The Premier League… Nobody said it was easy…. – Crazy people from the suburbs

I already talked about it gnawing frustration I felt after Saturday night’s disappointing 0-0 draw against Forest. I know I’m not alone. Even Declan Rice was caught uttering expletives at the final whistle, which I think we can all understand because that’s how many of us felt at the time. City make a mistake, we can’t capitalize, then suddenly we realize Villa would take the score to just four points with a win against Everton on their own turf. This was a Villa team unbeaten at home since August, so I don’t think many Arsenal fans were expecting anything other than a home win, and suddenly we’re all back to metaphorically biting our nails after our second 0-0 draw in a row.

James and I talked about this yesterday on the Same Old Arsenal podcast. We were both a little depressed, a little frustrated, both feeling like we were seeing some worrying signs from an offensive standpoint. And I think we are right to have concerns, as many of us Arsenal fans have already expressed, on several different platforms – online and offline. We had three seasons of finishing second. We’ve been one of the best teams for a while, but the reasoning has always been that we’re still a young team, we’re still a little too emotional and the team maybe isn’t as deep, meaning we can’t handle an injury crisis. Yet this season, most of those…well, let’s call them for what they are…“excuses” have been erased. It’s no longer a “young” team. This is a “first”. Trossard, Norgaard, Kepa are all 31 years old. Raya is 30 years old. Merino is 29 years old. Big Gabi and Gabby Jesus are 28 years old. Bik Vik, Eze, Odegaard and Rice are all 27 years old. Zubimendi and Havertz are 26 years old. It’s a group of players who are all in a place where they’ve played enough football, they’re experienced enough, they need to win – just ask William Saliba after his post-match comments at Chelsea.

The emotional aspects have been erased and this season has been one of the most emotionally free from a playing point of view. Just look at how we win games. We generally move forward. We usually “stop” games by not allowing teams to attempt to score. We are all emotional in the stands, of course, but the games Arsenal play have largely eliminated the extreme moments. You can’t do that all the time, but the margins are managed very well by Arteta and his team, so as an ‘excuse’ on the pitch, the emotional side has been removed. Compare that to someone like Chelsea, who have a young team that gets red cards like they’re going out of style.

Injuries have been countered by adding depth to this team. Very deep. We didn’t have room for talented players like Nwaneri or Norgaard. These guys were left at home on Saturday.

So imagine my surprise to watch the second half of the Villa game and see Everton defeat a Villa team with injuries of their own, followed by a visibly perturbed Unai Emery absolutely losing his shit in the post-match interview by declaring that Villa aren’t even among the top five contenders. Maybe that got a little lost in translation (although he’s been in this country long enough, I think, that it’s less the case these days), but this claim from the Spaniard seems crazy to me when they’re third and tied on points with City. But this result, crazily, made our disappointing draw at Forest suddenly a point won. Hell, even fourth-placed Liverpool only took one point, meaning we’re still 14 points ahead of them!

I think it’s situations like this that, as Arsenal fans, are why we all get very nervous. Because if you look at this Premier League title race and you not As an Arsenal fan you see things opening up like we saw things opening up for Liverpool last season. I remember blogging about this several times; Liverpool were very lucky with injuries, they saw their rivals fall to injuries, then out of form, just when they made mistakes. In December 2024, they recorded consecutive draws against Newcastle and then Fulham. At the same time, Arsenal suffered back-to-back draws with Fulham and Everton. In January, Liverpool drew Man United and Forest in weeks 20 and 21. We beat Scum in one of those matches, but in the other? A 1-1 draw with Brighton. We gained ground, but only by two points, while losing on other points where Liverpool won.

I remember reading a few Liverpool fan forums at the time and seeing a few fan shows – they were the same ones last season. “There is still a long way to go” was also followed by “we have already seen mistakes”. They felt the same as us this season, but from a distance I think all of us Arsenal fans knew it was their season from January/February onwards. But when you’re in the situation we’re in, you’re not allowed to say those words, lest some sort of football gods-style lightning strike us. We saw an Arsenal team collapse in 2007/8 after Eduardo broke his leg. We saw Arsena; beat Leicester at home on January 14, 2016 to put them a few points ahead, only to lose our next two and also draw against the Scum to allow Leicester to overtake us. We were all there in 2022/3 where we led until we ran out of gas in March. We are all feeling these pains right now and it is intensifying this fear in all of us. What we all want is for Arsenal to beat Liverpool at home and score a goal, then go to a struggling Forest team and do the same thing again, which is what we’re all sitting here on a Monday morning thinking about how we could have an 11 point lead and really start to feel like we can start icing the champagne. But the quality of all the teams in this league – evidenced by the fact that Wolves, West Ham, Forest, Burnley and Leeds all picked up points – shows that you simply won’t get that. It is very rare that a Premier League season becomes a procession for a team. I think maybe in the 33 years that the Premier League has been there, there have probably been five or six times – maximum – that it has happened like that. And when this happened, it was around February/March, not January.

All this spiel probably makes it sound like I’m giving you sage advice, to “relax” a little, to be “calm” and to think “we got this.” But in reality, it’s a letter to myself, to remind me that we are in battle for the title. Nothing is won. Everything can be lost. But what you want in times like this is to be in our shoes.

We are seven points ahead. There is still work to be done. Let’s do it.

Back tomorrow to watch the match against Inter in the Champions League. I’ll catch you then.