“ …Arsenal will end the campaign looking up at our neighbours. There, I’ve said it. I don’t like it, I know there’s still ten games left and we could rescue this situation, but I won’t be holding my breath. Not with this Arsenal team.”

In the aftermath of a 2-1 defeat to Spurs in March that felt as terminal as it was painful, I wrote the words above. I haven’t written much since then, for reasons motivated by both work circumstances and, um, motivation. But I have been genuinely delighted by the progress the Arsenal team have made since that defeat. Pleased to the point that, whilst you could be curmudgeonly about it and say that a team that was awful in large parts of the opening 6 months of the season didn’t really deserve Champions League football, it would be hard to begrudge this team that put together an imposing sequence of 8 wins and 2 draws from their last ten games. As those of you who follow me on Twitter will know, I’m a big snooker fan. When a snooker player’s back is against the wall, the BBC commentators are fond of talking about the need for “no miss snooker”. Arsenal’s last ten matches were almost the very definition of that phrase, except we weren’t playing snooker. Obviously. In different circumstances, that set of results would have resulted in a strong title challenge. I think the key to this run lies in that last sentence quoted above.

Because the Arsenal team that won at Newcastle yesterday afternoon to complete their phoenix from the flames style transformation and pip Spurs for 4th place is a very different beast to the one that lost at White Hart Lane. In the aftermath of that defeat, the mistaken for strangers style defending of Vermaelen and Mertesacker was binned, Szczesny was consigned to the sidelines to think about what being the Arsenal #1 really meant. With Koscielny restored to the first team alongside the BFG and Lukasz Fabianski brought in in goal, we promptly went off to Bayern Munich and beat them 2-0, when all around us were predicting disaster. Ok, it wasn’t enough to sent us through to the next round of the Champions League. However, that result, against a team that went onto pulverise Barcelona- even as critics sneered that Bayern weren’t really trying-  seemed to galvanise us.

We were about to become a different team, a team that would indeed “rescue the situation”.

And so, to yesterday afternoon. The equation was really very simple, an Arsenal win would deny Spurs whatever they or, more accurately, Gareth Bale could come up with. But if Arsenal failed to win and Spurs won, then the curtain would go down on 16 years of consecutive Champions League qualification and, in all likelihood, a a raging storm of discontent would rain down upon Arsène Wenger and the Arsenal board.

It would be difficult, and unfair I think, to say that Arsenal played as if they did not know what was at stake. I think they were only too aware of it and, to a certain degree it restricted them. There were few chances in the first half, the best one probably falling to Papisse Cisse who lashed the ball just over from a cut back from the left. At the other end of the pitch, Cazorla smashed one well over and Podolski somehow managed to hit the emotional Steve Harper when put through. He had been, incorrectly, flagged offside anyway.

Having been passed fit to play, Mikel Arteta had departed the field by then. Arsène clearly didn’t trust Jack Wilshere’s ankle to take an hour of Cheik Tiote’s tackles and dispatched the Ox from the bench. I thought he added a bit of spark to us, though that didn’t take much.

So, nil nil in both Newcastle and Middlesex at half time, as things stood it was all good. It didn’t take long to get better though.

Having made a hash of a clearance, Steve Harper redeemed himself with a good save from Theo Walcott. He was, however, powerless to prevent Arsenal scoring from a free kick needlessly conceded by Yohan Cabaye. Walcott curled the ball in, Mertesacker nodded it on and the one man wrecking crew, Laurent Koscielny, spun and hooked a volley home off Harper’s face. A similar combination had done for Fulham a month ago. If Arsenal could hold on now, as they had then, it was all going to end happily.

Taking all the emotion and tension out of the game, I don’t  think Arsenal were ever in serious trouble after that, which isn’t to say the game made for easy viewing. We had the bonus of watching the Spurs fans celebrate a non existent Newcastle equaliser, the cretins.

Although I was laughing on the other side of my face when Gareth Bale scored his 4th winning goal in the last 5 minutes of a match since March (one man team? Naahhh!) just as the Spurs game headed for injury time. That goal turned what had been something of a procession into a more nervous watch. One goal for Newcastle would have changed everything. As it turned out, the only addition to the scoreline should have come just moments after the Bale goal when another protege of Southampton danced through the Newcastle defence. With the goal at his mercy though,Theo’s finish was slightly awry and rebounded off the post.

A season changer in the last minute? Nope. The game ended after Giroud had forced a corner and Arsenal ran the clock down in the corner. Just like the majority of the games in this ten game run in, it had rarely been pretty, but boy, was it effective. I liked Theo’s line at the end about “clean sheets win you games”. It seems the penny may just have dropped, because Theo is the last person I would have expected to come out with that. To see the players celebrate on the pitch as they did may have been excessive for some. But this has been a season as divisive, and as horrible as we’ve had for some time. I still remember the vitriol aimed at team and manager after the Swansea game, the humiliation of our cup exists at the hands of Blackburn and Bradford. For me, the celebrations that took place at the final whistle were about this team riding a storm, bonding together and, ultimately giving something back to the fans, a healing moment. Something less than we all hoped for at the start of the season, for sure, but definitely something more than we all expected at the beginning of March.

The key is, now, for Arsenal to build on the momentum, and goodwill, they have generated over the last couple of months. If there are players out there who can strengthen the team, and- let’s face it- there are, then let’s go out and get them early and get them bedded in. With no summer tournament this year, we can really look to hit the ground running. On the other hand, the three clubs that finished above us will all have changed their manager by the time hostilities resume in August and there’s bound to be a settling in period for all of them. I really don’t want to be sitting here on August 31st as Arsenal attempt to force a last minute deal for someone they could, and should, have added to the squad in time for the start of the new season.

Time to start acting like a big club, I think.

Afternoon all.

How’s it hanging? Since we last spoke, Chelsea drew the one game we probably didn’t want them to draw- against Spurs- and then followed that up with a late winner against Aston Villa. A day later Spurs didn’t leave it quite so late, but late enough to be irritating. All of which meant that Arsenal went into their final home game of the season with a fair bit of pressure on. Simply put, Arsenal could not afford to drop any points or they would go into the final day of the season two points behind Spurs, a Spurs team ocupying the final Champions League qualification spot.

Luckily for Arsenal, as you know, that home game was against Wigan. And a Wigan side who were probably still processing the fact that, just three days earlier, they had shocked the outgoing league champions with a last minute FA Cup winner.* I had a bad feeling about this game, though in truth it was no different to the bad feeling I’d had about QPR, or Fulham or any of the games we’ve come through lately. But, even with last season’s 2-1 loss at home to the Latics fresh in the memory, it’s hard to argue that a team losing at home to Wigan in a game they need to win would deserve to take their place in next season’s battle of the European elite. And Chelsea.

Luckily for us, except for a sticky patch in the quarter hour either side of half time, Wigan never seriously threatened to beat us. Well, okay, that Szczesny save from Kone at 1-1 may come to prove a key moment in our league campaign. But to have gone 2-1 down at that point would, in my view, have been harsh. Once Walcott had finished off a brilliant Cazorla cross and Podolski had lobbed home to add to his first half header, the game was up for Wigan. Aaron Ramsey (a symbol of our Spring revival) cracked home a lovely finish, his first league goal of the season, to confirm a 4-1 home win and Wigan’s relegation.

A word for Wigan, in the unenviable position- yes, even to us trophyless Arsenal fans- of being the first team to win the FA Cup and be relegated in the same season. I think it’s a real shame that a team who try to play football the right way have gone down, but they weren’t in the bottom three by accident. And, as Arsenal may find out this weekend (please, God, no), if you flirt with disaster long enough you’ll eventually find yourself in the Towering Inferno. I was incredulous listening to Niall Quinn talk about a team that had been “brilliant all season”, a team that “never knew when they were beaten”. If you didn’t know better, you could have sworn he was describing league champions. Until he went a bit drooly about Wigan stringing 4 passes together at one stage.

So, it’s all on this weekend, then. Arsenal could still finish third, although I feel a more likely scenario is probably 4th. I can’t see Chelsea, who have negotiated their mammoth fixture list admirably, slipping up now- not even against Everton. I am not, I must confess 100% confident about our chances in Newcastle. Yes, I know they’re crap, but a look at our recent history up there tells us that whilst we rarely come away beaten, we haven’t often won there either. And, of course, we had the infamous second half meltdown, which we don’t need to talk about, there. And yet, I feel Sunderland, under Paolo Di Canio, may just do us a favour against a Spurs side who will surely be feeling the pressure on Sunday- remember we only need them to get a point.

Desperate thinking, perhaps. I am certainly not saying that I don’t think this Arsenal team is capable, because a team that can win away in Munich and take 20 out of 24 Premier League points are clearly no duffers. But it would be foolish to pretend that we aren’t under pressure ourselves. The bottom line for me is this, this Arsenal team have shown now that they can dig in, that they can score goals- Theo Walcott a clear demonstration of both qualities on Tuesday night. If Arsenal turn up and apply themselves 100%, I believe that we will get the result we need; we even showed we could render Mike Dean an irrelevance on Tuesday… it could be that the wide open spaces of the Mike Ashley Stadium that are entirely to the liking of Walcott (they usually are) and Cazorla. With Olivier Giroud available at centre forward again and Jack Wilshere likely to deputise for our injured vice captain, we’re as close to full strength as we could possibly expect to be at this time of the season. There should be no excuses on Sunday evening.

In many ways, I think it would be a shame for this Arsenal side, unrecognisable from 4 or 5 months ago to miss out on Champions League football. If we do, though, we will know that we only have ourselves to blame. Let’s avoid the blame game. I have no idea what’s going to happen on Sunday, but I know this: it’s in our hands, let’s keep it that way.

*Talking about the FA Cup Final, please, please, please can we have it back where it should be- 3pm as the finale to the domestic season? Ok, thanks.

Well, who saw that coming, then?

Massive, massive news this morning. Although it has yet to be officially confirmed by Arsenal, the Mirror’s story that Arsenal have agreed a £170m, 5 year kit deal with Puma is being talked about so openly, it’s difficult to think of it as anything other than a done deal. It is also a deal, as of today, that stands as the biggest kit deal in English football. Which is some acheivement for Arsenal’s commercial team, bearing in mind the almost farcical levels of ineptitude that the season has, at times, descended into.

Oh, wait… you didn’t really think I was going to begin this blog talking about Sir Alex Ferguson’s decision to retire at the end of the season, did you? I don’t want to spend too much time on it as, you know, he is the Manchester United manager- at least for a little while longer. However, even as someone who has always been an Arsenal fan first and a football fan second (except for a dark period in the mid 80′s when I was too young to know any better), I can appreciate the massive impact Alex Ferguson has had on the game. In particular, the way that once Arsenal had put a dent in Liverpool’s dominance of the national game, United quickly ended it once for and for all. I am full of admiration for the way in which he has been able to reinvent his teams time and again and do so succesfully. Of course, the fact that he has had lorries full of cash has helped, but hey, money isn’t everything.

I will miss his penetrating stare. A stare so hard that he once made Fabien Barthez give himself a wedgie after the goalkeeper had just gifted Thierry Henry two late goals to seal a 3-1 win at Highbury in 2001, using only the power of telekinesis. That’s pretty impressive, you have to agree.

It seems that owner of another penetrating stare may be on his way from the blue half of Merseyside to take over the reigns.

Anyway, that’s enough about that. If the kit deal and the retirement of the longest serving manager in English football isn’t enough for you, then how about a game tonight that may go some way to shaping Arsenal’s immediate future? A game that we’re not even playing in. Tonight Chelsea take on Spurs and, unless you want Arsenal not to qualify for the Champions League because you’re stupid enough to think that it would be in the club’s best interests to spend Thursday nights schlepping around European towns nobody’s ever heard of, then you’re praying for a Chelsea win. Or maybe a draw. Or you’re not optimistic enough to think that a meteor strike may descend on SW6 sometime around 9pm this evening.

Ok, that isn’t likely, but if Spurs manage to pull off their first league win at Stamford Bridge since 1990, the consequences for Arsenal could be as cataclysmic as if our ground had been hit by a meteor. This is the game were’re counting on to keep ourselves just had ahead of Spurs with two games left*. But if the events of Sunday afternoon prove anything to us, it’s that you can’t rely on anything. I mean who would have thought Rafa Benitez could guide Chelsea to a win at the home of the champions? Has Fergie decided to resign out of shame at losing to the bearded one. On top of a late winner for Spurs against Southampton, it was a weekend of deflating results for the family of Gooners gathered in the New Forest.

*Incidentally- as someone who is a confessed Arsenal fan first, football fan second, I can tell you I won’t be wasting any nervous energy by watching the derby of the London wrong ‘uns.

Well, apart from that win against QPR that is. I’m not sure what it is about the team from west London, but for a team that just about stayed up last season and have gone down in abject fashion this time around, but we have made heavy weather of our fixtures against them over the last two seasons. As someone whose sister once held a season ticket at Loftus Road, this is a source of deep personal aggravation to me, but at least we got the win (more than I thought we’d get). Courtesy of a very nice goal from Theo Walcott. After a couple of months off, I’m glad Theo has decided to join us again. Looks like it might be in the nick of time.

I may live to regret these words, but assuming Chelsea do the business tonight, if we can’t get maximum points from a Wigan team as good as down and a Newcastle team in disarray, then I’m not sure this Arsenal team deserves to be in the Champions League next season. I don’t know how that might affect any transfer deals, but (even as I become increasingly apathetic towards a competition Arsenal never seem capable of, you know, competing in) I’m assuming it won’t help. This, then, is a crucial period for Arsenal. How bizarre that we don’t play until this time next week.