Morning all.
It feels like there’s barely time to breathe at this point of the season. Which makes sense when you see the stat doing the rounds via Nick Wright’s Sky Sports piece about how, with 57 games under our belts this season … so far … it’s the most of any team across Europe’s major leagues. To be fair, Atletico Madrid are second with 55, but given their safe position in the Champions League places in La Liga, they might play that sandwich guy against Valencia this weekend. Our lads will have to dig in against Fulham on Saturday evening.
At the start of the season, as we looked at the recruitment and the players brought in, the general conclusion was that Arsenal were building a squad to actively compete on four fronts. And, despite some high anxiety at this moment in time, I think that’s pretty much what we’ve done. We’re top of the Premier League, and have been for most of the season; we’re in the semi-finals of the Champions League; we made the final of the EFL Cup, and the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.
That is, by any measure, a competitive side. It remains to be seen if it’s competitive enough, but hopefully there’s a final push from these lads to get us over the line. I think part of the anxiety we feel is that whatever you think about the construction of the squad and certain individuals within it, everyone – unless they are wilfully blind – can recognise that these players have never, ever, shirked the hard work. It feels like it has been a Herculean effort. We are, mixing our mythological metaphors, Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill, and unless we get it over the top this time, you worry that we never will.
All that energy to get it so close, then we have to start again from the bottom? After a World Cup? With loads of the players already carrying aches and strains and niggles and worse? I know that’s top level sport, but I do genuinely worry about the psychological impact of another second place finish – not just for the fans, but for the players and the manager too.
It’s such a difficult one too, because you want to create a winning culture, and I do think that’s important, but you could ask if progression in the cup competitions has been useful in the pursuit of the biggest prizes. But, you can’t throw games, that’s not how you do it. A Carabao Cup final win could have injected winning energy, instead it felt like it depleted our batteries at exactly the wrong time.
Is the answer to ensure recruitment is better? For reasons only really Mikel Arteta can fully explain, Christian Norgaard has been basically unused in the Premier League, and if we rightly have some concerns about the fatigue felt by Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice, there’s clearly a connection there. If Norgaard was seen as viable to start games and take minutes off them, they wouldn’t be as tired. I don’t think it’s a failure of his professionalism in any way, but clearly one of recruitment because we brought in a player whose minutes in the Premier League (56′) tell the entire story.
I’ve seen people talk about starting him on Saturday against Fulham to rest one of the main two, and yes, that makes sense. But in such a key game at this point of the season after never starting in the league for us, is that likely? I have doubts, but maybe needs must. I thought the subs on Wednesday were also about preservation of minutes for some, and useful minutes for others. The reality is we have four Premier League games left, and hopefully two more in Europe. Six 90s, plus injury time, the boulder getting closer and closer to the summit, we’re gonna need all hands on deck.
Let’s see what, if anything, Mikel Arteta might say about it in his press conference later today. Meanwhile …
Arseblog April Donations 2026 Update
As you know, every April since 2022 we have donated 100% of our Patreon revenue (and a bit more) to good causes. I strongly feel that in a world where the grotesque inequality in wealth and resources has never been more pronounced, it’s incumbent on Arseblog as an organisation to give something back – because we’re lucky enough to be in a position to do so. For me, it would be wrong not to.
So, here’s the breakdown of what we’ve done with that subscription revenue, and contributions from the team, this year.
€25,000 to the Arsenal Foundation to support the ongoing fundraiser which is now at an incredible level, over £600,000 raised this year alone –
€15,000 to Hugh’s House (https://www.hughshouse.ie/), a charity in Dublin that provide free accommodation to families of sick children all over Ireland, to enable them to be close to the hospitals and not incur the outrageous costs of hotels while their kids are hospitalised and being cared for. Sometimes those stays are long-term too.
€10,000 to The Willow Foundation ( the charity set up by Arsenal legend Bob Wilson which provides special days for seriously ill young adults.
€10,000 to UNICEF (https://www.unicef.ie/), an organisation whose work for children around the world, who suffer from war, violence, displacement, famine and more, has never been more necessary.
€10,000 to Madra (https://www.madra.ie/), who rescue, rehabilitate and re-home dogs here in Ireland. If they can’t find a home, they give these dogs a place to live forever, they never euthanise healthy dogs, which is an unfortunate reality of some pounds etc. If you read regularly, you know how much I love dogs.
That makes a grand total of €70,000 for this month, and since we began in 2022, Arseblog has donated €291,000 to good causes – you can find the breakdown of that and the beneficiaries here:
None of this would be possible without your continued support on Patreon. It not only allows us to do everything we do with the site in terms of content, it enables us to do this as well, and for me it has now become a cornerstone of how we’d like to represent ourselves in the world. Even if you’re not a Patreon member, reading the blogs and the news, listening to the podcasts etc, means you’re a part of this community too, and that means a lot.
On behalf of all the Arseblog team, I want to let you know how much we appreciate your support, and how it enables us to do a little bit of good in the crazy world we live in right now.
❤️
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Right, I’m gonna leave it there for this morning, but for some extra this morning Tim’s column is a must-read, there’s an Arsecast below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, and we’ll have a Fulham preview pod on Patreon later on.
For now, have a good one folks.