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Some teams get all the luck…

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo Happy Friday folks – hope you’re all good?

It’s my last working day today and also my last in the UK for the next three weeks, as I jet off to South Africa for the holidays, so it was fun to learn that the Scum almost blew a three-goal lead in the League Cup last night. Ol’ Mate-Mate was smiling in the end, but that team is batsh*t mental and it reminded me of that Sebastian Squillaci quote from about nine years ago:

It was very open, and often we found ourselves defending in the middle one on one with the opposition attackers. It was never easy.

Oh to be a defender in the peak Banter-era Wenger sides. Must have felt like that Jon Snow Meme:

Anyway, hopefully they learn nothing, they’ll most likely get smashed by Liverpool, so if we progress against Newcastle it’ll be us against the Scousers on neutral territory and that should be interesting. Of course we’ll have to go back to St James’ Park for the second leg, having played them at the beginning of the first leg and although we all knew whoever we played would be a tough opponent, the way the domestic cup chips have fallen has hardly made it easier for us.

The Scum also have basically a completely makeshift backline, which I only bring up because guess who they are playing this weekend? Yep, Liverpool. So Liverpool have played us with a completely decimated defence away, as well as now them down the road with the same. They played a Southampton side without a manager in the League Cup during the week, which meant they got to do a lot of rotation, whilst they play Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup after the League Cup, which will mean they can fully pull out all of their big guns and rest them for a weekend, whilst we get Man United at home, which means Arteta is less likely to be able to do that.

I reflected on how everything seems to be going Liverpool’s way – fixtures, lack of key injuries for a prolonged time, playing opponents with injury problems – whilst for us it is the opposite (we played Everton with them having had 10 days off, as an example). Arteta has been good and hasn’t moaned, but I’m a fan, so I get to do that on his behalf. It’s a little navel-gazing-y I know, it’s also a little too melancholy I admit, but I can’t help it. On the Same Old Arsenal pod we get constantly asked who is going to win the league and I am always a glass half empty guy, but this season it just doesn’t feel like it’s going our way. The silly suspensions, the constant injuries (admit it, you’re looking at the fact Rice didn’t make the squad in midweek and worried, right?), playing teams at the wrong time (I know everyone has to play everyone, but sometimes there are good times to play teams and bad times, right?), all seems to have added together to be working against us. Last season it was the opposite; we played a few teams when they were decimated by injuries (I feel like we played Wolves in a crisis on one game, as well as Liverpool without Salah) and we profited, but it’s almost like we’re having some kind of Footballing Gods punishment for some small slices of fortune last season.

I know, I know, it doesn’t work like that Chris. But maybe it does. Maybe, to win a title, you need to be good, have the right conditions, but also get your slice of luck. City previously mitigated it by essentially having 22 – 25 players who were all £40million+ players they built up over a number of years, but even their chickens are now coming back to roost. In the last time we won the league in 2004, we had a stable of players who basically stayed fit for the whole season; sure, we had injuries, but we also had core players who stayed fit. We were a superb team, but we also had things going for us, like the game at Old Trafford where van Nistlerooy hits the bar for the penalty. He leans over the ball a little more and keeps it down and we don’t go unbeaten and who knows, maybe we don’t go on to win the league.

Football can so often feel like a bit of Sliding Doors moments and this season it feels like every door is opening for the Scousers, but for us we’re walking in to them.

Then you realise that we still have two-thirds of the season left and that nothing is decided right now. There is still hope; the season could turn on its head and much like how we looked to have fallen out of any reckoning after the home FA Cup defeat to Liverpool in January of this year, suddenly things turned on its head and we went on that brilliant run post-Dubai. The games that preceded that trip were ones in which we battered opponents but looked profligate in front of goal. We got one spark – Crystal Palace at home in January as I mentioned previously this past week – and suddenly it all turns itself around. Maybe, in the most unexpected of twists, the spark from Wednesday night and Gabriel Jesus’ hat-trick, can be what we need to go on a goalscoring rampage? I certainly hope so.

There’s that privilege of the archetypal football fan – that word ‘hope’ again.

Maybe we can hope that Gabriel Jesus can go on a bit of a streak of scoring now? It’s not completely inconceivable. I feel like he’s always been a bit of a streaky player; his goals in his career have tended to come in spurts. His last season at City he scored seven in the space of about four games towards the end of the season and I think the season before he had a couple of spells of that. With us needing a ‘spark’ as I’ve bleated on about a few times in the last couple of weeks, and yet the January transfer window still two weeks and three games away (I’m counting 1st January as we’re not signing somebody the second it opens), we do need something to come from somewhere left of field. Perhaps Jesus can be our Christmas saviour (sorry-not-sorry)?

We have to hope so. But it will also be interesting to see what Arteta says in his press conference today and whether we get any hints as to whether Jesus is going to get another start on Saturday. He’s certainly put himself in a good position to do that.

Back tomorrow with some pre-Palace, post-presser, thoughts.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.