Morning all and an early kick off for us today in which I shall be watching the Arsenal match, the Irish Cup Final then the FA Cup Final, so, footballing Gods, Arsenal win, Linfield win, meteor. Thanks.

I really don’t know what to say in this blog.  We know what we have to do. Win. There is no room for error and the alternatives really don’t bear thinking about.  We have chance to maybe force a stumble from Newcastle and Sp*rs by applying pressure with a win while dropping points will only serve to give them a boost.  It is a horrible situation to be in but it could be worse, at least it is in our own hands, and despite the nerves which are very real  in my world today you have to ask yourself if a team, when the chips are actually down and they need to win, not against a Barcelona or Real Madrid, but a Norwich and a West Brom, should struggle and fail to do that, do they deserve to be in the Champions League?

I know football doesn’t work like that, that sometimes you get what you don’t deserve, take Chelsea in the Champions League Final for instance who were lucky in just about every game they played in this season’s competition, and I don’t mean ‘make you own kinda luck’ – I mean actual, OMG how the hell did the other team do that luck.

Anyway. Norwich. It should be three points and I can think of no circumstances should we fail to get them that I won’t join the rest of the Arsenal world in going completely mental.  Team news and we are pretty much ‘as you were’ for last week’s game to Stoke apart from Park who will replace Diaby on the bench who of course picked up that calf injury last week.

Today, of course, is the last home game of the season, but more than that, it will be Pat Rice’s last game at the Emirates.  I’m saving my tribute to him until the end of the season, he still has work to do, both at home and away.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am usually incredibly optimistic, annoyingly so at times, so today’s blog might seem to contrast that usually disposition but I do always tend to be realistic, even when looking on the bright side.  I don’t doubt that we are capable of getting the points today, I know we are more than capable of issuing a true spanking to Norwich, but having watched this team over the past few seasons beat Barcelona and then lose to Blackburn, I’ve become only too aware of the self-destruct button we like to push every so often just for giggles.

It has scarred me.

I’m pretty sure we’ll win today but we need everyone at 100% – players and crowd alike.  We’ve been through a hell of a lot this season together, and that’s where we need to stand to make this final push over the line – together.