Four months since my last post, when I wailed about how stressful it all was after our 0-0 draw at Forest.
Here I am again, stressed, wailing.
Two weeks to go. Not to freak you out too much, but here come two of the most consequential weeks in our modern history.
We need to slay some dragons. The 22-year champion gap, the thrice second narrative, the serial European underachiever tag.
Win both and it would be one of the finest seasons ever. Up there with Chapman, Mee, Graham, Wenger.
Win one – let’s not be greedy here – and we’d be dancing the light fantastic. Some kind of transcendent state would beckon.
Fall short in both? While we can be rightly proud of how competitive we are at the very highest level, it would be brutal. Gut-punching. So the next two weeks are fork-in-the-road stuff.
The last few months have felt like years. Obviously, it hasn’t helped that Man City are pushing us all the way, probably to the very final game. It could be the tightest end of the season for us since 1989. In 1998 we won with two games to spare, in 2002 it was three and in 2004 it was two. Breathing room.
I find it hard to place the 2024 season in all this. It went to the last day, mathematically, but it never really felt like it did, even though we got 89 points. Having lost at home to Villa, the momentum changed. City’s machine clicked into gear and there was a whiff of slipstream about the whole thing.
Has our machine clicked into gear? It’s the season-long question. Since losing to City on 19 April, it’s four wins and a draw. Some jitters aside, we’ve looked more dynamic, more secure.
Two wins and it’s ours. Two wins that feel simultaneously achievable and like massive pressure-cooker banana skins. Three wins and – well, one step at a time.
It’s all consuming, it’s constant. It’s intense. I might need to go on a meditation retreat. Or take tranquilisers.
But steel myself I must. Tonight it’s the Arsecast / Arsenal Vision live, which I fully expect to be a collective therapy session. If the mystery guest is not a psychiatrist, I’ll be staggered. There will be Rescue Remedy on each pew.
Then onto Monday, for the first of the three whoppers.
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