Ok, ok, it’s time to shut up about how sad we all are about the impending doom of our season.
We’re not out of it yet. I mean, we’re not even in danger of giving up the league as we speak. Man City squeezed past Newcastle and they are 2 points behind us. Villa drew to Leeds; they are finished for the season in my opinion.
We have to face down Spurs. If it wasn’t a North London Derby, I’d be predicting we could put 5 past them because they are BADLY down when it comes to player avails. 13 starters is all they have access to. They’ve sacked Thomas Frank, who has Premier League experience, and somehow, they’ve ended up with Igor Tudor, a man with no real talent for anything when it comes to management.
Hilariously, he hasn’t managed a full 365 days in ANY job since 2015.
I couldn’t fathom a hire this bad because even the worst managers I could imagine have at least managed to attract my attention. You know this hire is probably going to be a poor one because the most interesting thing from his presser was he shook the hands of all the journos before it started. I’m just trying to imagine the meeting where Paratici or Lange told an under-fire Vinai that the only name they could find for Spurs, a massive club on paper, was someone Vinai would only have known if he was playing Championship Manager as a kid (that’s how I knew him, seriously).
Of all the out-of-work managers in the world, who have done things, have ideas, have worked in the Premier League… Vinai signed off on a guy famous for literally nothing. How has a CEO under incredible scrutiny right now opted for such an uninspired hire, despite the incredible resources, and, you know, near non-existent standards? Just give it to Big Ange if Igor Tudor is the best bet on your shortlist.
I’m going to be honest here, I’m angry for Spurs fans. I am raging at my keyboard, the same way I was when Edu and Don Raul ran trial balloons for Vitor Pereira to replace Unai Emery back in the day. A super-agent favorite who tanked at Wolves and inexplicably has found himself as the rescue pair of hands at Nottingham Forest.
I digress… because what I’m really getting at here is it doesn’t matter who this manager is; he will have absolutely no impact on the outcome of the game tomorrow because the game cannot be controlled by any one man. It is with the players. Emotions will be high, nothing will feel normal, anything could happen, but really… it’s all about the players and what they want to do.
Spurs’ skeleton squad could step up and do a fucking madness like they did against Man City. They could decide that they need to shop-window themselves out of their hellish existence. No better way to do that than to beat Arsenal in front of your home fans in a game scouts around the world suspect is going to be an easy Arsenal win.
But isn’t it funny that 2 years after Spurs fans celebrated City scoring against them, I’m here writing, with absolute seriousness, that their players are going to play well against us so they can attract a bit of attention? You know, because the scouts don’t send their guys to watch players in rele battles.
Yeah, it’s funny.
But hold the laughs, friends.
We were dreadful against Wolves.
We could find ourselves relegated to the slop bucket of Premier League Twitter banter hell. ‘@Footyhumor’ unleashing a torrent of average banter jokes, perfectly targeted for pick-up by the guy at work who likes rugby but stays ‘relevant’ with loose knowledge of Liverpool United and their results.
‘Bloody hell mate, is it Bottle Job Gunners over there? Are you ok? Mate, do you need a tissue? You know, for your gooner tears. Oh god, AFTV was hilarious this morning. Literally could not stop loling.’
If this goes wrong, we’ll be dealing with the biggest onslaught of Tarquin banter you’ve ever encountered. We’ve just been too confident as fans this season. We’ve believed in the project a touch too aggressively. Arsenal have been so consistent this season; it’s led to an unbearable build-up of pressure from people who usually find our club rich pickings for slaggings. These folk are going to unload if it all goes wrong.
But… hold on a minute. Arsenal are still… good?
We don’t have injuries?
We have a fully fit squad?
We are still the best team in the Premier League?
Still the faves for Champions League?
Yes, to all of those things.
We’re having a blip. The blip isn’t even that bad. Arsenal are still capable of smacking up Spurs today.
I don’t want to waste time on predictions; I just want to let Arteta know that my love is conditional, and I will, in fact, love him if he just does me the favor of BATTERING Spurs today. We can talk about what comes next at the end of the season, because true love is on the condition of him winning the league.
That’s fair messaging, right?
Ok, that’s me done. Sign up to the LIVE show after so we can all have a serious chat about whatever happened. There is a very good price if you haven’t already joined. x