Basking within the wins, within the driving seat, rotation

Good (late) morning from a moist, windy, depressing and in my case sleepless Berlin!

Given the climate, at the very least we nonetheless have Tuesday’s 5-1 win to indulge in earlier than consideration slowly turns to the weekend journey to West Ham. We went into that the majority latest worldwide break realizing we’d want issues to shortly enhance on all fronts and the workforce has already delivered handsomely within the two video games this week.

So far as the Champions League is worried, we’re now 5 video games into this eight-game league part and the desk is beginning to take form. The jumbled fixture checklist — some groups have ‘simpler’ video games left, others have monster clashes across the nook — trying on the desk and attempting to foretell how issues look isn’t straightforward nevertheless it’s getting simpler.

The win this week noticed us leapfrog Juventus, Man Metropolis, Aston Villa, Monaco and Sporting to place ourselves in seventh and within the driving seat for qualification with two dwelling video games left and our hardest trying fixtures behind us. In response to Opta, Arsenal now have a 69.6% likelihood of securing a prime eight end and heading into the final 16 instantly, crucially skipping the additional play-off spherical that groups who end between ninth and twenty fourth should play.

With dwelling video games in opposition to Monaco and Dinamo Zagreb to return earlier than rounding issues off with a visit to Girona, you’d must fancy the workforce’s possibilities of selecting up all 9 factors from right here to maintain the nice temper rolling.

Like loads of you most likely did, I had an eye fixed on Liverpool’s win over Actual Madrid final evening. Honest play, actually, I believe that’s one of the best I’ve seen them play underneath Arne Slot. Clearly, soccer is as soccer does and Man Metropolis’s journey to Anfield on Sunday appears like precisely the form of factor that may see Metropolis all of a sudden rediscover themselves and possibly do us a favour out of nowhere within the form of weird turning level soccer likes to ship. That or they’ll concede early and proceed to crumble. Actually, whichever manner that goes, somebody is dropping factors and we want to ensure we shut one or each gaps.

Liverpool misplaced Conor Bradley (who was spectacular) at right-back late on and Ibrahima Konate limped off too. It’ll be fascinating to see how they do deal with accidents to key gamers if and once they do come. Throughout 17 Premier League and Champions League video games, Liverpool have Gravenberch, Van Dijk, Salah have been obtainable to begin all 17 and Konate is on 16. The squad should come into issues a bit extra finally.

Nonetheless, it’s all about specializing in ourselves and ensuring we maintain profitable so we’re proper the place we must be when the groups above us do drop factors. That continues at West Ham on Saturday, the primary of 9 consecutive video games in London. We don’t depart the capital once more till 4 January, and that’s solely a visit to Brighton, after which once more till 25 January to face Wolves.

With all of the deal with marginal good points these days, not having to journey far (or journey again) for video games needs to be useful, in addition to simply good for the gamers, who already spend a lot time on the street. Now it’s on them to make it depend and rack up the wins.

Clearly to do this we additionally have to maintain key gamers match, so it’ll be fascinating to see what kind of workforce is used on Saturday, seeing as we host Manchester United a couple of days later and it regarded like Thomas Partey, Declan Rice and Gabriel Martinelli have been all spared a begin final weekend so that they might be raring to go in Lisbon. That form of rotation and use of the squad isn’t one thing we’ve actually seen from Mikel Arteta in his 251-game spell up to now in cost – even during the last two years, we’ve principally mounted our title challenges with a bunch of 12-13 trusted outfield gamers – however that is the primary time, even with Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu out, that you just really feel just like the supervisor actually trusts a much bigger core group.

Anyway, I’m certain there shall be extra chat about what to do on the weekend over the subsequent couple of days. For now, simply maintain basking within the glory of our final two video games; I’d stick the highlights on once more now, truly.

Wishing everybody a nice day and a protected flight to Blogs as he makes his superb return from Lisbon! He’ll be again within the saddle on this explicit horse tomorrow.