WILL LADY LUCK TAKE A LOOK AT ARSENAL UCL DRAW?
Am I taking it easy on the week off? You’re damn right I am. This is bliss. The afterglow of a Spurs walloping is how hard drugs must feel. I am actually worried I have a bit of a problem at the moment, leaning too hard into the disaster porn that is literally anything related to our North London rivals at the moment. Igor Tudor was asked about 2 players returning from injury earlier and he said, ‘I have no idea.’
How have they brought in a new manager who is at ‘I just don’t care’ already? Truly astonishing. I’ve been taking pops at our captain all week, then I realised, Spurs captain, Micky van de Ven, is also struggling. What with?
‘Small problem in his little finger.’
I don’t mean to be that guy, but even if you’d lost your entire little finger, you could, you know, probably play, right?
Chelsea On My Mind
Who cares… we’re about to rev up towards a very, very tough game against Chelsea, and the news appears to be pretty decent. They’re without Fofana AND Cucurella. Losing 50% of your backline for an away day at Arsenal can’t be the best.
Matt Kandela called me pond scum on the podcast for having a pop at mean fans hammering Liam Rosenior for having a pint on his own because I did an 800-word thought piece on his miscontrol at Arsenal. Fair point. But I do think there’s a difference between miscontrol of a football, which is the game… and having a quiet pint alone and getting snapped by a 17-year-old for internet clout.
Champions League Draw-xiety
The Champions draw is today… I’m scared.
Arsenal will be drawn against Atalanta or Leverkusen. Two fairly decent teams, but not the sort you’d expect to down us in the Champions League over two legs.
The thing we’re watching for with the utmost focus is the lane we take.
The dream: The blue lane, which is Bodo, not Madrid.
The second dream: It’s Sporting Lisbon, NOT Manchester City.
The silver lane: Could land you PSG or Gala in the semi-finals.
The blue lane (alternative): Atleti or Newcastle.
The whole thing is very complicated and usually, the best way to imagine these things is the worst possible outcome in all rounds.
But… this season has been quite good to Arsenal with Cup draws. Just look at the FA Cup, where we’ve had two League One teams on the bounce for the first time EVER (maybe not ever).
The sad reality in 2026 is the only real pain we’re going to get in the Champions League if we play well is getting lumped against an English team. Man City would take our ties with them to 5 this season. Same if we draw Chelsea. You’d be a madman to predict anything positive from those two teams outside outrageous fatigue physically and emotionally.
I want freewheeling continental teams who do not know the dastardly concepts of deep and mid blocks.
Compound Spurs-V
I won’t go too deep on the blog today, but I do want to tell you that my main concern heading into this weekend is whether Spurs was a real injection of Compound V into our attacking swagger… or we just played against a dreadfully underpowered Spurs and ripped them apart.
What is the reality of Gyokeres and Eze? Two players who smacked up small teams? Or two players who have found their footing at the right moment in a season that has felt a bit rubbish in front of goal (despite being top 3 for goals in all comps in the whole of Europe).
Chelsea will be a proper test that we have to master before we have to handle the horrors of Moyesball.
But, we’ll hear from Mikel, and dive deep into those thoughts tomorrow. x