Hello and hope you’re doing well? Sunday the 10th of November will witness at 4.30pm (western European time) the Mighty Cannon hauling itself over to Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea FC.

Let me start by saying I have (thank whatever there is to thank) no solutions or answers, I’m someone that Trotsky has condemned to the ash-heap of life (thanks). But to me losers questions are as important as winners answers in our strange existence and especially for our beloved Arsenal football club, and I’m sure the forces of flux and mutation agree with me, but that doesn’t make me right or wrong, nor is it my aim.

Mostly the grey clouds of unhappiness hover over our club, and hover causes bovver? Do we as human sometimes like to feel unhappy? Is it a case of focusing on we don’t want which indicates that which we do want? All forms of aggression and shouting are us reaching out somehow, for help? But as we are shouting out for help does this actually solve the problem we are asking for help with? It might make us feel a bit more happy -according to some psychological systems of analysis, anger on the psychological scale is a notch above depression, and often people will get angry to try and lift themselves out of their depressive state, obviously I’m talking about very mild depression and not some debilitating psychological state that needs a much more prescribed and long-term help.

How bad are Arsenal at the moment? Are we being evaluated on a shifting scale, that perhaps is more than one scale of judgement? The history of Arsenal, players individual ideas, fans, the media, social media, football history in total, and those scales of expectancy, ideas of success and failure, its an endless list of the subtle and not so subtle all from variable, relative viewpoints?

One thing that makes me sad this season is how close we keep coming to getting the results we want, close against Inter, Liverpool, City, you could make the case against Newcastle. I realise that in such a demanding world that close isn’t good enough, but I was conditioned in a demanding world too but at the same time less when it came to football, as there was no internet to vent spleen (for good or bad) and you just had to deal with loss and disappointment in another way. This might make me out of date, but can there really be any ‘out of date’? I feel highly skeptical of Boomer ideas of youth being ‘all knowing’ (life/relevancy ends at 40)and aged  being demented and irrelevant? Thought is thought and its ever changing, and doesn’t really go out of date as the whole of literature and philosophical thinking still stays important even if only as cause and effect, perhaps progress might not mean anything other than progress, any connotation of good gets lost in definition and in time keeps flip-flopping and changing: on and on?

And the Wenger shadow is a mighty one.

I recently saw Bobby Kennedy talking not long before he died, he seemed measured, polite and intelligent in his speech, unlike those in similar positions today, who seem to reduce everything to an ad hominem argument, which seems sort of nuts really? Of course the discussions of yore down the pub are now replaced by monetised You Tubers, and that makes me suspicious of anything that being said ( clickety click bait, staged armies of good and drama to show thy careth more than others etc)…and in reaction to all that I wrote this, as sometimes I find absolutist observances totally overwhelming and not ‘true’ or the whole picture. You too?

How can we tell what good or bad in the long run? If we lose on Sunday against Chelsea, then it will be the final nail the (pundit professed) coffin for Arsenal’s ‘title challenge’, but hammered by whom? Pronounced dead in November, yet in all competitions? But what if by losing, the pressures off and then we might be able to start regrouping? Of course I don’t want us to lose, and hope we are so fired up from the bullshit at the San Siro that Chelsea get a mauling. And even if we lose there’s no guarantee of us pulling it together, lets face there’s always pressure at a PL club, and with no escape. And I’m sure if we lose by some margin Arteta’s head will be called for? Who will be the available saviour to replace him?

 Is there any punditry/analysis in the world that can make a team pull together? It tends to be a private thing between the staff and players? Question is, can anyone’s blogs or YT shows actually help the club and players? How many even try? Blogs tend just to be people conversing back and forth and hence their lack of interest these days, but tv screen punditry can do massive damage, hence there massive interest these days and which ex-player is neutral or even correct? There’s no objectivity so that’s easy to cross off the list. Perhaps its a false premise to be the hindsight expert when the real experts are on the pitch faced with nano-second decisions? Its tough, when as a player the responsibility of multi-millions depend on you to swerve them away from agony and on to ecstasy, knowing that in that nano-second you can be a messiah or pariah? And then there’s the financial responsibility that comes as a player, for the self and others and the club.

Three weeks ago who would have suspected either Chelsea or Forest as contenders for the title race? In four weeks time will they still be there? Perhaps Arteta’s lost the dressing room, its too early for me to say, injuries and red cards( that haven’t been given universally in PL matches) don’t add up to the tribe of the lost dressing room, yet?

The difference between us and Chelsea is three goals scored. So why are they still in the title race and we aren’t? Forest are one point ahead are title contenders? And if we lose we will be one win behind Chelsea, so even if we lose why are they contenders and we aren’t? Of course that makes us three wins off the top spot(s), I don’t have crystal balls, if I did aside to being of great medical intrigue I might have a squint at the future, and I would expect mostly its not that which we think it will be?

My worry is, aside of the team not connecting, that we are walking around in some semi-broken victim mentality due to a hangover from injuries, injustices, red cards, adjusting to new players plus some losing self-confidence and us not quite getting over the line etc This can be rectified.

” oh my word, look up there in the sky, there’s a sus scrofa domesticus flying?”

” no, surely its a stratocumulus that looketh like sus scrofa domesticus flying?”

One last irritating point. What are linesmen looking at during corners, their iPhone? Bruno G grabs Saliba and hauls him to the ground and its no penalty, yet if this happens in open play then its penalised? So pulling players down is ok as long as its at a corner? Why is VAR not looking at it, too much to do? Of course if someone was watching there would be so many penalties that it would stop happening? Oh brother!

Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces that I’m sure have made you feel like going off and sit on a hot beach with blue seas and blue skies and wandering what time is happy hour?

Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses! 

COYG and keep on keepin’ on!

Mills