This very much feels like the home straight now, doesn’t it? It’s as if we’ve been dodging and weaving, fence-jumping, avoiding other horses, have our noses in front, with a clear patch of grass and the finish line in sight.
But as Amanda and I reflected on yesterday in the [Same Old Arsenal pod yesterday evening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms7-zjeDc-A), all of us Arsenal fans know there is still work to do. Burnley may be down, they may be out of the league next season, but that doesn’t mean they are turning up to have their tummies tickled. There will be professional pride at stake for them, so I am convinced it won’t be a walkover. I _hope_ it will be, but Wolves away a few months back should have been, as should Wolves at home, and yet we left it late at home, and were desperately poor in the dying seconds away.
And even though the Callum Wilson goal never stood on Sunday, they did still get the ball over the line in the dying stages of a game. And that has been something that we’ve seen a bit of this season for this Arsenal team, unfortunately. I’ve mentioned the Wolves goal, but there was the 87th-minute Man United winner at home, Ollie Watkins’ consolation goal for Vill at the Emirates, the Buendia winner at Villa Park, Liverpool’s free kick was in the 83rd-minute, and Sunderland snatching a draw at the Stadium of Light. So we’ve had a few of these over the course of the season, and that is something to be mindful of, I do think. When you have games like the Villa one, you can hand-wave it, but too often this season, there has been a very tight margin for us. Which makes moments like those we had on Sunday, where all of our hearts were in our mouths.
Palace away will also be a weird one. You would hope they would rotate and let us just have the game, but it will be in the sun (hopefully), their last home game, plus Palace always give a good account of themselves, so I don’t see that as a walk in the park at all. That sort of performance is likely to come from the likes of Unai Emery and his Villa team. We saw them against the Scum; we’ve seen it when he was Arsenal manager. If there’s one thing you can rely on, it is that Unai will roll over for City. Especially as he hates Arsenal too.
So it isn’t done, there are still far too many nerves, we have two hurdles to overcome, and nobody should count any chickens.
Which is why I, and several people I was talking to yesterday on social media, are pretty cheesed off with that absolute pleb who brought along a shirt to the West Ham game with ‘Champions’ on the back. Of course, the Sky Sports cameras caught it, and of course, he got top billing. What an absolute idiot. There’s always one that has to tickle the chin and goad the football gods. Well, I tell you now, if he’s spotted around the Emirates after the season has finished and we haven’t won it, then he’s not getting a warm welcome by any stretch of the imagination. Think of the ridicule that we gave that tosser City fan who brought along the Arsenal water bottle to the Chelsea game, then how suddenly he got filmed the next day by Sky, as well as being pictured dancing in the concourses after they beat us. He’s an idiot, too. I wanted it to be us that had the last laugh, but now City fans have a poster-boy with whom to direct their ridicule. Just keep it locked down, you absolute tool. Bring your ‘Champions’ shirt out after everything is finished, not before.
I guess that is just the social media age now. This guy brought along that shirt purely so he could get filmed. It has nothing to do with anything other than wanting to be on camera. That is the age that we’re living in. No more Andy Warhol ’15-minutes of fame’ anymore. Now it’s five minutes, but unfortunately, it means you have more and more idiots who want to do things like that. You could have tempted fate too much for all of us, my friend.
Of course, the stress we’re all still feeling, even now, is because we know that we’re nearly there, but not quite. I was having a chat with The Management about it last night. She said to me, “It’s funny how you all become expert mathematicians at this time of the year!” as I tried to explain to her that if Palace get anything tomorrow, we could win the Premier League on Monday night. I don’t think any of us expect that to happen, but if we do our jobs against Burnley, then it means that even Bournemouth away is essentially a ‘must-win’ for City.
And I can tell you now, with absolute certainty, that I have no qualms about winning the Premier League without kicking a ball. I wonder if there is any Arsenal fan who feels that way? I think even those who might have preferred to say “I want the joy of living that moment in the ground” will probably, after the West Ham game on Sunday, be thinking “nah – can somebody just confirm us now please?”, such was the stress we all went through. Palace doing us a solid, and even getting a draw would be nice, but I can’t really see that happening. So I won’t be watching that. I’ll just have a flick on my phone as full-time ticks over to see if goal difference is also going to be a ‘thing’. We shall see.
Right, I’ll park any more thoughts for now. We have a nice free week ahead of us, so I’ll be back tomorrow with more musings as we start to look at to Burnley next Monday.
Catch you all then.