There’s a full set of Premier League fixtures tonight and tomorrow night, and with another home game Arsenal have a good chance to get more points under their belts before they face the old enemy at Wembley Stadium on Saturday.
Arsenal takes on Bournemouth on Wednesday night, looking to build on the win over Southampton on Sunday, and it’s the first of a machine-gun blast of fixtures between now and mid-March.
They’ll play five times in just over two weeks, with three Premier League fixtures and the two games against Rennes in the Europa League. It should have been six but because of Wolves’ involvement in the FA Cup that game has been postponed and will have to be slotted in somewhere in the run-in.
After that there’s a two week gap without a game because of an Interlull before they start again at home against Newcastle. It could be two weeks during which they’re feeling hugely encouraged, or one which demands a great deal of introspection because of results going into it.
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The two games against Tottenham and Man United will be massive. Not just because of where they are in the table and that they could almost be viewed as top four ‘six pointers’, but because it feels like this team could really use decent results against the other big teams to help it kick on a bit.
Recently, Arsenal has had underwhelming performances. The most recent fantastic showing was a 4-2 against them Tottenham back in November, a performance which had many of us hoping it would be just what the team needed to drive forward.
It didn’t quite work out like that for various reasons, but as we head into the business end of the season it’d be very useful to replicate that kind of performance this weekend.
The football Arsenal has played this season hasn’t always been easy on the eye, even if we can all understand the reasons behind that. A new manager finding his way in a new country; a squad which needs more work in the transfer market; a lack of backing in the January window; more than a touch of ill-fortune with three devastating long-term injuries – and the inability to maintain any kind of consistency of selection at the back has played into their defensive issues in a big way.
The two games against Spurs and United are a chance to change the Premier League table, but also the way people feel about what they’re doing and where they are.
It might sound a bit existential, you can’t measure it with data or charts, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less important or any less part of the football supporting experience.
We talk about confidence and momentum all the time, this is part of it, it feeds into that, and it’s just not just something fans feel but players too. It’s a big 10 days for Unai Emery in that sense, so let’s see where we are after United at home on Sunday week.