Wishing, and hoping, and praying…

In what my dad affectionately calls the perineum of the year an anxious counting of dropped points from unblemished starts which began the season has now been replaced by adding up snow-delayed games-in-hand. It can only mean, as most of you will have noticed, that we’re half way through. So with another testing night ahead this evening, what have we seen so far?

Well, we’ve redemonstrated a professionalism against smaller teams away from home, dropping impressively few points there (Sunderland draw is the only one that springs to mind). These have generally been matches won in scrappy circumstances through a bloody-mindedness learned last season in those last minute defeats of Wolves and Hull et al. Such doggedness is s a welcome string to our bow even if the obvious counterpoint is that we’re often only in the position of needing to scrape such wins because of the same old inadequacies. Tellingly though, there’ve been few if any overwhleming wins in the league. Games where we were really just too much to contain. (City perhaps, though the old red card helped there). It’s evocative of a below par season on the whole. Make no mistake whoever wins the league this year can only claim to have been significantly the best for the second half of the season at most because this first period has been the footballing equivalent of a hung parliament.

Arsenal have fluffed their lines on the few big ocassions they had to claim a stranglehold on things – most obviously two weeks ago at Old Trafford – and failed to make their away form count for something by displaying  a bamboozling self-destructive streak at home. Newcastle, West Brom and Tottenham have all beaten us at the Emirates in seriously disappointing fashion and we’ve lost away to the usual suspects. 3rd place behind City sits uneasily in the gut for all sorts of reasons but it’s just about fair a reflection of how off-the-boil everyone’s been that we’re making the hairdresser look good.

As usual, and perhaps understandably, it’s the disappointment in the big games that’s taking centre stage. Tonight’s another one of those and, speaking as someone who schlepped up to Manchester, I know how stomach churning the big disappointments can be. At Chelsea we were the victims of circumstance a little but at Utd we were shaky, hesitant and got thoroughly dealt with. Old Trafford was a game drenched in lethargy. Without drudging through too much acrimony we can’t play like we did then (anodyne, toothless, first half, blustering but ineffective second) against Cheslea and expect to get anything apart from what we’ve got used to in the last few years.

On the other hand, our game at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season had green shoots to cling on to. There was enough verve and steel to the way we played to suggest we could well edge them at home and the fact that we were undone that day by moments of madness feels a sign that if we cut the dicky moments out of our game and keep the attacking intent then we might just find a balance that works. Perhaps I’m conveniently overlooking the fact we still didn’t score but it mimicked Utd away last season in that lingering sense of generally outplaying the opposition but still losing. Yet, in Manchester two week’s ago? There were less defensive shockers but there was also a withering lack of that verve, intent and belief too.

What to say then. Can we beat Chelsea? Of course. Do we really know which Arsenal team will turn up tonight…not so sure.

It’s an uncomfortable irony that among the incredible things  Wenger has imbued into this young team, the mind control of a winning mentality has not been one of them.

That’s often the real source of frustration among fans I’d say. It’s less that the players simply aren’t good enough and more that they don’t yet have the leadership/professionalism/confidence/inclination (who knows!?) to galvanise their talent into a game that’s really hard to beat. On paper we could easily be a title-winning side. On performance we’re far from it. It’s a mental thing as everyone keeps saying but our tactical idealism also makes it an uphill struggle. Never playing to stop the opposition means that we’re one-sided mentally – defending our inconvenient cousin. Often even when we win, we’re more than beatable. Being impregnable is always less of a concern than unlocking the opposition, playing our game, etc etc. Such is our philosophy that these guys play with the burden of beating the opposition by art rather than craft.

Would we really want it any other way?

I’m lucky enough to be going to this game too, so seeing as it’s getting dark outside in N4 that’s enough navel-gazing for now I think.

A win tonight would be something really special. The fans are due one, the team are due one and if we do everything right Chelsea are more than beatable. Let’s not let this slip away by stumbling on self-belief which is why maybe despite all the above some good old bullish optimism is needed. Arsenal right now are special in all the most frustrating ways: brilliant, compelling, precocious but flawed, self-defeating, immature.

It’s an intoxicating mix, it’s why we’re still the best team to watch in the Premier League and it’s what makes hearts worth breaking for.

 

Come on you Gooooooooners!

 

 

 

 

 

PS. Ashley Cole stinks.