Happy Friday folks. Hope you’re doing well. At the time of writing Arteta is due to have his press conference in about an hour, so I think I’ll pour over what he says tomorrow, whilst today have a little look at what we’ll be up against tomorrow evening when we play Wolves. The big question for us will be how fatigued the team is after expending a lot of energy on Wednesday and, if we’re honest, looking a little knackered out in Germany. I’ve seen a couple of bits online about Liverpool last night and apparently they too looked like they were showing signs of fatigue, which is understandable g ..read more

And so the Champions League run for The Arsenal comes to an end. Not with a bang, but sadly with a bit of a whimper, as Bayern saw out a tense affair in Munich by beating us 1-0 with that second half headed goal by Kimmich. It was a momentary lapse of concentration from our defenders and ultimately it was that which cost us our place in this competition, as we never really laid a glove on Bayern in the second half and that is a real shame. I’m obviously down this morning, I wanted us to progress to the semi final and especially now that I know we’d have played Real Madrid and not Man City give ..read more

It’s the big one today and potentially a season-defining one, although I really wish that it wasn’t, because I do worry what might happen if we go out tonight. That’s a very real possibility, because: We do not have an amazing pedigree in Europe. We have a pretty pants record against Bayern. We’ve just come off a disappointing defeat at the weekend – what psychological damage has been done? We looked fatigued at the weekend – is that going to have a knock-on effect on us today? Suddenly we’ve started conceding some sloppy goals. Apologies, if you read my ramblings yesterday then you’ll be aw ..read more

I know it’s a bit of a provocative title, but sometimes needs must, boys and girls, because it just feels like where I’m at right now. It’s now two days since we lost to Villa and that sobering and numbing feeling from that defeat is still gnawing away me. This wasn’t where we were supposed to slip up, if we were going to slip up; it was going to be one of those tough away games like Brighton, or the Scum, or at United. But instead we put in the kind of performance against Brighton a couple of weekends back, that had me believing “this Arsenal team are really good. Playing like that at an away ..read more

Morning folks and happy match day to you and yours. Let’s hope it’s an enjoyable one for all Gooners all over the world. But this match is far from a foregone conclusion. Aston Villa represent a very tough opponent and I have to say, whilst for the last couple of days I’vevbeen feeling good about this game, today I have a distinct feeling of nervousness against a former Arsenal manager who has a recent history of getting good results against us. Villa were one of four teams who have beaten us this season and their win at Villa Park wasn’t the first time Emery has got the better of us. As Villa ..read more

Happy Saturday and welcome to the weekend folks. Hope life is treating you all well. We had Arteta’s presser yesterday and he seemed pretty fine and his usual self when talking about the team and player availability for Sunday, which is good. Gabriel apparent missed training since the Bayern game but Arteta didn’t seem to worried about it because he just said his usual “we’ve got one more day to prepare so let’s see” approach. We’re all used to it by now, but by now you can usually pick up on the nuances of player availability from the manager; if he’s sounding quite relaxed about it then usua ..read more

Morning Gooners – happy Friday and all that jazz. Hopefully you’re looking forward to the weekend and the Arsenal on Sunday? I do hate Sunday games in general. Saturday’s have always been the best time to play football and Sunday just feels like a long wait, feels like you have to hang around a bit, then you end up building more anticipation and worry because inevitably the teams around you have played before and already picked up their three pointers. But it is what it is and it’s important that we go up against Villa and get the three points on Sunday to keep ourselves in the running and at ..read more

Happy Thursday folks. Hope you’re all recovered from the emosh of Tuesday night’s Champions League encounter? One thing that I didn’t touch on yesterday when I was still pretty raging, was how the tie is so finely balanced, so I thought I’d jot down some initial thoughts on that now. I do think the impact of scrapping the away goals rule has had a significant impact on the quality of the actual football matches that are played in these big game cup knockout ties. I grew up in the 90s with the European games where they used to even automatically add on the away goal when you’d watch the Eu ..read more

I’ve calmed down a little bit from my initial rage at the final whistle last night. Calmed down, but still not completely calm, because that last moment of the game should have, I think, been a penalty on Bukayo Saka. Let me show my workings here on how I get this conclusion: Neuer makes clear contact with Saka and doesn’t get to the ball first. Probably the easiest one that can’t really be disputed. I’ve seen debates that Saka kicks in to Neuer, but he sticks his leg out, Saka has him beaten, I think it impacts his run as he’s travelling at pace and for me it seems pretty clear cut. There is ..read more

Here we are boys and girls. The big one tonight. It’s Bayern Munich at the Emirates and as soon as the draw was made a few weeks back, we all collectively took an intake of breath as Arsenal fans, because we all know the history of playing them in this competition. It ain’t great. 12 games, three wins, two draws and seven defeats. And in the last three games it’s been three ‘Ls’ and an aggregate score of 15 – 3 to the Germans. This is a German side who are serial winners and who have won their domestic league for the last 11 times. This season is seen as an absolute disaster for them because t ..read more