With our game not until Monday, it feels like this weekend might be a bit of a long one, from a footballing perspective.
Firstly, we’ll have to watch City win their second trophy of the season, when they batter an absolutely turgid Chelsea side at Wembley today. Well, I say “we’ll have to watch”, but I’ll be doing nothing of the sort. I know it is the FA Cup, I know it is a footballing institution, but watching two financially-doped clubs with charges of cheating (one proven and shown farcial leniency, the other still dragging out the punishment for their crimes in the courts) duke it out, is not something I want to even remotely be part of. I’m going round my brother’s later, so he might put it on, but I might see if I can play with the kids or something.
The best we can hope for later is that Chelsea forget they are a basket case of a player trading platform and take City to extra time. Yep, let’s have all the minutes possible in those City players’ legs, before they travel to Bournemouth on Tuesday, who will have had 10 days off to prepare and rest for their game against City on Tuesday. Pep might bleat about it, the media might even show some kind of sympathy, but that pales into insignificance compared to the 22 days they had to prepare for when they visited the Emirates. I just hope their potential prize, which is probably predicated on Villa now winning the Europa League next week, is not lost on them, and they are supercharged for their midweek game at home. That final potential Champions League slot is still finely balanced, with Brighton just two points behind Bournemouth in seventh. Brighton play Leeds away tomorrow, and we sort of need Brighton to win that one, because if they do, it means they go ahead of Bournemouth, and it really does mean that the Cherries need to pick up something at home to City to get that Champions League spot.
I know, I know, lots of permeations there, enough to give you a headache on a Saturday morning. But motivation in football is everything. We saw how Palace went through the motions against City in midweek (I have no doubt that won’t be the same for us, but we’ll see), and at this stage of the season, certain clubs just don’t put their full into matches. We’ve seen it over the years with Arsenal, particularly in those years where we’d qualified for the top four with a game or two to spare, and we just didn’t care that much about the result. So I hope that Brighton get a Leeds team just happy to be safe, and they turn up to turn the pressure on Bournemouth and force them to go out there and get something against City on Tuesday. Play as your lives depend on it.
All of this talk about other clubs and not The Arsenal is, if we’re honest here, because there’s not really a lot going on. The club released the new kit, but we won’t see that on display on Monday night, I don’t think. It certainly won’t be on display away at Palace, as we’ll not play in red and white but probably the white kit (which I’ve seen far too much of this season, for my liking), but the fact I’ve even spent two sentences talking about kit colours shows that there really ain’t a lot to talk about.
Normally, I’d talk about how Burnley play and their set-up, [but as I mentioned a couple of days ago](https://www.suburbangooners.com/2026/05/14/the-strange-waiting-game-before-burnley/), it doesn’t really feel like you can tell what type of Burnley are showing up, given the context of relegation and an interim manager. Chris Sutton did his prediction at 3-0, and he had Man City fans from a band on there too, one of which did a silly 3-0 prediction with a Kyle Walker hat trick, another one said he wanted to manifest a 1-0 Burnley, whilst the other said a 3-0 Arsenal. Merse thinks it’ll be a 3-0, Shearer goes with an Arsenal win, whilst Lewis Jones goes 4-0 on Sky Sports. That last one is an interesting one, because he’s normally balanced, he looks at the numbers and the betting markets, and sometimes he’s predicted shocks. I think he predicted that Bournemouth would surprise Arsenal and get something at the Emirates, so I do tend to pay attention to what he says and the way he thinks the wind is blowing on these things.
Having looked at the Burnley fans forums out there, there is plenty of gallows humour going on, which I totally get, because you know your fate and this is just one of two last outings you have before you start thinking about the Championship next season. For them and their travelling fans (for which I think there is less, as Burnley gave back tickets to Arsenal to sell – which is a good gesture I think given the circumstances and the fact it is a night game on a Monday) it will be more a case of hoping for a cupset-style situation I think, but that doesn’t mean Arteta or his players can be complacent. We all know Bournemouth are a better side than Burnley, but they showed that anyone can come to The Emirates and stun us. The focus and concentration will have to be tip-top on Monday night from those Arsenal players in red and white.
I think it will be. If you can’t be up for an evening game, when you have the title in your hands, then you shouldn’t be the one’s to call yourselves champions. We’ve had a week to prepare, to analyse the opposition, to rest up and be ready for the challenge. The atmosphere will be raucous, so all of the raw materials are there for those Arsenal players to put on a show. They just have to go out there and do it.
Back tomorrow with some more thoughts. Have a good’un.