The Perfect Pitch

The end is near!

The end of the year, that is, but not before a marathon December that will separate the challengers from the pretenders. But Arsenal come into this hectic period in a good position, although we could do with a few less injuries. We are currently top of the league by 4 clear points, having played all the “Big Four” sides except for Chelsea next week (pray for Cesc and Hleb to recover by then), and we’re through two of the three-in-a-row away games with 4 points out of 6, not too bad at all. And hopefully, we can grab that top spot in our Champions League group as well, and if not, never mind.

I don’t think any Arsenal fan, even one as optimistic as I am (I always think we will win everything at the start of every season), would have imagined our current position in the league, not in a season where Henry and Ljungberg have left, where boardroom shenanigans dominate the news and when at the start, even Wenger’s future at the club was uncertain. From that doomed position at the start of the season, everything seems to have turned around into this ultra-positive things, where everything has gone our way, driven by the player’s desires and the team’s unity. Even when the odds are against us, like having Hleb, Cesc, Van Persie, our three best players, out injured, we have battled on and got results. Hopefully, our injury situation will clear up as you can’t miss this amount of quality and not get caught forever, no matter how numerous in numbers our squad is (imagine Man Utd without Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez, or Chelsea without Drogba, Essien and Lampard). It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality.

We will certainly know more about our title chances by this time next months (although I think it’s still too early to call it either way, unless one side has a 10+ point advantage). If we can get all our players back, I think we can get through this period with positive results.

But let’s not get carried away whatever the outcome, because even after this period, there’s still plenty of games left in the season to turn things around if things didn’t go our way (or for a good thing to turn bad). The team that will win the title is the team that has the most points come May, that’s the only conclusion we can draw right now or in a month’s time.

An update to my last blog, it appears that Alan Gardner at The Guardian has written something similar about the ex-Arsenal brigade which is well worth reading. Last weekend’s results really highlighted what our ex-Arsenal players are capable of in the top division, with goals from Bentley and Stokes proving decisive for their new teams, not to mention a certain Larsson with a certain 92nd minute goal against a certain rival of ours. You’ve got to laugh sometimes …