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Every time Arsenal get a bad result, the circus music that has threatened to soundtrack this season, rises a little higher. League Cup? Sure we didn’t want it badly – brush off the circumstances of having been bullied by Manchester City in the second half – and you can accept a losing outing to Wembley.
OK, what about the FA Cup, the nation’s most romantic trophy – and Arsenal’s most successful competition? Nah, we didn’t need it this year, we know what we really want. Besides, Southampton are the form team in the Championship, and we played a heavily rotated XI.
But, the music.
It just so happens that these two soft crunch games have arrived before the real crunch time kicks in. The big dilemma is what do we take from them?
The individual errors, the poor performances, ghosting on the big stage, should we be worried? A ball hasn’t been kicked in the Premier League charge since Max Dowman ran the length of the Emirates pitch three weeks ago to bury Everton, and yet everything has changed.
Like the lead we’ve built in the Premier League, progressing deep in four competitions bought us a slip up or two. For example, we can lose at the Etihad and everything will still be fine (laughs nervously). The problem is that going out of the cups has stolen our margin for error.
Most Arsenal fans really only dream of seeing the Premier League held aloft by Eberechi Eze in the May sunshine at Selhurst Park, Bukayo Saka beaming on the upper deck of an open top bus cruising down Gillespie Road. Don’t we all?
But oh how an early settler in Lisbon would help the mood.
Find more from Scarlet Katz Roberts at the Goal Difference podcast
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