ARSENAL CREATE DISTANCE IN 2ND - COULD LFC WOBBLE?

LEAGUE IS GONE, BUT TOP 4 DOGFIGHT FEELING LESS LIKELY AFTER SUPERB WIN AGAINST CHELSEA

Are you sick in the f*cking head? Yeah, I’m talking to you—the person sitting behind a laptop, spilling yolk crumbs from your Pret boiled egg breakfast onto the keyboard, shooting off insane group chat posts like:

“It’s on, baby, I’m a believer.”
“Inject the hopium into my eyes.”
“Bottlejob of the century incoming.”
“Shall I book tickets for the parade?”

You’re all wrong ’uns.

Yes, it was hilarious watching an absolutely fried Liverpool slump to a much better Newcastle in the League Cup final. Sure, the PSG game over two legs was an 8.7 IMDb hate-watch that should attract awards consideration. But… I think the league is done.

Or is it?

No. It’s done.

But what about Everton (H) and Fulham (A) with tired legs?

Ok, maybe there’s a little hope. Just a taste. But let’s just focus on Arsenal, one game at a time.

I jumped on The AOP after the Chelsea game, and Johnny was a bit negative, as were some others. I might have got drawn into the misery… but now that I’ve had some time to digest the game, what the fuck was my problem?

Arsenal did exactly what they needed to. They took on the fourth-best team in the Premier League, reduced them to 0.035 xG, and leaned on Thierry Merino to push the team over the line. It’s pretty clear by now that we’re not elite in attack unless we have our best players (name a team that defies this logic) and right now we don’t have Kai and Saka about. Complaining about wins feels very, very pathetic, especially when the wins come against the team sitting 4th mid-March. They aren’t there by fluke.

But… back to the best January signing of all…

Mikel Merino has more Premier League goals than Zirkzee, Rashford, Kudus, Grealish, Doku, Neto, KDB, and Højlund. He is level for output with Jota and Núñez. Is he world class? Probably.

The Chelsea game, for me, was more about cementing our position in the top two this season. Football—and sport in general—is about doing as many things right as possible and keeping yourself competitive every year. If you apply that approach to squad building, over time, you will win big trophies. Finishing second in the Premier League this year isn’t where we want to be, but having the consistency to be top two for three consecutive seasons will carry symbolic meaning. It allows the normies to push away the change-agent fans who don’t know what they’re talking about.

People keep flagging that January was a miss, but now we’re living in the real world, not the fever dream of transfer hypotheticals that would definitely have made the difference, we can see that the gains from January transfers have been pretty drab for most teams.

Aston Villa, dropping three big loan deals for Asensio, Rashford, and Disasi, managed to beat Club Brugge in the Champions League. But in the competition that actually counts for them this season—the Premier League—they’re sitting ninth, with a -4 goal difference, looking like a long shot for the top four. They didn’t sign Ollie Watkins, they already had him, and it’s not helping them progress from last season. As a reminder, Kai Havertz has more goals this season than Ollie.

Manchester City spent £260m on players, and they’re down to fifth, ten points behind Arsenal. They were adding talent to a title-winning team, and it hasn’t moved the needle for them at all.

Arsenal, who did fuck all in the window, just crushed PSV 9-3 and have kept their second-place spot. Now we’re welcoming Saka back for the Fulham game, which could be huge for our remaining nine games.

Beating Chelsea was massive. Reading people complain that the victory wasn’t emphatic enough just reminds me how ridiculous the bar for Arsenal is among some fans. This Chelsea outfit has spent £1.6bn over the past three years. Fans said Maresca had skipped ahead to phase five back in November. Now we beat them 1-0 without Saka and Kai, and somehow, the three points aren’t good enough?

Unserious commentary.

There were a lot of positives from that game. Defensively, we were excellent. I haven’t looked at the numbers, but it felt like we won most of our duels, particularly in midfield. We limited their chances in front of goal. That Cucurella volley was about as jeopardous as it got for them. I never really felt like we were playing a top-tier team. You can generally tell who you’re talking to by whether they think that’s because Arsenal were excellent or Chelsea were terrible.

Defensively, we’re the best team in the league—power, pace, focus, delivery, and hard numbers. Our fullbacks look like carbon copies of each other. Timber has been a freak of nature since returning from injury, and MLS looks like a gift sent from the academy heavens. There have been questions about whether he can play against Madrid, given some of his discipline issues, but every game I watch, he looks more and more like he belongs in our starting XI.

Declan Rice has fully embraced his role as a chaos merchant. He must be a nightmare to play against. He covers ground like one of those Dune sandworms. He has a sixth sense for danger, and if you send vibrations his way, he will track you down and absorb your moisture. Quite a scary player—dressed up like a golden retriever.

I’m enjoying his goal threat at the moment. He even took a free kick from Ødegaard, which at least suggests a bit of self-awareness in the squad about our dead-ball issues. Whatever’s happening with Declan, I’m loving it.

There’s a two-week break now. I’d like Thomas to stay in a cryo chamber for all of it. He had some great moments—especially breaking the lines—but there were one or two late challenges that would result in a red card against Madrid. I chalk that up to a lack of freshness, so hopefully, Arteta is on it.

Our forward options weren’t great. It’s pretty clear that once Saka comes back, it’s over for him as a striker. But the real question is, what comes next?

Trossard contributed almost nothing to the attack. He looks like he’s been told we’re selling him to a third-division Saudi team next year. Physically, it looks like we’re seeing that 29-year-old drop-off, but mentally, he just looks uninterested.

Martinelli had a much better game on the right. His one-vs-one game was positive, and some of his ball deliveries exceeded expectations. My main issue? When presented with goal-scoring opportunities, he fluffed his lines with substandard efforts. I just don’t see things improving for him. I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s the big exit Ornstein is talking about this summer.

Just one final point: PGMOL. Kavanagh and Gillett had another disaster together. The man who had to send Declan off because it was letter of the law suddenly wanted to let this game flow. Two of the worst officials in the game allowed a clear handball penalty shout to slide, and apparently, stamping isn’t even a yellow card unless you really, like, properly stamp.

We won the game, so it doesn’t matter, but ask yourself this—do you think those two moments would have been ignored against Liverpool? Arsenal don’t even protest these incidents anymore. The club has to get on top of this for next season. We’ll never win the league if we keep getting treated like second-class citizens compared to our top-six brothers.

That was a very fun afternoon. We won the full six points against Chelsea, we’re in a good position for the remaining games, and the team reacted well to a shitty performance against United.

Now we tap out for two weeks for the international break!

Ok, that’s me done. Check out On The Whistle and Johnny’s Ratings.