Hello and how are you? I already know the answer! Sunday the 24^th of May sees the close of the Premier League and champions(!) Arsenal will make a short trip down to south London and take on Crystal Palace at the Nest. KO 4.00pm local time.

Well, we did it! Happy days toy town! It was a long hard journey. Normally on Saturday nights I watch Ghost Theory, because they really make me laugh, but they couldn’t put any videos up this week, so I ended up (somehow?) trawling through some of the 2020/21 archive on PA.

It’s all there, a fascinating document, witnessing Arteta getting lost in the reorganisation of the club, people leaving PA in their droves, unhappiness, frustration, popular players leaving. In the end I stopped, of course, if I had carried on reading it would have led me to better times. And eventually the best of times.

Why am I mentioning this? Because one thing struck me, how an utterly absurd and (probably) illogical a game being played on a planet at the edge of just one system in perhaps two trillion, spinning at 17,000km per hour, can so deeply weave itself into your emotive life and the lives of others, a vast stream, and that stream includes those designated as enemies.

Yet as Tuesday’s nights wave upon wave of euphoric joy showed us, a relative sense of unity can be achieved. Arsenal (like much of the world) was divided into many factions and perspectives, yet oddly everyone wanted the same thing, (just believing in different methods) and when crowning glory turned up on Tuesday night everyone came together in a collective sense of joy, putting aside niggles and differences.

And since that evening our lives have visibly changed, our emotive outlook and our day-to-day feelings. From now on our lives will not be the same as they were for the last 22 years. But it is striking how all life is in flux but major events change us more, bring us closer and walls do come tumbling down, even if just for a while?

For me, and perhaps for you, today’s game about Palace is just about us lifting the trophy and getting through the game injury free and we turn our eyes to the Champions League final and Palace to the Conference Final ( good luck Palace).

I went around to Statto HQ and they had left a note pinned to the door. It read: ‘we can’t give you any clear stats as its not sure who’s even going to play but based on prior games : Crystal Palace have a 22.5% chance of winning and champions of the Premier league, Arsenal have 53.6%.’

Well, that’s it for this season, thank you again to everyone here for your support and friendship. We did it! Next up a trip to Budapest as we take on PSG in the Champions league final. SO COYG!

Mills

Well champions we are, we celebrate while looking forward to what might be our first Champions League win. It’s all dizzyingly exciting. Unity has broken out across social media and we all are winners for now. Arteta’s critics are muted and his adorers are vindicated. it’s like a game of football has broken out in no mans land, again “for now”. Well I “for now” will keep my powder dry until after Saturday, when I wil have more to say on the subject, a lot more.

I couldn’t care less about todays game, not the selection, the tactic or even the result, by I can’t wait to soke up the atmosphere with the guard of honour and the presentation of the most coveted prize in English football, and I include the Champions League, for me THE BIG ONE is already in the bag.

Drink it all in, these moment are as rare as hen’s teeth.

Pedantic George.