Hello and how are you? So, after an utterly enjoyable sojourn in the Champions League, we come back down to earth with a bump, and take another grind at the Premier League. This time against our old chums West Ham at the London stadium. KO 4.30pm UK time.

I’m sure you know already the ins and outs of this one; West Ham really need to beat us in order to stay up, but (potentially) it’s the only time you’ll find Leeds or Tottenham fans rooting for us to win, as they also need us to win in order to help them secure a place in the PL next season.

And we need a victory in order to keep on track and win the league; a draw isn’t really of any help whatsoever. That’s a lot of need cooking in the cauldron of hope and potential victory.

If we lose this, from my perspective it isn’t about bottling anything, more not deserving. But games on paper aren’t games played out; any permutation is possible with this one? They know we can buckle under pressure but at the same time we’ve proved we’ve cast off the League Cup final hangover and there’s no reason to go light-headed.

Merino and Timber! be still AWOL for the Gun. I’m Kind of hoping Arteta will play the victory side ( Fulham and Atletico) with MSL in. He didn’t actually say it, but Mike Love got it attached to him in the demise of the Smile sessions: don’t fk with the formula. But what do I know? Nix, Im sure Arteta has a better understanding of this one.

Nobodys doubtful or missing for the Irons.

The boys at Statto HQ having been disappointed with a trip to the overrated Venice Biennale, were now happily back and calculating how many bricks were used to line the Blisworth tunnel, but were kind of enough to stop and rumble up some stats for us. They reckon that West Ham have a 18.2 % chance of winning and The Arsenal have a 59.1 % chance of being victorious.

Next up, the penultimate game of this year’s PL against already down Burnley, at ours. SO COYG!

Mills

I don’t know about you, but this game fills me with fear and trepidation. As they say “It’s the hope that kills you” Of the 3 remaining games, I see this as the hardest. The jitters I’m getting are reminiscent of how I felt for every game when Arsene was leading us, and that’s a good thing, because I miss those feelings, perhaps you could call them the feelings a real fan gets?

May the force be with us.

Pedantic George.