*u**. **i*. *u***. *o**o***!

A 'perfect storm' hit Arsenal last night as all the worst case scenarios hit in the same - critical - match. A raucous atmosphere, a good dose of bad judgment, plenty of bad luck and some questionable refereeing decisions (Paul Tierney never gives Arsenal the benefit of any doubt), alongside the underlying issues of a squad that's not quite big enough, important injuries and absences, and (Hello Captain Hindsight) poor team selection meant that they crashed to a morale-sapping defeat at The Armitage Shanks Arena (for those who aren't aware, Armitage Shanks are a famous maker of toilet bowls, and if you type Armitage Shanks Arena into Google Maps it kindly directs you to The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium 😄). 

It's also worth noting that the team failed to perform to anything like its optimum levels. But it's been a funny old two months. Defeat at Crystal Palace was unquestionably deserved. They didn't get the rub of the green against either Brighton or Southampton. Victory over a distracted Chelsea was meritorious. Manchester United could frankly have gone the other way. They lived on their nerves at West Ham. They made things very difficult for themselves against Leeds. And at The Toilet Bowl they finally cracked under the pressure. Some would say that they 'bottled it'; and I suppose that wouldn't be far off the mark.

Fortunately, it's all still in Arsenal's hands. Two wins and Tottenham's victory will be pyrrhic. Although it was disappointing that The Celebration Police, who are so quick to charge Arsenal, failed to make any of the 55,000 arrests that they ought to have made last night. The ringleaders, Conte, Kane, Son and Paul Tierney, should all be under lock and key today.

Much as I'd like to try to write this piece without going through several bunches of sour grapes, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to fail to do so. In fact, I'm not even going to try... I do try to be as fair as I can when I write, even if it is from an Arsenal perspective, but perceived injustices do sometimes make it very difficult to stay as calm and rational as (and I know my friends will agree...) I usually am.

Unquestionably, Tottenham come out of this game with massive credit and momentum. Despite a slow start, they soon took the initiative, and Son made life a misery for Cedric and Holding with his undoubted talent; allied to his trademark 'professional' antics. 

Look, he's a very good player. But I'm frankly sick of hearing how players are 'clever' to connive their way into winning favour and decisions from referees. And Son is a master at that. He also - as I'm sure you'll agree - possesses the most punchable face in the Premier League (and that's quite something when you consider the existence of Salah, TAA, Vardy and Mahrez). I mean, just look at this...

... a sure invitation to violence.

Cedric's defensive inadequacies meant that Holding was constantly exposed to Son's pace, trickery and 'professionalism', and he responded poorly to it. He committed two fouls that could easily have been bookings before finally receiving a yellow card - although please note below the sly elbow in the aftermath of one of those from Son that VAR failed to notice or deal with https://twitter.com/i/status/1524836005722869786 - and then definitely blocked Son off and so gave Tierney the opportunity he wanted to get his red card out. Assistant Referee Kane was immediately on hand to tell him to do that, you will have noted. You can't even say that Son made the most of it - he didn't even see it coming. It's a second yellow; difficult to argue that it isn't, frankly. 

By this time, of course, Arsenal were already a goal down as the result of a soft penalty decision from Tierney. A big decision to make in such an important match - and one that doesn't get given to any away side - not even LiVARpool. Cedric mistimes his attempt to block my favourite Korean off, and barely makes any contact - but the latter makes the most of his opportunity to go tumbling to the floor https://twitter.com/i/status/1525066919598075905 

And whilst that's a penalty according to the strict letter of the Law, then this decision surely means that further penalties are going to be awarded at most set pieces from now on. Inevitably, Kane stepped up and sent Ramsdale the wrong way (I knew that he was going to go the side he did, by the way; but it's all a matter of bluff and double bluff; ask Bruno Fernandes).

This seems an ideal time to address team selection and match management. Captain Hindsight tells me that Arteta should probably have matched Conte up formation-wise... but White wasn't match-fit, of course. I suppose he could have got round it by going with Cedric and Tavares as wing backs, and dropping Tomiyasu alongside Holding and Gabriel. It would certainly have given added security, and would have offered a different solution to the one he gave to Kane dropping deep; which was keeping Elneny close to him and thereby meaning that Hojbjerg and Bentancur - impressive yesterday - had the advantage over Xhaka. He could have afforded to let one of the three centre backs follow him out, but still leave two behind. How he could have done that was leave Bukayo Saka - who was very quiet; and I'm sure that's down to fatigue - out of the starting XI. Certainly, Martinelli had to play, so Starboy was the sensible option for a rest (despite the magnitude of the game). Anyway, Captain Hindsight is always boasting about his 20/20 vision, but I'm not giving him any credit for it.

Additionally, was Arteta right in finding an on-field solution to his centre-back shortage? Well, if White wasn't quite ready, then 70 minutes of a North London Derby wouldn't have been ideal. I can't argue with what he did. However, I certainly can argue with Nketiah being detailed to look after Kane at set pieces. And we saw what happened...

And so, at half-time, it looked all over. Once or twice a year, I am tempted to turn the television off - I never actually do, of course - and this was one of those occasions. But when Son got his goal so early in the second half it was then purely a case of seeing the game out; and it was a combination of self-flagellation and my curiosity as to how far the Sky Tottenham love-in was going to go that kept me watching.

The icing on the cake was a late injury for Gabriel. It looked like glute or hamstring, so let's hope it's not serious as his absence would leave Arsenal with precisely zero fit centre-backs for Monday. But, amusingly, it was great to see Mr Punchable looking miserable to be substituted when he's pushing for the Golden Boot. Highlight of the second half for me:

To hear the opposition fans ole-ing after just an hour - especially when so many of them are barely able to prevent their knuckles from scraping the ground when they walk - was quite sickening. But just as sickening was listening to Martin Tyler and especially Gary Neville (who bears a 25 year old grudge against Arsenal, lest we forget) waxing lyrical about Tottenham. I know that it's in Sky's interest for the fight for 4th to go down to the wire, but how they can be so partisan I simply cannot understand. Anyone would think that they'd won the World Cup! I find it considerably easier to be at a ground watching, than to listen to TV's agenda-riven commentary.

And at this point I must mention Theo Walcott, who was in the Sky studio (looking ridiculous, may I point out) and who declared pre-match that he'd like to see a draw. I mean... WHAT? Way to tarnish your legacy, sonny!

I must say that I did love Arteta's post-match interview with the annoying Geoff Shreeves. Defending his players, and saying what many Arsenal fans had been pointing out about the referee's performance. Siege mentality - correct response.

So what does this result mean? Well, as Paddy Power so eloquently pointed out...

And it makes Arsenal's position completely transparent. It's in their hands. They'll know precisely what they need to do on Monday, because Tottenham play on Sunday lunchtime - and we can but hope that they go all Spursy and drop points to Burnley (as they did earlier this season, straight after having beaten Manchester City!). Two wins and Arsenal are there, no matter what Tottenham do. But quite how much this defeat will have taken out of them - mentally as much as physically - remains to be seen. 

Newcastle and Everton... not the worst of opposition to have to face, I guess. Newcastle haven't scored so much as a single Premier League goal against Arsenal since April 2018, which is a good omen. And Everton are simply awful. So let's remain hopeful; if no longer confident. And let's hope that Sky - as well as all those gloating Tottenham fans - have egg on their faces on May 22nd. COYG!

I'm Not Nervous. No, Honestly...

I've been up since around 3.30am. But let's just makes things clear here; I'm not nervous.

Something other than a mere football match must clearly be bothering me. It's just that I can't quite put my finger on what it is... Anyway, I'll just get a few things in writing, and see if that helps.

Firstly, despite 4 wins in a row I don't think that anybody can accuse Arsenal of being in great form. Three successive defeats prior to that may have been harsh - and oh, what would we give for a couple of points from those games! - but they've had their moments of concern in each of those 4 matches. Conceding so soon after taking the lead twice against Chelsea, and once against both United and West Ham, made for difficult viewing. Add the 'sliding doors' moment that was Bruno Fernandes' penalty miss. Followed by the inexplicably painful final 20 minutes against a 10-man Leeds United who should have been put to bed well beforehand.

Talking of the Leeds game, I have to take some responsibility here. First for something good, and then for something quite bad. Two 'assists', technically.

Any time an opposing defender at Emirates Stadium makes a back pass that is heading between the goal posts I shout 'Leave it!' Now, the goalkeeper can't hear it - I'm at least 50 yards away and in a crowd of 60,000 people - and all it really does is annoy the people around me (although they've heard it hundreds of times and therefore now ignore it). Yet this time... Meslier makes the mistake, Eddie nips in, and Marksy takes the credit and the 'assist'. As I pointed out to all and sundry at the time...

But then... as Leeds prepared to take their first corner of the game I pointed out to my daughter sitting beside me that Arsenal had not let in a goal all season directly from a corner; from no less than 188 attempts. Cue Llorente's stunning volley, and a volley of abuse from my offspring. Well deserved it was too.

By which time, of course, Arsenal should have been well out of sight. 2-0 up in no time, Leeds a man down - crazy challenge from Ayling, by the way - and with a host of chances to be at least 5 goals ahead. In my opinion Arsenal started relaxing - which you simply cannot do - and paid the price for it. And of course it could have been worse - those last 20 minutes were painful, as were the latter stages at West Ham - but the points were bagged and that was that.

Which left Arsenal 4 points clear of Tottenham, with just three games to go. As you know, the first of those is of course the NLD. But I'm not nervous...

Whether Tottenham had drawn or lost at Anfield on Saturday night was immaterial, really (a thumping loss would of course have been considerably more preferable). Just as long as they didn't do the unthinkable and do to Liverpool what they'd done twice to Manchester City this season. Extraordinary, in fact, that they've managed to amass no less than 8 points out of 12 in matches against those two sides this season, yet still find themselves 'languishing' in fifth spot. It's a function of the Conte's 'Italian' methodology, I guess, that they're much better on the counter-attack than when they have to take the game to their opponents.

Which leads me on to a preview of the game. And there are several aspects to it that bear a bit of discussion.

Firstly, there's the question of how much Tottenham will be motivated by the match having been called off on its original date due to Arsenal taking maximum advantage of the Premier League's Covid regulations. Probably a bit of a red herring - for all the outrage at the time - and here we are now in any case. There are surely more important motivating factors than that, I'd have thought.

From their point of view, team selection is easy. We've not heard about any new injury concerns in their camp, so they'll surely line up as they've done for most of this year. They have issues at wing back, however, and these are areas that I'm sure that Arteta will be looking to target.

The news from the Arsenal camp is of course a little more worrying. Already without Partey and Tierney - and any solution that Arteta can muster to the latter's continued absence is at the very least imperfect, with Tomiyasu looking uncomfortable at times at left back on Sunday (but still surely the best alternative), there are doubts as to whether Ben White is ready to step back into the side. And also some concerns about Bukayo Saka. Both of these two must surely be well inside Arsene Wenger's famous 'red zone' on fatigue levels.

So it's complete guess work as to how Arsenal will line up. If White is fit, Arteta has to decide whether to slot him back in alongside Gabriel - thus leaving the option of bringing Holding on late to shore up the defences - or to match Tottenham's formation up, as he did at Stamford Bridge. 

There are two deciding factors to weigh up here. Adding a defender means losing an attacker. Obviously. But if Saka isn't fit to start, for me it's a 'no brainer' and that's what he should do. After all, Arsenal don't need to win this game; a draw would more than suffice. If Saka is fit to start, then perhaps stick to a four. Because they have to attack, and Arsenal's forward line has dynamic capabilities in transition and on the counter-attack. Interesting...

Of course, in Kane and Son - the most successful combination for combined goals and assists in Premier League history (which by the way is Not A Trophy!) - Tottenham possess a massive threat. But the key is to force them to play in front of our defence. If they get in behind, they are frankly deadly. Therefore the key is 'What we have; we hold'. And what we have at kick-off is a point.

Of course, they do have clear weaknesses, as I mentioned. Sessgnon is much better going forward than defending. And Emerson Royal is simply not very good; I'd be expecting Martinelli to inflict some damage on him. In midfield, Xhaka and Elneny should match up fairly well against Hojbjerg and Bentancur. But a key tactical factor will be how Arteta chooses to deal with Kane dropping onto midfield. Does he let him go and stay solidly behind the ball, or does he detail somebody to track him? We shall see.

For what it's worth, I've not spoken to a single Tottenham fan over the last week who is confident of victory this evening. But that, of course, makes no difference at all to what happens later. It's not just about bragging rights; there's so much more at stake.

Either way, this is massive. For all that Arsenal's fate will remain in their own hands even if they lose, I'd much prefer Tottenham's final two games to Arsenal's. The visit to Newcastle next weekend might be very tricky. But I wouldn't expect anything less than victory over an Everton side who firstly aren't very good - they managed to fail to beat Watford last night, after all - and secondly may actually be safe by the time they walk out onto the Emirates pitch on May 22nd.

Anyway, it's one game at a time. For some it's very much 'squeaky bum time'. But I'm not nervous.

It could even be St Totteringham's Day today, for all we know. I'm not banking on that, but... COYG!