In the last few seasons we have all had to sit idly by and watch as this Arsenal team did its utmost to throw away whatever it had come close to achieving in the previous months of the season.  This year we seem to have tried to reverse that approach and, as I write this now, we sit in third place and are very much the form team in the league enjoying a seven game winning streak while almost all around us stutter and stall.  Fans of other clubs insist that the collapse is coming, hell, even some of our fans think it is as well, but this year feels different.  It is as if something finally snapped, and even the home support, parts of which can be tetchy at the best of times, is getting behind the team and doing all it can to drive it over the finish line.

It’s good then to hear that the players also know that the job is not done, for this is a team who often believed that a game was won before a ball had even been kicked. I don’t need to remind you of the games where we turned up just to simply not turn up. You all carry the scars just like Liverpool fans do after their defeats to QPR and Wigan. We laughed so hard at those because, well, it was really fucking funny, but also, a part of us knew what that feels like and we remember how hard they all laughed at us.

Speaking of our run and drive for a guaranteed Champions League place, Arteta said “We can’t take our foot off the pedal now. We have won seven in a row now, which is very difficult in the Premier League nowadays, and we have done it well, playing some high-tempo football, but there are some tough, tough games coming up in our last eight matches.”

He went on to add “When you are winning, life is good and you can see that the fans are enjoying it at the moment. They deserve it as well because they were behind us when things weren’t going right. Hopefully we can finish the season strongly because we have a group of players and staff who really mean business.”

I’m glad that he can see that most of the fans were behind the team when it was an absolute shambles, despite some  of the press insisting on picking out the vocal minority and touting them as how Arsenal fans feel, but, more importantly than that, to hear that the players know the job is far from done is heartening, not that we should really expect them to say anything else really.

QPR, City, Wolves, Wigan, Chelsea, Stoke, Norwich and West Brom all stand between us and third place and any one of those teams is capable of taking points from us should we enter the match with our eye on anything other than giving 100%.

One thing is for sure, the run-in is gonna be exciting, just whether that’s the good type of exciting or the ‘oh fuck oh fuck oh fuch’ type of exciting is entirely in our own hands.

In injury news reports about Koscielny’s injury are encouraging with many  places reporting he’ll be available for our trip to QPR  Lee Dixon said on Match of the Day that Jack was around three weeks away from returning but at this point there is no real point in expecting anything from him, let him get fit, go to the Euro’s, get fucked up again, and then see where we stand when next season starts.

Coquelin was reported as being ‘back in a few weeks’ on 20 March, Diaby has no return date despite playing just over an hour for the reserves against Liverpool, while Per’s season has been written off by Wenger, with the manager saying on 15^th March “I believe Per will be out for the rest of the season. Basically there are only six weeks to go [this season] so I don’t think he’ll be sharp enough to come back and play. He would need to train and get back to full fitness.”

Gareth Bale, the overhyped grass monkey, has apparently ‘warned’ us that they are coming for us and the Champions League spot but I’m gonna file that with all the other shit that comes from Sp*rs players mouths, including all their players who said that we wouldn’t catch them and this year they would ‘definitely’ be finishing above us.  North London is Red Gareth, North London is Red.

That’s your lot for today. More tomorrow.

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