49, 49 Undefeated

It was a very good weekend for Arsenal considering they didn’t play and they went out in the last 32 of the Europa League on Thursday night. Firstly only one of the teams ahead of us in the fight for fifth (or maybe even fourth) place managed to win and we have to consider ourselves in with a shout if we can put a decent run together. Secondly what seemed inevitable for Liverpool this season suddenly ended as they fell short of matching the “Invincibles” unbeaten Premier League season.

Liverpool might have the league as good as won already and the pressure was mounting on them to beat all sorts of records on the way to lifting the title. Three of those records went by the wayside when they lost 3-0 away to the team in second last place in the league on Saturday evening. Not only did they fail to match our unbeaten season of 2003/4, but they failed to better our record of 49 unbeaten games and 55 continuous games in which we scored.

The detractors will say there is nothing special about going a season unbeaten and Liverpool have already won as many games as Arsenal won that season. Their points haul so far is certainly incredibly impressive, but the level of consistency we showed to go unbeaten for the whole season was an incredible feat too and Liverpool learned how you cannot let your standards slip for even one game if you want to match it. I have no doubt they will go on to win the league, but you can’t deny their form has dipped since their two week mid season break.

There have been a few times since that incredible 2004 season when I thought others were in with a chance of matching Arsenal as Chelsea and Manchester City in particular seemed almost certain to do so. Each of them failed in their attempts just like Liverpool did and our incredible achievement remains ours alone with the exception of a 19th century team doing so well over 100 years before us. In a season full of disappointments so far that has to be one that we can at least celebrate.

It’s FA Cup action for Arsenal tonight when a place in the last eight is up for grabs at Portsmouth. They’re two leagues below us and on the face of it we couldn’t have asked for a better draw unless it was at home, but Fratton Park is never an easy place to get a result. The result from Thursday night will still be fresh in the memories of the players and they have to show a reaction to that result by advancing in the FA Cup tonight.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mikel Arteta make wholesale changes to the team, but he has to be sure he has enough strength and quality in the starting 11 to get the job done. If he does make a lot of changes I hope he has a very strong bench to call on in case it is needed to get us over the line or back into the game. The FA Cup might not be the most glamorous trophy any more, but it’s still a route to the Europa League and we’re struggling on that front at the moment.

Champions League qualification might be our goal for this season, but the FA Cup is our only back up plan if our hopes of making it or the Europa League through our final league position fail. I hope to see the likes of Gabriel Martinelli, Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock, Lucas Torreira, Matteo Guendouzi and Rob Holding staking a claim for more game time tonight and given what happened last Thursday they should all believe they have a chance of getting it. I’ll be happy to progress to the next round however we do it and then let the players concentrate on putting some league points on the board over the next few weeks.

That’s it for today.