it comes as no real surprise that things have picked up since then (won four, lost one since sinking in the snow to Man City in a half-empty Emirates).

Why? Well, it was clear we were playing below our capabilities, for starters. But also, this is Wenger: a man who’s mastered the art of conjuring good finales to disappointing seasons. Here he is again, attempting to sing his signature tune – qualification for the Champions League. And he’s five games away from doing it via the back door.

Moving on out

It doesn’t change the fact that many – most – would like him to bow out gracefully in the summer, but it might persuade the majority owner, if indeed he needs persuading, that Wenger’s the man for another year. But anyway, that’s a circular argument nobody is going to win right now. We’ll find out soon enough.

Time to break free

In idle moments, I do wonder how Wenger’s European record will be judged. Accentuating the positives, you’d say perennial qualification for the Champions League was pretty good, and there was one memorable run to the Champions League final – the first time we’d ever been there in our history. There were also two Uefa Cup finals – one with Arsenal and one with Monaco. But on the flipside, the last seven years in Europe’s leading competition have been wasted, and it doesn’t really feel like we ever got to grips with it. We look further away from truly competing in it now than ever.

Nothing can stop me

Wenger’s never won a European trophy. So for a leading coach – and he has been that – his European record is not that great, especially if you judge success by lifting cups, as you should. Nor indeed is Arsenal’s European record that great as a club, to be honest. One Fairs Cup, one Cup Winners’ Cup.

But here Wenger is, facing Moscow in the rarefied atmosphere of a Europa League quarter-final. Of course we have a chance. And how many more chances will Wenger have to win a European trophy? I’d say this is probably his last realistic chance. If he doesn’t win the Europa League this year, it makes the argument for his departure almost impossible to ignore. He could move to another club that offers European football, but he’d only have a few years, in all likelihood, to have another crack at winning in Europe, and that’s a tough ask indeed.

And if he does win it this year and stays at Arsenal, what chance does he have next season – which we can assume really *will* be his last – of winning the Champions League? Given Arsenal’s historical record in it, and given Wenger’s own painful maulings in recent years, I’d say it’s zilch.

So this year’s Europa League really is it. This could be your last realistic chance, Arsene.

 

All change at Emerick’s Stadium

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It’s hard to remember a transfer window like it. Two players in, five out, one superstar signed, one sold, another nailed down to a new contract – leaving us with an attacking line-up that has been comprehensively rejigged in a footballing blink of the eye.

I know the goals have dried up this season, but we’ve essentially sold all our goalscorers from last season, bar Ozil, in the hope that their replacements – Lacazette, Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan – will spark a change in fortune.

Is it risky? Not so much: we’re bog average for the most part, languishing as we are in sixth, and staleness is all around. Something needs to change, and that won’t happen by tweaking round the edges. Whoever’s pulling the levers of power behind the scenes – and it’s hard to argue now that it’s uniquely Wenger – clearly feels that a harsh wind needs to blow through the club.

Given our astonishing inconsistency – veering from the disciplined (cup semis) to the lazy, disinterested and disjointed (Bournemouth, Swansea – take your pick) – something fundamentally wrong permeates this team and has done for too long.

So starting with the attack, it’s being changed. And I do suspect this is the start – with the rest of the work kicking off in the summer, possibly under a new manager. If you look at it that way, it’s more exciting than seeing it as a month of desperate rearguard action to make up for Alexis wanting out.

Where does this leave Wenger? ‘Gone in the summer’ wouldn’t be an extreme position to take, though with this club being this club, and with Wenger being Wenger, you wouldn’t want to dip into your pockets to back up a claim like that.

The biggest moves of the day for us are of course Aubameyang in, Giroud out and – this blindsided me – Ozil on a new deal.

WOTCHA

Aubameyang is our most expensive signing ever at £56m, who joins us with a phenomenal scoring record. Assuming we can feed him chances – a wild assumption right now – he should throw the cat among our attacking pigeons. Good day to you, Sir!

COR BLIMEY

Mesut Ozil – OK, he’s here already but this is exciting and he’s definitely LANS. I didn’t see this one coming at all, but it just goes to show you what blowing your salary ceiling out the water can do – and what signing some other big players can do to perceptions. I’m really pleased by this. Yes, at times in this side he can feel like an icing-on-the-cake player, but when he purrs he does things nobody else in this side can. And let’s all drool, if we will, at the prospect of him feeding our brand new frontline.

SEEYA THOUGH

Olivier Giroud – I was hoping we’d at least get a lap of honour at the end of the season for this goodbye, to be honest, but the gods of transfers decreed him to be the key to unlock the panoply of moves that led to Aubameyang deal. A fine servant, underrated in many respects, with excellent technical ability and a strong line in beards. I wish he hadn’t gone to Chelsea but there you have it. He slowed our game down (even more!) and had clearly fallen out of favour, but he always had a goal in him. Good luck, Oli.

Oh, and Mathieu Debuchy. You still here, blood? Should have left ages ago and had a rotten Arsenal career thanks to circumstances beyond his control. He’s gone to St Etienne, who have gone a bit downhill since Only Love Can Break Your Heart.

We’ve veered from committed to disinterested this season and back again with consistent inconsistency, and we’ve been boring to watch far too often. I’m not sure I really care where this January revolution has come from. All I know is that something needed to change – and changing, it appears to be.

Bring it on.

A new broom is sweeping Arsenal’s attack clean

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Arsenal 4-1 Crystal Palace

Thanks to the attacking instincts of our defence, and the brilliant feather-light touch of Ozil, we swatted Palace aside in 22 minutes yesterday – then throttled back and watched the world go by. Stamping our authority on a game – how I’ve missed that.

We couldn’t have asked for a better start to our post-Alexis future, though most teams will be less welcoming than Palace. That’s not to put a negative slant on 22 minutes that were fluid, exciting and ruthless – and the rest of the game where we largely kept a shell-shocked Palace at arm’s length – so let’s put that on the record. But trickier assignments will be round the corner.

A 4-1 win in most circumstances would be the talking point for several days, but such is the state of play at Arsenal this January it’s already fading into the background. There’s stuff rumbling along in every nook and cranny if you look hard enough.

Fixing the attack

One of the most interesting changes is what’s happening to our attack. Since the summer we’ve sold Ox, Walcott and now Alexis – with Giroud potentially following them. That’s not just tweaks – it’s a complete clearout.

It’s classic Wenger too (or is it – more on that in a minute). We have a defence that can’t keep clean sheets and, at times, is all over the place. We have a midfield that lacks brute power and numbers – so let’s remodel the attack! It certainly has the stamp of Wenger all over it, but such is the intrigue at the club at the moment that you have to ask yourself how much of this evolution – or is it a revolution? – is coming from elsewhere within the club.

You’d be within your remit to wonder, too, how much of this is blind panic having mismanaged so much of what’s preceded it. Reaction, not proaction. It would be a fair conclusion to draw.

Whatever the cause, things are changing fast this month. Faster off the pitch than on it – and I’m all for it.

While Mkhitaryan gently weeps

We’ve said goodbye to Theo, we’ve waved adieu to Coquelin and now we’d bidden adios to Alexis. On the other side of the revolving door we say ‘Bari galust’ to Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who can play behind the striker, or on the wing. Who will he displace? Probably Iwobi at this stage, though your guess is as good as mine.

Whether he’d have come to Arsenal in other circumstances is a moot point, but that’s how football works – circumstances dictate moves – they always have done.

I’m sad to see Alexis go and I will not lie. He’s been a pleasure to watch and was precisely the kind of player Arsenal needed. High intensity, hugely driven and a lethal goalscorer: a real stardust player in a team that hasn’t seen many of those for some years. 80 goals in 3.5 years is very decent indeed. He was a big-game player, with many of his goals coming in big games on big occasions. Yes, nitpick if you want. He was careless with the ball. He was a bit disruptive. But I’d have a player like him in my squad any day.

Of course, reading between the lines, it’s damning that he couldn’t fulfil his ambitions with us, though it’s nothing we haven’t seen with our own eyes. He’s also going to earn eye-watering amounts of money, which only a few clubs can currently do. We aren’t one of them.

Thanks Alexis for all you’ve done – and you’ll forgive me for hoping your best and most productive years were with us, not with your new employer.

Yin and Aubameyang

But that’s not all! Given that Wenger hates the merest whiff of player dissent (Szczesny dropped for having a tab in the shower, and was Walcott ostracised for saying ‘they wanted it more’?), it seems surprising that he’d entertain the thought of signing someone like Aubameyang. There are mixed reports about whether he’s really that bad a character – but he’s no Walcott.

And maybe that’s no bad thing, frankly. This squad could do with different characters. Either way, pitching for him makes sense as we need someone with some of that lost stardust, and he’d definitely provide it. And we need to show our current squad – many of whom are stalling on new deals –  that Arsenal’s relative decline is not inevitable.

Would Giroud go the other way if it happened (still a big if)? It would make some sense – and would complete a huge turnaround in our attacking options.

Even if it’s by accident rather than by design, these are shaping up to be interesting and exciting times.

 

More Wowzil, less Woezil

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Cheap shot for a stupid headline? You know me.

But having watched Mesut Ozil dismantle Everton – I wouldn’t say single-handedly, but he was bloody good – it was a gentle reminder that he’s a rare talent indeed.

I say gentle reminder, because from time to time I lose a bit of faith in him. I think it’s fair and reasonable to say that – if the circumstances aren’t right, if the opposition play differently, if his flowing highlighted locks waft in the wrong direction, then he doesn’t always play like he did at Everton, and nor do those around him. I don’t think I ruffle any feathers by pointing that out. I’m not doubting how many miles he runs or his professionalism.

But when he *does* play like that, ‘ooof’ is the only word I can currently come up with.

At which point my mind races off to the prospect of what a regular trident of Ozil, Alexis and Lacazette might be like, and how exciting it might be.

And then the wind of reality blows and my mind tacks to the prospect of it all breaking up as soon as January… but let’s not go there.

Let’s hope it’s glorious while it lasts, eh? And that tomorrow the massed ranks of the Swansea defence don’t dis-Everton Mesut Ozil. Because that was good, and I’m going tomorrow, and I want a bit more of that.

(Please).

For more on this and other stuff, tune into to this week’s ArseAmerica podcast. It’s the end of an epoch – if six years can be considered an epoch – as you will find out if you listen through to the end.

Ox pinched, Alexis punched, and no returns

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After all that hot air, there goes the summer transfer window. In a market where some teams have spent upwards of £200m, we’ve snuck in with a tidy profit of £30m. Now, I know it’s not all about how much you spend, but for a club that has pots of cash already, and is on a downward trajectory, it hardly reeks of ambition, does it?

Yesterday we let Oxlade-Chamberlain go for £40m, which is decent business under the circumstances. He said he wanted to go to Liverpool as it was “right for the next stage in my ongoing development”. He needs a bit of moulding, but Liverpool have got him at the right time, and if I were him I’d have done something similar.

Another player who wanted to leave was Alexis. He didn’t get his wish as Arsenal couldn’t find a replacement. Apparently, we bid an almost ludicrous €92m for Lemar, but Lemar either turned us down, our pursuit was too lukewarm or it was all a bit too late. So Alexis stays.

I’m a little torn about this, though overall I’m happy he stays. I’m mostly torn because we’ve now got a player on our hands who doesn’t want to be here, whose teammates know he doesn’t want to be here and who knows the club was only too happy to offload him at the right price. But overall, I don’t see him downing tools, and we get a 30-goal player – someone all oppositions are genuinely fearful of – for either 4/5 more months or for the whole season.

We let a whole cavalcade of other players go, but in terms who might have actually played, it was only really Gabriel, Gibbs and possibly Lucas. Is our squad severely weakened by this bizarre summer? Not really – Chambers replaces Gabriel as 4th choice centre-back, Kolasinac has replaced Gibbs and we’ve massively upgraded our goalscoring options. Oxlade-Chamberlain was not irreplaceable as he didn’t want to play RWB (or LWB) and was often shoe-horned in anyway.

That being said, it’s never that simple. For me, the perception we have given in the latter stages of this window is of a club that doesn’t know what it wants, and that can be scavenged for talent. Instead of strengthening significantly in the anticipation of a concerted assault for honours – these were the noises being made after Wenger signed his new deal – we’re an unbalanced team with unhappy players and are already on the verge of abandoning the back three that brought us some respite (and a glorious afternoon at Wembley) a few short months ago.

On top of that, we’re still a team capable of the kind of switch-off disaster that we saw at Anfield, and let’s be honest, that’s not going to change either. Not now, not with Wenger.

So where does that leave us? Wenger is already embattled after a dreadful start to the season, the fans are disillusioned once again, and quite what we’re realistically hoping to achieve this season is a mystery. Poor squad management has bitten us hard, there are questions over the board’s input in all this, questions about finances and whiffs of power struggles too.

All this needs to be dispelled and turned round. Coherent tactics and team selection would be a start. Seeing an increased threat from Lacazette and Alexis – backed up by Welbeck, Giroud and Walcott – would soothe the frustration. The midfield marshalling the defence would be a novel and welcome development.

And so to Bournemouth.

For some late night ramblings to try to make (more) sense of it all, check out today’s Arsecast.

Some thoughts on Wenger

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So it’s Wenger until 2019 – the least surprising surprise since Surprisey McSurpriseFace jumped out of the wardrobe and shouted, “surprise!”

Those making the decision couldn’t have scripted a more appropriate moment to announce it if they’d tried – the warm afterglow of a fantastic performance and result in the FA Cup.

If you took this decision based on the last 9 or 10 games alone, the logic would be undeniable to be honest. It would be mean-spirited not to give credit to Wenger for the way he hauled us out of a very bad place indeed and made a success of a very average season.

If only things were that simple though, because if you look at the last decade you see a team that hasn’t got close enough to the business end of a title challenge, and you see a side that has been routinely embarrassed in the Champions League; most recently shipping ten to Bayern. That wider view, rather than the shorter-term burst of form and the heady bliss of Wembley, is why this decision will not, to put it diplomatically, be universally popular.

The weight of history would suggest that we’re in for more of the same – fourth or thereabouts – with Wenger at the helm.

So changing that is the challenge, and it’s huge. Because while the board and Wenger are saying all the right things, as you’d expect them to, the big question remains: What will he or can he do differently to bridge the 10 – 20 point gap that has come between us and the champions for the last nine years?

What needs to slot into place to give him a fighting chance? To break the mould? And the answer is probably – ‘a lot’.

An admission that things went wrong

That things will be freshened up to shake the club out of complacency. To come out and admit that things went stale and that we have fallen behind, and that we’re going to do something about it, structurally or with a change of staff. Because for all the glory of three FA Cups in four years, in the league we have fallen behind.

Some serious ambition

Back up the words with actions. Stan the investor needs to at least give the impression that he intends to be Stan the winner (I hear the hollow laughter at the back – detention for you!) Remember how it felt to sign Ozil? We need a statement of intent and of power play like that, because big names coming in aren’t just a case of buying for the sake of buying – they give you a better chance of winning. And Wenger tells us he wants to win the league. So Arsenal need to be prepared to spend big and to hit the ground running. To make swift decisions, to move fast. Not to just talk about it, but to do it.

To keep our big players

There’s long been talk that Alexis wants out and Ozil won’t sign, and that Ox is mulling over his future. Getting rid of any of them would send out all the wrong messages and would leave Wenger under the cosh and on the back foot before the season’s even started. I can’t see this part of his summer challenge ending well, to be honest, and I worry that we’ll spend too much of the next three months reacting rather than proacting.

To change the mentality… for good

You could argue the move to the back three has helped with this, but Arsenal need to be that committed for an entire season before we can say it was a success, rather than simply a nine-game upturn. Wenger needs to shake things up more often if needed. Hell, he might even consider making a substitution before the 68th minute… Will he change? We’ll find out, won’t we. But… yeah.

All the best

So good luck Arsène – I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Given the last few seasons, with the splits, the apathy, the frustration and the anger, and given the increasing strength and financial firepower of our rivals, you will need it.

I watch football to have fun and to see some great performances and, occasionally, to have a crack at winning things, so I’d like nothing more than for the next two years to be some kind of sunlit uplands. To be a bit more ‘cup final’ and a bit less ‘Watford at home’.

I don’t want to spend the next two years with furrowed brows, because life’s too short. So I’m going to be positive about it and see the FA Cup as a springboard (another springboard…)

Every year I give into hope and offer myself a tantalising thought that it might just be different this time round.

And I’d rather look at it that way, to be honest. Off we go again.

FA Cup final preview: Cech and balance

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*eyes open at 6am*. It’s the cup final, baby! Best write a preview then.

Cup runneth over

Though the river marked ‘league titles’ ran dry many years ago, leaving an arid wadi of frustration, the one labelled ‘FA Cup’ continues to bubble along nicely.

In fact, while Wenger’s record in the League Cup final (P2, L2) and in European finals (P2, L2) leaves a lot to be desired, he’s made up for it in the FA Cup with an astonishing six wins.

The last time we lost in the FA Cup final – his only defeat to date – was in 2001, when quite frankly we woz robbed anyway.

That record comes under severe scrutiny today against Chelsea, who have Lazarused their way out of last season’s doldrums under the tutelage of the impressive Conte.

Wenger’s goodbye?

The two sides are coming at this from wildly different places, if we’re honest. For us, winning it would be a positive end to an arduous season where all the usual weaknesses took their turns to make an appearance. It could be Wenger’s justification for a new deal – or it could be a way to bow out on a high (and maybe the best chance he will now have to do that). We still do not know and it seems utterly bizarre that this could be Wenger’s last game, but we wouldn’t know and couldn’t say goodbye. (Spoiler: it probably isn’t).

For Chelsea, already riding the crest of a wave, it’s a chance to win their second double, so it’s safe to assume they’ll be sufficiently motivated.

Cech bounced

They will be favourites, a view reinforced by an untimely dose of defensive misfortune for us – added to yesterday with the news that Cech will be replaced by Ospina. A “slight knock” in training led to this decision, apparently, though it’s slight enough for Cech to be devastated. If this is Wenger being stubborn and keeping his promise to ‘cup keeper’ Ospina, it wouldn’t surprise me. But this kind of sentimentality is madness on a day where we’re already without Koscielny, Mustafi and Gabriel.

It could be a bluff. I’m a hardened cynic, but honouring a departing keeper’s promise does feel a bit textbook Wenger. Or it could just be that he’s genuinely encumbered by injury and is not fit to start, in which case maybe I’m reading too much into it.

I’ve got a lovely Per

In front of Ospina, who has not played for eight weeks, will be Per Mertesacker, who has not started a match in about 56 weeks. Rob Holding, who has made just 16 starts for Arsenal, will join him and Nacho Monreal, a left-back, will make up the three.
We’ll probably see Bellerin on the right and Ox or Gibbs on the left, and the rest of the team picks itself, bar striker. It should be Welbeck, but this is Arsene Wenger we’re talking about so don’t stick money on it.

But look, we’ve finally hit some form and it’s a one-off Wembley final, in glorious May sunshine, so while we won’t be everyone’s favourites, we’re hardly starry-eyed underdogs here.

Cup fever

I’ve always loved the cup, and the good fortune to have seen so many finals in my time does not lessen my love of it in any way. The atmosphere, the anticipation, the nerves, the mates coming together from far and wide; steeling yourself for joy or despair – it’s got the lot and I can’t wait.

For those of you who are either travelling or at a loss at how to fill the pre-match hours, warm yourself up by curling your lug-holes round Arseblog’s pre-match live podcast, (where we all scoff at the thought of Cech missing out).

The nerves are well and truly kicking in, so that’s your lot. Come on you rip-roaring reds!