14 days to set the tone for the busy festive spell

Over the next 14 days, Arsenal will face title-challenging Liverpool at Emirates Stadium, and if that wasn’t a stern-enough test, The Gunners also have away trips to Newcastle and Inter Milan before facing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Following that, the next international break. It feels like a make-or-break period. To me, it’s more about keeping our head above water rather than being Michael Phelps.

The mood around the club has been high spirited for a good couple of years now. The Emirates has had consistently great atmosphere over this time, but this is one of the rare periods where we need the crowd to be as positive and as excited as they have been for the last couple of seasons.

Liverpool will be tough. Liverpool without multiple key players will be tougher. Liverpool after defeat to Bournemouth will really test the home support. And I hope they stick with them throughout the match. We will lose possession more with Ødegaard. We will be less exciting down the right without Saka. But we are good enough to take a result without them – it just needs a combined effort from both the team and the crowd to do so. To create that buzz. To give the team all the resources needed to bring a result to the table.

Manchester City have consistently worse results without Rodri. Liverpool fell off a cliff without van Dijk a couple of seasons back. Teams losing their best players will make it harder – especially while we’re without two of our biggest ball retainers going forward. And it will prove to be tough for the next couple of games too.

No matter the results, we just need to remain within touching distance. Our early-season fixtures have been hard. After 11 matches in the Premier League season we will have faced Villa away, Spurs away, City away, Liverpool at home, and Newcastle and Chelsea both away too.

Now, it will not be a nice feeling if we lose further ground this weekend or indeed over the next couple of game weeks. But, as eye rolling as it sounds, it is important to not drown completely. After the next international break our remaining fixtures in 2024 are Forest H, West Ham A, United H, Fulham A, Everton H, Palace A, and Ipswich H. A batch of games where we could suddenly get up a head up steam with a nearly-fit squad again.

To add to that, our final FOURTEEN fixtures are Leicester A, West Ham H, Forest A, United A, Chelsea H, Fulham H, Everton A, Brentford H, Ipswich A, Palace H, Bournemouth H, Liverpool A, Newcastle H, Southampton A. There’s real potential that our season rests on a vintage second-half of the season.

In 97/98, we had 10 wins, 8 draws and 4 losses after 23 matches. We were 5th. Then we won 13 of our next 14 and the rest is history. In 01/02we had 13 wins, 9 draws and 3 defeats after 25 matches.

With those two title-winning campaigns mentioned I want to know your favourite match from any title-winning season, or a match that made you think “this might be the season after all”.

End of the day, teams do have down periods, and while the margin for error is smaller in the Man City era, they will drop points too. They’ve not had a convincing result since West Ham away on Matchday 3, and even Liverpool have a Home defeat to Nottingham Forest on their record despite the positive start from Arne Slot.

This season will be a long one yet, and let’s still with the boys all the way.

Nick