Season is basically over lads.

With the news that Manchester City’s ban has been overturned by CAS, top 7 is what is needed for a European tour next season.

Following Sunday’s defeat to Tottenham, we now sit 4 points off of Sheffield United in 7th.

With Arsenal set to play Liverpool next game, I think the best we can hope for is 2 wins from the last 3 games – with Villa away and Watford at home the last two games.

For any chance of finishing 7th, Arsenal need Sheffield united to lose twice.

They travel to Leicester, host Everton, before a trip to Southampton to finish the season.

Leicester have just been spanked by Bournemouth. Their wheels seem to be coming off, although we could not take advantage.

We also need to jump ahead of Tottenham who travel to Newcastle and Crystal Palace, and face Leicester at home.

Spurs will need to win 1, draw one to ensure there is no St Totteringham’s day this year.

And we only have ourselves to blame.

This season will be defined by Arsenal’s inability to hold on to a lead.

We led both Crystal Palace and Watford by 2 goals earlier in the season, only to end up drawing 2-2 in both games. 4 points dropped.

Another 2 points were dropped from a winning position against Wolves at home. That takes us to 6.

We led 1-0 at home against Chelsea only to concede 2 late goals and lose. Running total is now 9 points dropped from winning positions this season.

Back to back dropped points against Crystal Palace and Sheffield United. 1-nil up in both. 1-1 at the final whistle. 4 more points dropped taking us to 13.

We led against Brighton. We lost against Brighton. 16.

Against Leicester we were 1-0 up. They equalised with 6 minutes to go. Another 2 points dropped. 18 in total.

And then finally against Tottenham. 1-0 up. Lost. 21 points in total dropped.

You can not expect to be competitive in the league if you can not keep hold of a lead.

Even if we had have converted half of those dropped points into wins, we would be on 60 points and level with Chelsea in 3rd. Actually we would be above Chelsea as some of those dropped points were against them.

A huge concern is just how often we seem to let wins turn into draws, draws turn into defeats in the last 10 minutes.

In 5 of the 9 games we have dropped points from a winning position in, we have conceded a goal in the last 10 minutes of the game.

Under Unai Emery, we continually fell behind in the first half; leaving us chasing the game. It is the reverse under Mikel Arteta. We take the lead and then lose it.

Hopefully this problem can be resolved as Arteta continues to develop his team in his vision, improving fitness and concentration of players. We also need to finish better, turning a 1-nil lead into a 2-nil and so on.

We are not too far from being a top 4 team.

Since the 1st of January, we have the 4th most points in the league and have conceded just 14 goals in 15 games.

Things are not as bad as people make out. We just need a few tweaks, a few improvements.

But this season is a write off.

FA Cup could be our saviour?

Keenos

Follow @KeenosAFC