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TOP 4 TROPHY RECRUITMENT DEPENDENT, WHAT YOU GOT EDU?

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It’s Monday morning.

Sip your coffee. Take a bite of your cruelty-free avocado toast. Breath.

It’s going to be ok.

Arsenal drew a game. It was a poor result. But these things happen with developing teams. In fact, they happen at the absolute highest level, Manchester City also drew a game that has opened up the title race again.

The Top 4 Trophy is going to be very difficult this season, there are a batch of teams competing for the honour of Champions League football and we are right in the mixer.

We couldn’t be any closer. We are two points off 4th (United). We have a game in hand over them. Spurs are on level points with Arsenal, they have a game in hand over us, but we still have to play them. Remember at the start of the season, the goal was to be within spitting distance come Jan. Well, we’re there heading into February. We are on target.

If I’d given this position to you at the start of the season, what would you have said?

Yes please.

If I’d have floated this as a reality to you after the first three games, what would you have said to me?

GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME WITH YOUR SHIT PREDICTIONS PEDRO. I remember the conversations we had after those first three games.

‘Arteta will be done by November’

‘Our season is finished’

‘The new signings didn’t move the needle’

We shouldn’t have listened to the bedwetters that called time on our season then, so why are we now? Honestly, imagine being around these hysterical drama queens in the real world. No, I can imagine. We’ve all worked with them. They are cowards. You don’t want them on your team because they roll over at the first sign of adversity.

The fans that go IRL are there in the good times and they’ll be there in the bad times when the players need them. I’m so bored of these meek edge-lords that want to call time after every bump in the road.

Europe is the target this season. The fact we are in the mixer for top 4 now and most fans genuinely believe we can make it is because Arteta has changed minds and given us a squad to believe in. The shifting sands of how good we are doesn’t change the actual target. Stating what the target actually is doesn’t mean I have no standards or ambition. I’ve been pretty consistent about how hard this will be even when we’ve been winning. I am extremely ambitious, but being ambitious has to have a little grounding in reality.

We have the youngest team in the league, there are teams around us better equipped for the charge, our squad is painfully thin.

… but we can do it.

I’ve been going back and forth on how likely that will be without signings. If we can get to where we are now with this squad, logic would say we can go all the way… except that doesn’t account for those we’ve lost along the way this season.

We started the season with a striker we thought might return to 25 goals a season form. He’s gone. We replaced him with Lacazette who doesn’t score or hit the target.

We thought Balogun or Eddie might make the jump, neither have, we just have to accept that.

Lacazette is not signing a new deal. He plays every game at 29. There will be an injury or a dip. If we lose him, our whole game falls to pieces.

We also have to be honest about our injuries, we haven’t had many this season, now the squad is creaking. After every loss, one of the biggest pains on my sensibilities is reading people cite Arteta waving his arms as the issue (Conte doesn’t get the same treatment after losing 3 games on the bounce to Chelsea)… against Burnley, we were missing Partey, Xhaka and Tomi. Our squad can’t handle those sort of losses. Those sort of losses are par the course when you are in Europe, but we’ve avoided them this season. That luck might not continue.

Patino hasn’t made the jump. Ains wasn’t good enough in midfield. Jack Wilshere wasn’t the comeback king. It’s clear we need to bolster our midfield with players that will help us move our game forward, now.

Does that happen in January? I don’t know.

A learning I think we have all taken from this window: Teams don’t tend to let useful players leave at the start of the window. If Fiorentina can get 5 games out of Vlahovic this January, why wouldn’t they max him out? If Juve needs Melo as backup for their bench, why wouldn’t they wait until the end of the month to move him on?

Signing players is Edu’s job. Let’s be straight here: He’s never missed when it comes to getting deals over the line. Sometimes they stink. But he never comes home empty-handed. So we have to trust that he has something brewing.

The tension from proper supporters that understand the beautiful game is all on the signings. It’s not on #ArtetaOut hashtags or the weak-kneed bed-wetters that give up at the first sign of difficulty. It’s focused on what we can do to augment a really good 16 players.

Recruit well, the fans get a lift, the players get a boost, we land a needed jolt of squad dopamine post-break.

Fuck it up? Well, you fear legs will tire as players realise their workload is going to be very high for the rest of the games.

There are 17 more games this season, that’s 51 points. Top 4 is firmly in our hands. The club can shape the end of the season if they invest.

The big question is – will they?

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST. This one was heated. You’ll enjoy.

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