This week saw Arsenal begin their “death run” as they drew against Villa and lost to Man Utd, lets see what LadyArse has to say about it…

Arsenal headed in to what some supporters are calling the ‘Death Run’ with a not-quite-deadly display away at Villa Park. Villa, Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool. What fun. For those who have masochistic tendencies.

The only talking point to come out of the Villa match was Martin O’Neill’s ridiculous reaction to something Wenger didn’t even say. The fact that he was still yammering on about it three days later shows that MON might be feeling the pressure a little bit as every Arsenal fan thought sure that once he had read what Wenger had actually said he would realise he’d made a tit of himself. Not so. Whether he chose not to read the full statement, or read it and thought his stance placed him in closer proximity to Alex Ferguson, who knows, but what is certain is that the story will now go down in history as one in which Wenger called Villa a long ball team when he actually said:

“It was a very difficult game, because they stopped us from playing when we had the ball and when they had the ball, because they played a very long-ball game and closed us down.

“We didn’t always find our passing game and we know when we come here what you get and we were not disappointed.

“They play a very efficient English game with long balls and are very physical and they did do that very well and they are a good side on the counter-attack.

“I hope they have a good run now against all the other teams because they are quality, are well organised, have a strong spirit, and are very strong physically.

“The midfield four of Milner, Young, Downing and Petrov don’t stop running and all these players can score goals so I think they have a good chance.

“Although Villa were physical, it was not a dirty game. It was a committed game. It was a fair game but not dirty at all. For me, it was physical in a positive way.

They were committed, go for the balls and it is part of football.”

What an insult huh? Once again, a media-fuelled frenzy overshadowed any discussion of football when it came to Arsenal. It’s almost as if the press don’t want to talk about how well Arsenal are doing, how this match took them to 10 unbeaten, as it might highlight the fact that every single one of them gave Arsenal no chance of getting in to the top four. In challenging for the title, Arsenal are just making chumps out of the whole lot of them and they don’t like it.

But Arsenal fans didn’t have time to spend worrying about what crazy-man MON and the media had to say, we had Man United next up, and that, many thought, would go some way to defining Arsenal’s season.

Nobody gave us a chance. All the pundits picked either a Man U win or a draw, completely oblivious to the fact that Arsenal played United off the pitch at Old Trafford and only lost because Diaby scored and OG and Wayne Rooney dived to win yet another penalty against Arsenal. They seemed oblivious to the fact that Arsenal were stronger now, had at least half-a-squad available compared to the three players we went to Manchester with, and had already chased down an 11-point gap to place us within touching distance of Chelsea.

And so it turned out the pundits were right. United did manage to win, but they didn’t so much win it as, once again, we handed it to them on a plate. We had more chances, but so woeful was our finishing that we couldn’t take advantage of them. In goal Arsenal currently have the worst goalkeeper in the Premier League. He is so fucking clueless I wonder if he is, in fact, actually a goalkeeper. I often wonder if he even knows what a football is, such is his ability to not be anywhere near it at any point during the match.

Arsenal were the architects of their own downfall once again.

So no doubt everyone will write Arsenal off, and so be it if that’s what you have to do. I didn’t write them off after Chelsea and I’m not going to do so after United. If I tell you that Man U managed to win the league despite picking up only one point out of the last 18 available (prior to today) against so-called top four teams what would you say? It isn’t the matches against the other top-4 teams which wins you this league, it never has been. They are just an added bonus.

Next up and it’s Stamford Bridge. Nobody gives us a hope in hell of getting anything out of that game, but if Everton can go there and get a draw why shouldn’t we be able to? You go an write them off if you want, you go and say ‘we’re shit’ ‘we’ve blown it’ or whatever else you want to say.

I know what I saw, and this Arsenal team WILL be there or thereabouts come May.

Laugh all you like. I believe. As a supporter, how could I do otherwise?

Related posts:

1. Arsenal only nine wins away from being Champions
2. It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much
3. Am I Bovvered?..
4. An Injury Too Far
5. How to dive like a pro

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