JoeThe world has changed rapidly since my last post. I know this is a football blog and we all turn to sport for some light relief but we can’t bury our heads in the sand. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the Ukraine a few times and, believe me, every time I’ve found it to be a fantastic country full of joyous people. I’m not going to go into politics but I feel for the people out there at the moment and hope that a peaceful resolution will be reached soon.
Back to football matters and things are starting to shape up very nicely from an Arsenal perspective indeed. Another fantastic three points yesterday against a team that have caused us problems over the last few years. But in truth, we were good value for our victory exposing their weakness at defending set pieces for the opener. We had a bit of a wobble towards the back end of the first half and I was very glad to hear the whistle for the interval.
We came out all guns blazing again in the second half and we really are playing some brilliant football at the moment. At the heart of that are Partey and Odegaard who the boss heaped praise on in his post match. Different jobs but both working in tandem and the man from Norway is really looking like some player and a steal to boot at £35m. But the team are playing with such confidence and that feeds into the atmosphere, which again was great yesterday. There is a clip after the FA Cup final where Mikel Arteta tells one of the backroom staff to “believe in me” and that popped into my head yesterday as I watched us carve the Foxes open again and again. These players do believe and I think the fans believe too.
We’re on a great run, however we welcome in form, title chasing Liverpool to the Emirates on Wednesday in what looks like a massive game. We’ve not beaten them in what feels like an age and they are on fire. Anything we take from it will be hard fought and well earned but it won’t define the season. And stranger things have happened. Believe.
COYG!
-Joe