When with West Ham getting a late equaliser against Leicester City, it was still a great weekend for The Arsenal – even though we did not play.

Manchester United drew, Tottenham lost, then late on Sunday the Hammers failed to win.

In the race for the top 4, Wolves were the only weekend winners – beating Spurs in the process.

It highlights just why Arsenal players celebrated Thursday’s hard-fought 1-nil win in Wolverhampton with 1-men so enthusiastically.

As it stands, Arsenal are 6th with 39 points. Wolves a place below with 37 having played a game more.

Had Wolves come out on top last Thursday, they would now sit 4 points ahead of us.

Arsenal won, and top 4 is now in our own hands.

A lot has been said this season about games in hand.

It doesn’t seem too long ago that Manchester United had a couple of games in hand on Arsenal. Now the situation is reversed – with Arsenal a point behind but with 2 in hand.

We do need to be careful counting the games in hands as wins however. That was the downfall for Man U fans.

The first game in hand is next Thursday at home to Wolves. We host Brentford in between.

It is important that we get 6 from 6 in those two games, further distancing Wolves and potentially leapfrogging us into 4th.

After playing Wolves, we re-gain our game in hand as our fixture against Liverpool is postponed due to them playing in the League Cup.

That will mean that come the end of February, we will be back to having multiple games in hand. But those postponed games are against Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea.

We need to prepare for the worst and can not assume any of them will lead to 1, let alone 3, points.

Getting through Brentford and Wolves should ensure that we are top 4. That will mean we do not need to rely on winning our games I hand to fire us back into the top 4.

Arsenal are the form team of those chasing the final Champions League stage.

A few pundits have said “no one wants top 4” as everyone seems to be stumbling. But in the last 7 games Arsenals record reads: W 5 D 1 L 1.

We are on a good place right now; we just need to take those games in hand of the equation and keep above the rest.

Keenos

Last call for our Arsenal beer mats. Our biggest seller of the year!!! #Arsenal #ArsenalFC #AFChttps://t.co/A3Ah0MpxvZ pic.twitter.com/7mx9M3fD1P

— Kick Off Merchants (@KOMerchants) December 18, 2021

The controversy over Gabriel Martinelli’s double yellow card continues to roll on.

In one corner you have the sticklers for the rules. Those saying it was the correct decision as the FA’s laws of the game side with the referee.

In the other corner you have those pointing out that if the decision was correct, it would happen a lot more than once a decade.

I am a fence sitter on the situation….

Arsenal should have no complaints about the yellow card. Michael Oliver made the right call. But where they should have complaints is how often referees fail to give a second yellow card when a player commits a second bookable offence following their first.

In todays game, if a player kicks a ball away having committed a cautionable foul, I will be expecting the referee to issue two yellow cards.

If a player shows dissent following a foul which warrants a yellow card, it will now be 2 yellows and off.

Of course, this will not happen this weekend. The referees will use their own brain, dish out one yellow card and let the game continue.

And that is where us Arsenal fans are right in their complaints.

Oliver acted within the rules, but no other referee in recent history has followed the same rule.

It is a bit like going 72mph on a motorway.

No one has ever been pulled over doing that speed. No one ever will do in the future. So you will feel a little aggrieved when you are the one pulled over and fined.

You do not have a leg to stand on as you were doing over the speed limit. But you will be frustrated as you know it has not happened before to anyone and will not happen again.

What Arsenal should perhaps do is have a meeting with the PGMOL and question them as to why similar incidents have not led to a similar outcome. Provide video evidence of such incidents. Get them to explain themselves.

But we know the PGMOL is an arrogant bunch who defend themselves.

All they will do is state that Oliver was correct in his decision making, and they have no comment to make on hundreds of other incidents where two cautionable separate incidents happen at the same time.

What always frustrates me – and I would imagine most managers and clubs- is that if you call out a referee or the PGMOL, you end up the one fined or suspended.

How can you have a group that are unanswerable for their actions to anyone but themselves?

Anyway we move on…

A few have criticised Alexandre Lacazette for missing his one on one. What I would say is it is tremendous goalkeeping.

The Wolves keeper came out, made himself big and narrowed down the angle. He was in the perfect position to increase his chances of a save.

Sometimes instead of criticising a player for not scoring, credit should be given to the keeper for some great work.

The last thing to come out of the Wolves game was our defending at corners.

We are the only club this season yet to concede a goal from a corner.

For that, Arteta and his team need to take a lot of credit.

Arsenal have no game this weekend due to Chelsea playing in some friendly tournament. So relax and enjoy the sunshine.

Have a good one.

Keenos

Unlike in 2016, we have been told that this increase is “set in stone” and the club will not be changing their mind.
The additional 4% just feels out of touch. Borderline greedy.

From next season, Arsenal are set to increase ticket prices by 4%.
Season ticket holders will be further hit as the club are also set to scrap the deduction given to fans following our failure to qualify for Europe in 2021/22.
Prices will further increase if the club qualify for the Champions League rather than the Europa League.
The 4% increase will be applied to the individual ticket prices, which season tickets then take their price from.
In 2016/17, the last Arsenal played in the Champions League, the cheapest season ticket price was £1,014.
The 4% increase will see that go up to £1,054.
Without Champions League football, the same season ticket cost an Arsenal fan £891. This season without any European football it was under £700.
Now a less scrupulous blogger would have had the title as “Arsenal set to increase ticket prices by over 40%” but I understand that we have had a discount over the last 5 seasons due to the European competition (or lack of) that we are in.
Arsenal have frozen (or reduced) season ticket prices for the last 7 seasons. There was a plan to increase prices for the 2016/17 season, but this was scrapped following fan pressure.
An argument could be made that after 7 years of frozen prices, alongside the increase across the board in goods in the UK, a 4% increase has to be expected.
Yes, the cost of operations to run a match day at the Emirates had increased – match day staff wages have gone up, the cost of goods have gone up, etc – and there are plans to rebrand and revitalise the stadium. But you have to question whether a 4% increase is really justified considering the clubs increase in revenue elsewhere.
We have heard on numerous occasions how the “increased commercial deals will ease the burden on match going fans”.
In in 2020, Arsenal saw a 29% increase in commercial revenue, the second largest commercial growth among Europe’s richest clubs..
In recent years we have also seen a 34% increase in overseas TV rights.
The 4% increase will result an increase in revenue of around £4million to the club. That is less than what the club reportedly paid Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to disappear to Barcelona.
Taking into account every person in England is going to see an increase in mortgage payments, utility bills, food, insurance and general cost of living, the 4% increase does feel out of touch.
The club do not need an additional £4million. And whilst an extra ~£50 a year will not break the bank, it is the principle of the situation.
Reading the room, another year of freezing the prices would have won a lot of fans over. They would have bitten the “natural” increase of being back in Europe and prices returning to what they were pre-covid.

Keenos