There are two ways of looking at the world. One says, “yesterday was crap so life is crap and I must change everything to make it all better.” The other says, “yesterday was crap, but it is just a day, most days in the past were ok, and by and large life is ok. Tomorrow will be good.”
The collective vision of some football fans is the former which is a bit of a shame because it is the way that leads to depression. If however you can convince yourself that tomorrow will be good, not least because taken one day as a measure of reality is not very helpful, then you can be happier.
On this basis I think David Oooooooospina is a positive person, because he’s already by-passed the defeat to Monaco, and instead is thinking about the way Arsenal has risen up the league after a poor first part of the season. He’s now talking second place – and my view is, “good for him.” There is nothing to be gained by moaning on and on about the performance against Monaco or all those early draws which cost us points, any more than there was anything much to be gained by thinking on and on about the defeat to Villa in the opening match the previous season.
So David Ospina has said words to the effect that we ought to be focussed on catching Manchester City.
And certainly that makes sense. While some of the press saw the match against Everton as an irrelevance, the crowd at the Emirates didn’t. There was a lot of noise, and a real appreciation of the way the players sought to make up for their earlier defeat. Six wins in seven in the league is trophy winning form and most people in the ground appreciated that.
Of course it might be way too late to catch Chelsea, short of their helping us out with a spectacular collapse, but a solid run, and a nice win next Monday in the Cup against Manchester United could set up the season very sweetly.
Retaining the cup and coming second – I’d settle for that as a prelude to next season’s serious challenge with Alexis, Ospina, Gabriel, Bellerin and Coquelin all bedded in. And maybe Debouchy going through a year without an injury. Oh yes, and Ramsey and Wilshere playing together for a number of games.
There is also the point that Manchester City seem to be faltering just as Arsenal are developing. It may have escaped many people’s attention but Arsenal have not only won just one game fewer than Manchester City, Arsenal are on the up while City are on the down. The difference is just four points.
Now I’ve followed Arsenal for long enough to know that they can kick a solid lifetime supporter to the ground just when he’s talking them up and hoping for the best, but the club is now in a run of pushing through the results, game after game. It is not always beautiful, it is not always utterly exciting, and my fingernails have not come out of all this very well, but even so…
As David Ospina said, “It is game after game. We know we are close to them [City] now but we need to concentrate on ourselves and not think about them. We will keep doing our job, picking up points and then see what happens. We were not nervous. We were sad after the Monaco result but in football you have to pick yourselves up quickly. Obviously it was a tough night on Wednesday but you have always got to bounce back and this result was a great way to show that we had done that.
“After what happened against Monaco, the only thing that was important was to win the next game to continue increasing our confidence and keeping heading up the league. Now we are already thinking about the next one, which is QPR.”
What I think really can help Arsenal at this point is the fact that after such a heavy load of injuries in the early part of the season we now have some breathing space. Rosicky, is looking as young and exciting as ever, Theo Walcott must be ready for a chance soon, Welbeck looks good when he is on, and Giroud showed that he really can come back from a terrible game and do what he is paid to do – score a goal.
In fact if you look at the things the players are saying you can see that they are all being pretty clear as to where things stand. Tomas Rosicky said this weekend, “It was difficult as we were affected by the loss to Monaco, but you go through disappointments throughout the season, you just have to fight through it. It was very important to win and for the confidence of the whole team.”
There is also a sense in the Arsenal camp that they have the easiest run in of the top five clubs, plus, although everyone would have been happier with a decent win against Monaco, it does mean Arsenal are playing on two rather than three fronts.
A win against Man U next monday would lift morale further, and put the Monaco result right out of mind and allow the club, and the majority of its supporters, to focus totally on a positive future, rather than thinking back to the rather painful start to the season.
Second, and a Cup win. I think it is possible.