It seems the biggest issue about finishing 5^th is that we finished below Tottenham, and not our league position.

I imagine the disappointment of missing out on Champions League football would not cut as deep if it was Manchester United – or even West Ham or Leicester City – that finished above us.

But once the dust has settled, maybe Europa League is what is best for Arsenal right now.

With back to back 8^th place finishes and no European football for 12 months, the step up to the Champions League might have been one too far for this young Squad right now. The Europa League is simply the better place for us to be.

Blooding Young Players

One thing I have loved from playing in the Europa League is the opportunity to blood younger players in the group stages.

The likes of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe would not be the players they are today without that chance they got in the Europa League.

Whereas in the Champions League group stages, you need to put out your strongest XI, the Europa League groups will allow us to give some game time to some of our younger players and fringe squad members.

William Saliba will return to the club in the summer as a 21-year-old with plenty of potential. The Europa League will give him that chance to continue his development and challenge for the first team.

I would expect the Frenchman to play all 6 group stages, partnering Gabriel and Ben White alternately allowing him to build a bit of a relationship with both.

The second tier of European football will also give games to Albert Sambi Lokonga.

The Belgium looked a good acquisition earlier this season but has really suffered due to lack of game time.

He is still clearly a talent and getting Europa League (and League Cup) games under his belt should see him kick on.

Charlie Patino was thrown into the deep end this season against Nottingham Forest.

With Europa League football, it means Patino will get a lower quality competition to play in to bridge that gap between the U23s and the senior team. Expect him to star next season!

Patino would otherwise have been expected to go out on loan. Instead he will remain at the club, train with the first team and play European and cup football in the first half of the season.

Brooke Norton-Cuffy is another who could benefit.

The young English right back has looked a class above in League One whilst on-loan at Lincoln this season.

He was expected to join a Championship club next season to get a full campaign under his belt. But with Europa League football (and the League Cup again), there is now the opportunity for Arsenal to get him 6 or 8 starts in our first team whilst training with seniors. This could accelerate his development further.

Then we also have the likes of Aaron Hickey and Marquinhos.

The teenage pair are on the verge of joining Arsenal this summer and the Europa League will be the perfect stomping ground to show what they can do.

These players would simply not get these chances next year if we were in the Champions League.

And Rest Senior Players

Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli have fallen off a cliff the last few weeks.

It should not be a surprise as the 20-year-old pair have played more minutes than any other outfield player this season (2978 and 2918 respectively).

That is 900 more Premier League minutes than Phil Foden has played this season and 700 more than Mason Mount.

Gabriel Martinelli has played the 18^th most minutes of any outfield player this season in the Premier League and Saka the 25^th.

Their work load has been huge in the Premier League and it is surprising that neither has broken down.

The comparison of minutes played between Foden and Saka is an interesting one.

Saka has played 3,281 minutes in all competitions this season against Foden’s 3,094. This despite Arsenal not having European football and exiting the FA Cup at the 3^rd round stage.

It highlights our lack of squad depth, forcing us rely on 13/14 players. City in comparison can pick from 20+.

Champions League group stages would only add to the work load of these players and risk them breaking down.

By resting them – as well as other senior players – it should keep them fresher for the business end of the season where we will hopefully be fighting for honours (and not just top 4). Whilst also having the added benefit of getting game time to players who in the future might be able to take on a bigger workload.

We Can Win It

Ultimately, football is about winning trophies for clubs like Arsenal.

Realistically, we have more chance of winning the Europa League next season than the Champions League.

We end next season with the Europa League in the cabinet, a top 4 place, and having seen another 4 or 5 youngsters develop, we will all be celebrating.

The alternative reality is we get knocked out of the Champions League knock-out stages, we run out of steam towards the end of the season and finish 5^th, our senior players are over played and younger & fringe players under played.

Let’s embrace the Europa League once more and get excited about a Thursday away day in Bulgaria again!

And It Does Not Affect Our Transfer Policy

Money is the biggest reason why you would want to finish in the Champions League.

But with 6 strong Premier League sides battling for top 4, anyone outside of Liverpool and Manchester City would be crazy right now writing a transfer and wage budget that requires top 4 finishes every season over the next 5 years to stay in profit.

The additional funds from qualifying for the Champions League need to be seen as a bonus and not something to factor in to your budget.

Our transfer targets this summer will not be affected by finishing 5^th.

Top 5 was always the aim. And we were targeting players that would join us.

The likes of Aaron Hickey, Youri Tielemans and Gabriel Jesus are still realistic propositions this summer.

We still want to be targeting younger, hungry players that will drive us forward.

Players that “only want to join an established Champions League club” are not what we should be after. These guys are looking for an easy option. A team where you do not have to battle for each-other.

And these guys will also jump ship at the first sign of us not making the Champions League.

Players should be joining Arsenal because they want to play for us. Want to live in North London (or Totteridge!). Want to play at the Emirates under Mikel Arteta.

If they only care about Champions League football, go and join PSG. Keep their bench warm. Fill up the trophy cabinet without ever doing anything meaningful in your career.

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We might still be a little disappointed about the result on Monday. And we have every right to be so. But there are plenty of silver linings in that dark cloud.

Embrace them, and we go again.

Keenos

Some of our newest Arsenal collections #Arsenal #ArsenalFC #AFChttps://t.co/j9tDa3d1pW pic.twitter.com/7GMF6mEzRp

— Kick Off Merchants (@KOMerchants) April 22, 2022

At the beginning of the season, most pundits had us down finishing 7th or 8th.

These so-called experts had the likes of Everton, Aston Villa, Leeds United, Wolves and West Ham finishing ahead of us.

The club’s target was always 5th.

After losing the first 3 games of the season, the press tried to write a narrative that Arsenal could be facing a relegation battle. Most fans at this point would have taken a 7th placed finish.

We battled back to enter the top 4 with Champions League football in our hands, only to lose 3 in a row against Crystal Palace, Brighton and Southampton.

With injuries to key players piling up, the doom mongers climbed out from under their rock with claims that we would be lucky to even make the conference league.

The predictions were that we would collapse, tumble down the table and out of European places.

Whilst finishing 5th might now seem disappointing, and underachievement, do not be too disheartened.

Do not buy into the narrative that we “bottled” 4th place.

After that start to the season and with the youngest team in the league we had no real right to be competing for it.

All those pundits and opposition fans who predicted an 8th placed finish will now be mocking Arsenal for only finishing 5th. Three higher than they predicted.

Looking at the bigger picture, we are in a good place. Our young team will only improve, and we will make the signings we need regardless of competition.

I am not sure the same can be said about Chelsea and Tottenham.

For a long time in a while, I have really enjoyed going over The Arsenal again.

The atmosphere home and away has been the best for decades and it feels like there is a real connection to the players again. Don’t let the media try and rip that apart.

So, we dust ourselves down, get the last game of the season out of the way, and go again.

Keenos

We had a few requests from Arsenal fans for a Clock turntable mat…AVAILABLE NOW!!! #Arsenal #AFC #ArsenalFChttps://t.co/0BEWvDsw1V pic.twitter.com/KwU67PuJK4

— Kick Off Merchants (@KOMerchants) February 14, 2022

Newcastle United (0) 2 Arsenal (0) 0

Premier League

St. James’ Park, Barrack Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4ST

Monday, 17th May 2022. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-2-3-1) Aaron Ramsdale; Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White, Gabriel Magalhães, Nuno Tavares; Mohamed Elneny, Granit Xhaka; Bukayo Saka, Martin Ødegaard, Emile Smith-Rowe; Eddie Nketiah.

Substitutes: Bernd Leno; Alexandre Lacazette, Cédric Soares, Nicolas Pépé, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Gabriel Martinelli, Salah-Eddine Oulad M’Hand, Zak Swanson, Charlie Patino

Yellow Cards: Ben White, Eddie Nketiah, Granit Xhaka

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 49%

Referee: Darren England

Assistant Referees: Ian Hussin, Dan Robathan

Fourth Official: Craig Pawson

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Jarred Gillett; AVAR Nick Hopton

Attendance: 52,274

Let us not dwell on last Thursday’s horrible result, instead we need to focus entirely on these last two, crucial, nail-biting matches, the first of which is tonight at St. James’ Park against Newcastle United. Big pressure tonight; if we don’t win, then the coveted fourth place will be out of our hands on Sunday afternoon. Absolutely everything to play for this evening, chaps.

We kicked off tonight’s game, this the first of two vitally important matches for us within the space of six days. Within a minute, both goalkeepers got a feel of the ball, but our man Aaron Ramsdale slipped as he cleared successfully, but the ball flew down the pitch luckily for him (and us). Both teams weree extremely cautious of each other in the early stages with strong tackling being exchanged across the pitch. We successfully cut out a ball into Callum Wilson’s path and started a counter-attack which ended in Eddie Nketiah having a shot blocked inside the box, and then Aaron Ramsdale made an error inside our six-yard box, in which he managed to compose himself quickly in order to get the ball away just as Miguel Almiron was running in on our goal, which was an extremely close shave indeed. Ben White received a pointless yellow card for a foul on Callum Wilson, and as the home side were putting a lot of pressure on us, our defenders were certainly earning their money out there tonight. Allan Saint-Maximin beat Takehiro Tomiyasu with some fancy footwork, but he hit his cross up and out of play, thankfully. With the home side pushing us further and further back in our own half, we managed to soak up their loose balls very well. The first chance for Bukayo Saka came after twenty minutes when he played a one-two with Martin Ødegaard but his shot was blocked by Dan Burn, and a couple of mintues later he got his second shot of the match in, but goalie Martin Dúbravka got down quickly to retrieve the ball. These two chances appeared to wake us up a bit, and as Eddie Nketiah got close to scoring with a couple of chances, it was looking like we could get something going here now at some point. Maybe. However, the home side had two corners in a row which went nowhere, and then again, we were pushed back deep into our own half; Allan Saint-Maximin blasted a ball towards goal from outside our penalty area, which saw Aaron Ramsdale make an incredible save to prevent a certain goal. Takehiro Tomiyasu went down to the ground with an injury, which meant that he was unable to continue any further, and so Cédric Soares replaced him with six minutes of the first half remaining. Quite frankly, the half-time whistle couldn’t come soon enough for us, as at times we looked in extreme difficulty; mercifully we got to the break in one piece and managed to hold out a dominant Newcastle United.

The home side kicked off an important forty-five minutes for us, and almost straight away, Eddie Nketiah received a yellow card for an innocuous clash with Fabian Schar, the latter hitting his head on the ground on impact; he was led off by their coaching staff and a concussion substitution came into being. The home side continued where they stopped at the end of the first half, by piling pressure on us; thankfully Aaron Ramsdale kept their forwards’ shots out miraculously. A lacklustre Emile Smith-Rowe was replaced by Gabriel Martinelli seven minutes after the restart, and despite some good play initially, after just fifty-six minutes, we conceded the first goal of the night when we let in a messy goal courtesy of our own Ben White, after Callum Wilson received a cross from the left via the boot of Joelinton. Anyway, in order to salvage something from this game, Nuno Tavares was replaced by Alexandre Lacazette just after the hour, and still the Magpies kept coming for us, egged on by the crowd. After our coaching staff treated both Gabriel Martinelli and Alexandre Lacazette within a matter of a minute or so, the home side nearly grabbed a second goal when a ball came across from the right, and Ben White almost scored a seeond own goal when he slid in to clear the ball just past Aaron Ramsdale’s post! We counter-attacked and Gabriel Martinelli’s superb shot led to a couple of corners for us, which ended with Mohamed Elneny taking a chance from thirty yards which was saved by Martin Dúbravka easily. Because of the concussion substitution earlier, Gabriel was replaced by Nicolas Pépé with eighteen minutes of the match remaining, and still the Magpies kept on advancing towards our goal. With eleven minutes of the game remaining, Ryan Fraser flew towards our goal (after picking up a loose ball in midfield) and he passed it to Jacob Murphy, whose shot was tipped to safety by Aaron Ramsdale; then, with six minutes of the match remaining, Callum Wilson almost scored from forty yards for the home side. He turned Mohamed Elneny too easily and then hit a stunning volley which curled inches wide, leaving Aaron Ramsdale stranded. With five minutes of the game remaining, Newcastle United finally got their second goal when poor defending by us let in Callum Wilson through on goal. Aaron Ramsdale knocked the ball away from his feet but Bruno Guimaraes whacked it into our net from the edge of the penalty area; Ben White tried to slide it off the line but to no avail. In the six minutes injury time, the only thing of note was Granit Xhaka getting booked for a late challenge, other than that, the match was irretrievably lost.

Another poor performance, another critical match lost. We didn’t have any answers to the intolerable pressure placed on our team by Newcastle United, the endless inconsistency, the atmosphere in the ground which we simply buckled under the noise of the home supporters again; and sadly, more unbelievably, we have lost thirteen Premier League matches in 2021-22, our joint-highest tally in a thirty-eight game season in the competition with 2017-18 and 2020-21. Terrible statistics. Something better change.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Everton at the Emirates on Sunday, 22nd May at 4.00pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon