Darn those Merseysiders!

Morning all.

Liverpool came so close to taking a point of Man City but a late and monumental cockup in their defence lead to Haaland scoring a winner from the penalty spot. Things got worse for the Merseysiders as their goal scorer Szoboszlai was shown a red card for preventing Haaland from scoring by foul means.

If it wasn’t for City and ourselves going for the league title and race being a bit too close for comfort, I’d have enjoyed watching the scousers lose.

The good thing about the Premier League these days is that no fixture is a forgone conclusion in terms of results. Even Wolves who look favourites to be relegated, are more than capable of causing an upset. All it takes it a little bit of complacency to set in and a game can be lost or drawn.

Arsenal have been guilty of being complacent in years gone by, the Carling Cup Final against Birmingham sticks in my mind. Rocking up in tracksuits instead of being booted and suited like the opposition was totally unacceptable in my opinion. I was surprised Arsene Wenger permitted it at the time as he is always immaculate in his appearance.

Credit where it’s due, Mikel Arteta approaches every opponent as if they are world beaters, or at least his pre-match press conferences suggest that’s his mindset. As we here oft suggest, always respect the opposition but never fear them.

Thursday’s opponents certainly deserve respect because they utterly deserve it. Brentford are doing really well this season and I fancy them to take the fifth Champions League spot. After suffering a setback on Thursday of course. Not sure why we are playing on Thursday though, not when every other club plays on Tuesday of Wednesday. I get it if Totts were playing at home but they are not. Wigan will be pleased though as the players will have only had two days of recovery before we play them on Sunday in the FA Cup.

I actually cannot recall the last time we were still in all four competitions in February. Not that I think we will win all four, the only British club to achieve that, according to Google, is Celtic. Yes, we have a strong and deep squad but the amount of fixtures we would have to play will surely take its toll. 

I’m hoping to see a number of our regulars get a rest on Sunday. Not for any other reason than they need it. Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Rice and Zubimendi need a rest, especially as three days later, we play Wolves away. Four days later, it’s the second NLD of the season and the home team will be without one of their better players in Romero as he’ll be suspended.

Only one fixture matters right now though and that’s the next one. A London derby, away from home under floodlights and one I suspect many out there in the corners of biased journalism, expect, or rather hope, we lose. But that’s ok, let them hope, they won’t change. I very much doubt Arteta, his coaches and his players couldn’t give a flying fudge what those outside the club think. The people who matter are inside the club and the thousands of fans who are on their side.  The fans, especially those who turn up home and away are the ones who will help the Arsenal players in the quest for success. We cannot rely on others to help us either, although I’m not sure other clubs give much thought to what their results mean to others, Totts aside of course but even they nicked a point off City which helped us.

Every club wants to finish as high as they can on the league table because of the financial rewards. We cannot rely on the officials either and I don’t mean them doing us any favours, I mean consistent and unbiased officiating.

We’re in a great position, just keep going..

Catch up in the comments.