About six weeks ago you would be forgiven for thinking
Arsenal were invincible, going on a crazy winning run that few Gooners could
recall for a long time. However, now we’re into the final straight, it seems
either Arsenal are getting cocky (surely not), or we happen to do just about
enough to keep ourselves in pole position for third – and I’m not a fan of it.
After seven wins on the bounce, having Champions League
football looked a foregone conclusion, though thanks to the twist and turns of
the Premier League and Arsenal being typical Arsenal, it was no real surprise
that the race for third could go down to the wire. A defeat to QPR? Sure. Half expected,
to be honest. But another one? To Wigan? At home? Not acceptable. We sure didn’t
deserve it, but you can’t expect any favours at this point in the season, and
given the way we annihilated them last year (I was there), I think most of the
players already knew the result before kick-off – or so they thought.
And then, after spending possibly the worst £66 on an
Arsenal game ever, in the extremely frustrating bore fest that was the derby vs.
Chelsea (it looked a lot more interesting on TV), I was thinking we are a long
way from looking at our best, and although we were much improved against Stoke –
even in defence! – we are still quite unconvincing nonetheless, and a repeat
performance in the final two games will not do – someone will be ready to
pounce.
That said, we don’t have a terrible run-in, but neither does
anyone else. Newcastle may argue they have a tricky finish but they have hardly
any right to be where they are today. And especially with Chelsea’s admittedly
brilliant heroics in Barca making everything annoyingly complicated, we cannot
settle for fourth. Any Gooner that remembers the sudden collapses in recent
years will not want another one, that’s for sure.
I wish I could be more upbeat but I can’t. Either I’m just a
pessimist or I’m scared with good reason. We may be favourites for third and I
reckon we’ll get it, but we all know this could be so much less stressful than
it is at the moment. We can’t muck it up now…
Come On You Reds!
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