Month by Month Review of Arsenal’s Title Winning Season

33:41This was the period in the season where you're like, oh, my God, you can't score past Arsenal. Their defense is ridiculous. They're set-piece FC. When they need a goal, like Atletico, If you remember the first half, it was a tough affair. And suddenly, we had our formula. Quick goal off a corner and then some open play goals to flow. So it was a dominant month for our Brazilian king. Was this when we went on that crazy run of not conceding a shot on target? I think a lot of these games are in that run. This is when we were also talking about could we beat that Chelsea record of goals conceded.

34:23It was definitely a month for the defenders. So I'll just pick Saliba. How do you like them apples, Elliot? Hey, take the piss out of me. I mean, if it keeps the doctor away, I could probably use one right now. I'll say Saliba because why not pick the center back pairing in a month when we were unbeatable defensively. Confidence index, for me, this one's easy. Now we're top of the league. Now we've beaten Atleti 4-0. We've won every game in the Champions League without conceding a goal. We're through in the League Cup, which everybody knows is a major priority for me. So it was the month where I started to think, okay, here we go.

34:56So I will say 9 out of 10. We ended this month feeling like we were headed towards being the team we thought. But I knew next month brought Tottenham. It brought Bayern. At the time, Tottenham were in a complete mess. So I wouldn't say 10 out of 10 because I thought November was going to be a month that would get me to 10 out of 10 depending on how things went. So 9 out of 10 for me. What about you, Tim? Yeah, 9 out of 10, definitely. my feeling about this month was you know we had those like I said top heavy start with some tough tough away games this was the month you looked at and said we should be winning most if not all of these games maybe Athleti but the rest we're clear favorites for and we ticked them off one by one didn't concede a shot on target and at that point I was thinking yeah there you go we've got through the really tough ones.

35:47And now when it comes to like the chaff, as it were, we're just dealing with them. And I felt that the season would probably continue in that vein. And I wasn't entirely right about that, to be fair. Yep.

36:02I'm going to go with the Sunderland game.

36:07So you were going to do the confidence index for October 1st? Is this a bit? Are you doing a bit? just to get me. Yeah, my confidence index at this point is 8. Okay, great. Okay, so since you've already told us, why the Sunderland game in November? Like, there's a couple of games you can pick from, but the Sunderland one was just, again, it was one of those scarring ones. Sometimes the downside is the one that stays with you more than the upside, and we definitely had upsides in this month. But, like, that was a time where we thought our defense was impenetrable, you can take shots if you like but they won't be on target they'd be blocked we had it covered and then we kind of saw a little bit of a team where uh we could get our back line discombobulated and it wasn't so much the back four was the screen in front of them and they had their big lads ballard and brobby and like you know it was the big game against uh granite jacka kind of we we're gone to his home but xaca coming home to the premier league and it seemed like a real occasion that was kind of a bubble burst we felt uh untouchable up to that point uh in fact the two games in november the first two games you know again clean sheet clean sheet and then the sunderland scored two it was like it just seemed out of nowhere it's like suddenly you find out you're mortal yeah yeah it was a gut punch and I remember thinking and and there were a bunch of moments this season where I thought this where I'm like does this happen to champions you know so besides kick at the death uh or not at the death but a late free kick a equalizer at the death at Sunderland and I kept thinking like champions score the winner at the death they don't have the winners or the equalizer scored against them and it was happening and I was thinking is it is this a sign is it a sign that it's not our season um but it's an interesting month tim because if you're looking for a moment of the month or a game of the month there's two big painful ones right the sunderland draw obviously hurt and i think the chelsea draw which was in this month just barely hurts a bit as well because it was 10 men right and and there was this sense that we should have done better but it has two of the highest highs of the season the 4-1 win over Spurs as a hat trick, and the 3-1 win over Bayern where we were quite superior to them.

38:37So which direction are you going to go? Yeah, I'm going to do a pool here and do neither of them. I love it. That's a pool, is it? Yes, it is. Yeah, I'm going with the hipster's choice. But I'll pick those up in my player of the month because there's relevance there for both of those games. I'm actually going with the win over Burnley on the 1st of November, the 2-0 away win. And again, a bit like the Fulham one, when I think of who this Arsenal team are and who they were over this season, I think this Burnley game is a fantastic expression of it. And I'll tell you why. I mean, first of all, you know, Jokeres goes off injured at halftime, having had a brilliant first half.

39:20And that is then, has consequence for the remainder of the month. Not entirely negative, but we had loads of attacking injuries. is that Sunderland game, we had three fit attackers and we couldn't sub them and we just got too tired. So I was able to kind of hand wave that a little bit. But the Burnley game, we were a little bit healthier, but basically we were 2-0 up away at Burnley at halftime. And at halftime, you're sitting there thinking this could be like four or five. What do we do? We shut the game down. So we didn't really look like scoring, but neither did they. and I just think that that's a really kind of pure expression of who we are even away at Burnley we said you know what we've got 2-0 let's take it and let's get out of here maybe preserve a bit of energy as well I felt that at the time I felt that was a kind of why kill ourselves trying to beat Burnley 5-0 we've got them 2-0 let's just like wrap it up and go home so I felt it was kind of intelligent at the time but i just think it's it's such an expression of who we are that we were two nil up at home away at burnley and our instinct was now let's close it out and go home yep paul didn't i do mine uh oh you did sunderland yeah so this time it's on me okay see so you've got to choose one of spurs or buy him well i mean that's hard and that's not fair i guess given that the Derby in retrospect knowing how crap Spurs were maybe what we'll do is we'll cover the Derby with player of the month but I'm going to say the Bayern game because for me after Bayern that was the moment maybe the first moment I can ever remember where I said we're the best team in the world because if you remember PSG were not having a good group phase they were like down there in the middle Bayern were I think had won every game as well they were the ones pushing for top of the champions league with us and maybe Liverpool as well I think but that was the game we had beaten Tottenham for one of course we'd beaten Bayern we're top of the Premier League we're top of the Champions League we've won every single game in the Champions League we conceded one goal and we pounded Bayern and I thought we're the best team in the world we're the best team in the world and that moment is why I I think what came after that, the months we're going to talk about subsequently, are really interesting when you think that on November 26th, Arsenal were the best team in the world.

41:54After that, and we'll get to this as we go month by month, I'm not sure I ever felt that way about us again. That was the peak. That was the peak. As weird as it sounds in the season where we got to a Champions League final and won the league, that was the peak. And even if you remember how the game pretty much ends, it's Martinelli picking up the ball on the halfway line and rounding Manuel Neuer as everybody goes nuts. It ended on a crescendo. We did feel like the best team in the world. It was a special special moment followed by the Chelsea draw. For player of the month then, I'll just stay with it and I'll say to cheat, I'll then, you know what?

42:34I'm not going to pick. I have another guy I want to pick. I'm curious to see where you go, Tim, because if one of you picks Ezza, then I can pick my other guy. Who do you want? Yeah, I'm picking another guy, Mikel Marino. Ah, that's the one I was going to pick! Yeah, yeah. So I'm picking for this month because obviously Jokrez gets injured right at the beginning of the month. Havertz isn't there. Jesus isn't there. So we're back to Mikel Marino up front. And what happens really is that period he spent up front at the end of last season, which was up and down. Like he was faultless because he's never played there before.

43:05But, you know, objectively speaking, was a bit up and down. but it clearly served him so well and the manager so well because they'd worked out exactly how to use it and it actually felt a bit more like plug in and play and what they were doing with marino instead of like sticking him up front and getting him lost among center backs they were much smarter about it i i remember writing about it he was much more of a 10 actually he was playing at like havertz he was coming deep you go back and look at those north london derby goals again there's a couple of them where he comes deep and he plays a ball in behind and you've got Trossard running on you've got Eza running on like they worked out drop him deep get runners in behind and almost having that trial run at the end of last season was really helpful because the second they had to do it they knew how to tweak it I think it was some of the best football we played this season playing like that and obviously Mourinho also gets the equaliser away at Chelsea which is a really valuable goal that we've kind of forgotten because we didn't play very well in that game and we didn't capitalise, but he just pops up with a typical centre-forwards goal as well.

44:14So for all the false nining stuff he was doing and allowing Ezzer and Trossard to score, when we were 1-0 down at Stamford Bridge and we just needed him to get in the six-yard box and nut the thing in the net, he did it. And yeah, I think we really missed this player a lot when he got injured, but this was Mikel Marino month for me. Yeah, this was, I remember on the podcast, Clive and I had a moment where we said, if the Champions League final is tomorrow, I'm starting him. I'm starting him up front. I mean, that's how impressed we were by him. And as it turns out, I think it was a big miss in the Champions League final, actually.

44:50Paul, your player of the month? I'll keep it easy. So, Eberetti, Eze. Yeah. I mean, North London, Derby. We didn't know how bad they were. I had a suspicion at the time, to be honest. Like three, we were all like, oh, why don't we do that every game? Just play it centrally to zone 14 and take shots from there. I don't know why we haven't thought of this before, but every time you go back and look at those goals, they were like absent without leave in terms of their centre-backs, but as I made them play. And it was just, it was such a glorious day for him, for Arsenal, for the whole, as a narrative, the kind of on his way to Spurs, but maybe I'll put in one last-ditch call to see if just maybe there was an opening at his favorite club, if something might have changed, and of course something had changed, and this was really his game to shine where he shined.

45:51It was then interesting, like, well, that kind of came from nowhere. Well, do we start him every game all the time? and it was still betting in to be done. It was still work. Obviously, Arteta wanted him on the training ground after that. So we didn't get this Eza going forward into all games. There was a debate about do we turn him into a striker or a second striker. This was also the game with Marino where Marino was central and then he was drifting to the right, creating the space for Eza. So was that a formula? And it just seemed like finally we had an attack with all sorts of possibilities and different ways of playing.

46:28Of course, we kept losing the bloody players, but we finally see, it felt like we had something to roll on. Marino, as your false nine, peeling to the right, opening up that space for Eza to step into and arrive. So yeah, it was great. Yeah, yeah. I don't really have one because it's Eza and Marino for me. So I'll just say Leo Trossard. Like he did score in the Derby. He started the Bayern game. And I think this was sort of the tail end of the good start of the season that Leo had, by the way. in sort of that period where he was really, I think, making that left-wing position his own and dominant in that position.

47:05And he did sort of get that back late in the season, but went through a bit of a lull there. Confidence index, I think you're either at a 9 or 10 here. Because the Chelsea win, the 1-1 win, when Chelsea beat us 1-1, if you remember how they beat us 1-1 and they were in a title race at that time and then somehow didn't qualify for Europe. The 1-1 win for Chelsea dampened things, but I'm still a 9.5. What about you, Tim? uh yeah i was i was i was probably at night i i'm with you i think the chelsea thing did just dampen things a bit this the sunderland one didn't for me but yeah chelsea felt a bit they're down to 10 men we should have really taken them to the cleaners and i think where some of the doubt probably starts to creep in is that maybe sunderland and chelsea had shown a bit of a way to play against arsenal and sunderland doing that thing where we're just gonna absolutely launch the ball into your box at every opportunity rather than trying to play through you.

48:00But at the same time, we didn't have Saliba and Gabriel for Chelsea. So it was like, as long as that doesn't go on too long, I can kind of wave that away as well. Yeah. Five points clear of City, six points clear of Chelsea, and nine points clear of Liverpool to start that month. I think 9.59. That's probably right. What about you, Paul? Yeah. Eight. Okay. I'm still in the eight zone. The Sunderland and Chelsea games dinged you? Yeah, yeah. That's fair. Let's do this. Let's get you acquainted with some brands because at this point, you're going to have to start going on the journey with us to doubt.

48:38We're going to doubt town over the next few months, I think. So come with us on the journey to doubt, but first come with us on the journey to brands. Journey complete. Tim, December. Tough one. Not terrible, but you had a lot of games. as you always do in December in England. So a win over Brentford in the Premier League, 2-0. A loss at Villa, an absolute gut-punch loss at Villa, 2-1. A win over Bruges, 3-0. I was there. Nani Meduake-Galazzo. Wolves, 2-1 win. I was also there. The less said about it, the better. A win away at Everton, 1-0, which was a better performance, if not scoreline. A win on penalties, which I would have taken again in May, by the way, over Palace in the League Cup.

49:25Probably would have been better off losing that, to be fair. A win at home to Brighton 2-1 and then revenge on the 30th of December, a 4-1 win over Villa. Your moment slash game of that month? Definitely Villa. Sorry to take this one off. Both of you guys. Actually, no, no, no, no, no. Do you know what? I will leave Villa to you guys because that is the most obvious one. And again, again, I'm going to go for the boring, unimpressive 1-0 win away at Everton. It was a better performance and we needed it at that time. And again, this is one of those kind of slightly lighthouse games that I go back to in that.

50:04And particularly, this was mainly, I think, because Saliba and Gabriel were out. But there was some kind of speculation that people were working out how to play around our press. And Chelsea had done that really well. Villa had done that really well. Even that Brentford game, that wasn't an impressive game. We could easily have dropped points against them. Obviously, Wolves was a real, that's our least impressive win of the season. And Everton was a proper back to basics. Go and look at the stats from that game. Pretty certain, by far our highest pass completion, by far our highest number of passes, by far our lowest number of long passes.

50:46That was tailor-made for Everton. That was a very, we are not turning this game remotely transitional. we're keeping the ball on the floor and we just play keep away basically for about 85 of those 90 minutes and one at 1-0 and that to me was another symptom I think we talk about this in the transfer market of Arteta almost like intentionally over correcting a problem it's like you know like well we've been a bit chaotic with our passing let's be as boring and five yards five yards sideway Parsi as possible. Part of that was about the fixture. Part of that, I think, was just about resetting the dial.

51:23And when you look at what followed, I think that really worked. Yep. What about you, Paul? I mean, do you want to take the Villa game? Yeah, I'm going to do a Tim here and pick the obvious one. I'm going with Villa. 20, 90 plus four. Yeah. No. So, you know, earlier in the month, they'd had their, they'd had their little bit of fun they got their 2-1 late in the month it's our turn 30th of december 4-1 win we batter them again my mind goes to the uh zubimendi goal where he runs through the midfield into the box odegaard picks him from slightly deeper uh fantastic uh uh esp between the two players as they danced through the center of their defense.

52:19Outside of the boot, passed Emi Martinez into the corner of the net. We go nuts, but there's more to follow. And it was like its last game of the month. We were running on fumes at that point. We'd lost most of our defense. Saliba was out. You were playing Muscara. You were playing anybody who had a pulse in the back line. and partly why we struggled in December, but it's also into the tick of where the fixtures, like that's eight fixtures in December, nine in January. So it's scary when you look back at this stuff and you're like, oh God, here we go again next season, December, January. It's all about survival and points and getting results and not overstressing the performances.

53:08But this was a performance and it just rounded off the run into the new year perfectly. Yeah. So this is tougher for me. The Villa loss sticks in the memory, of course. It was incredibly painful. I think what I'm going to pick as my moment is the own goal against Wolves to win it, though. You've just come off a loss, and now you're going to drop points at home to what at the time looked like the worst team in the Premier League, and maybe one of the worst teams in the history of the Premier League. and we really looked scared of our shadow at the end of that game. We were giving the ball away.

53:46We were letting a bad Wolves team at the Emirates get back into a game. It felt like it was coming. If you remember, Mikel's comments after that game were extremely pointed about how we played, and rightfully so. And if we don't get a winner there, you've lost to Villa, you've drawn it home to Wolves, it feels like the wheels could come off. But we salvage that, we get a little bit of momentum back against Everton, we beat Brighton, and then we pound Villa. And I don't know if we recover that way if we fail to beat Wolves at home. And, you know, as we will discuss later, Wolves, a bit of a thorn in our side this season in general with the return leg.

54:23So for me, that's it. Player of the month here, we can go a lot of different directions, a lot of games, a lot of things to choose from. Paul, you got a player? This might be the Trussard month, to be fair. It probably is the Trussard month. I'm going to go with Zubimendi because he was still cranking at that point. he was a fixture it was him and Rice finding ways to get it it was working and he ends the month with that cracking goal and we're like God he can do this whenever he wants I don't know why he doesn't head forward more often into the 10 spot and just round a couple of players and bang it into the net and he could do it all at this point.

55:01It was coming to the end of the period in which he could do it all every game but he'd been great and we thought we had a thing and that the double pivot in midfield seemed to be the thing ahead of a defense as I said that had missed Gabriel Mascara Saliba at various times during December but the midfield and Timber was holding it all together yep what about you uh Tim you got a player for this month yeah I'm gonna say Odegaard actually um this is obviously the month that as a kind of got sat on the naughty step after that Villa game didn't actually play a lot and Odegaard came into the team and probably for the only time this season got a run of like five six games where it kind of felt like he was back and we leant back into that and obviously the Everton game again when you want 100 ,000 passes you play Odegaard and he was central to that his performance at home to Villa was sensational, probably his best of the season.

56:02And yeah, it very much felt like, well, it didn't feel like it was very much like Eza was out, Erdegaard was in. Obviously, again, that was not symptomatic of the whole season by any means, but that's what happened at this point. Yep. My player's a weird one. I'm going to say Jesus, just because if you think back to that time, he scores against Villa in the 4-1. And we thought he had scored against Wolves. It wound up being an own goal, but he's back. He's back from injury. And that was a time when we were like, is this a player that's in the mix for us? Someone we had written off who was back in the mix.

56:35Now, as it turned out, he flattered to deceive a bit. But at the time, I remember thinking, you know, a fit and informed Jesus is still a player. Maybe we have something here. So definitely a player that was in my mind. In terms of confidence index, the month ends with a 4-1 win. The month also ends with us still, I believe, well, not five, four points up on City if you want to do equivalent fixtures played. 19 matches played. Four up on City Villa were now the team that were in a title race, just six behind us. Liverpool had closed the gap a little to a narrow 12. So I'm going to say an 8 out of 10 at this point.

57:12What about you, Tim? Yeah, I was 8 out of 10, maybe 8.5 after that Villa game. Again, I was looking at the fixture list and the way it was weighted, and I always felt my feeling was be in touch around Christmas and we were more than in touch. We were ahead. And I felt with the fixtures we had in the second half of the season, we'd be able to press home that advantage. Indeed, Paul? Yeah, 8 out of 10. I liked the run-in. We were in a good spot. Yeah. Okay. Then we get to January, and it all starts to get a little bit sideways. Not fully yet, but we beat Bournemouth on January 3rd away. I think it was the last time they lost at home.

57:56that season, by the way. I think it was the last time they lost this season. It's incredible. And we had our hands for, right, 3-2 in the end. Yeah, 3-2. We prefer Iola didn't go to Liverpool. We then had the 0-0 draw against Liverpool where neither team played. We beat Portsmouth in the FA Cup. We beat Chelsea away in the first leg of the League Cup semifinal, 3-2. We drew at home to Nottingham Forest, 0-0. We beat Inter Milan away comprehensively, 3-1. We lost at home to United 3-2. We beat Kairat Almaty 3-2 with a heavily rotated side, of course, and we pounded leads again away 4-0. But if you just look at the league, win, draw, draw, loss, win.

58:43Not particularly title form. So what's the game that stands out for you, Tim? For a moment. Yeah, I'm... it's a difficult one because it was so up and down i might say the liverpool one at home where you could look at it so many different ways now liverpool had some injuries which partially forced them into playing this way but they played without a striker if you remember that again they played with vert as a false nine and basically they were like we're going to play eight midfielders and we're not really going to try and score but we're also confident we can keep arsenal out doing that and they were right about that, I think.

59:22And I also think Arsenal were a bit like, nil-nil's not terrible and it wasn't late enough in the season for us to really go for it. I think what's really interesting about both Liverpool games, I think if we play them from February onwards, home or away, we toast them, to be honest. I feel like certainly the first game was far too early and we weren't aware of their flaws at that point and they hadn't really spiralled. at this point either and so I feel like we didn't go for them whereas I feel like if if we'd played them a month later like if either one of those games had been properly in the second half of the season we'd have gone insofar as Arsenal ever actually do I think we'd have gone we we can win this like we should be winning this rather than uh nil nil's possibly not that bad and kind of neither team went for it really.

1:00:17And yeah, I think both these Liverpool games have that context of maybe a lack of knowledge about what we were really up against.

1:00:27You're on mute Elliot. And this is the best day of my life. It's all coming up. Pause today. Everybody is like Milhouse only pause. Yeah. I was going to say if there's a regret this season and you can't have a regret when you win the title, but why not? It's our podcast. Not going for Liverpool more. And to your point, Tim, not realizing they were there to be gone after. If we play them twice in the second half of the season, I think we go full guns blazing at them but that's not how it played out and it and unfortunately it meant that we only won the league um paul your your game from january uh well the united game was pretty scarring for me yep um yeah me too they beat us 3-2 um you know i felt we were in a very tired period like we'd just drawn with liverpool a week before we drew with nottingham forest uh we'd a rotated team midweek for inter milan because we needed to rotate players and now it was next up man united and uh they just like we got it back to you know they they danced through the middle of us uh bruno feeding dorgoo who smacks it from way outside of the box kunya from distance he make it three two it just we went from a team you couldn't get shots on target let alone shots against to oh hang on man united are waltzing through us as the game went on um just again you felt the vulnerability at a particular moment in time where we were dropping points we dropped them against forest we dropped them against liverpools or city were on our shoulder um and you like that sense of security and the the safe run-in seemed suddenly everything was back in play.

1:02:18So, yeah, of all the games that January, the nine to pick from, United is burned brightly, unfortunately. Yeah, I'll go a different direction with mine and I'll pick Kyrat Almaty. Can you imagine? That is a game, you talk about games you're going to have to try to remember. Tim, I look forward to podcasting me six, seven years from now and saying, who is that team we played, the dead rubber at the end of the league table phase? and even you are going to be like, mate, I have no idea. The only reason I might remember is because of Clive calling them Carrot Almighty, which for me is a delight. So you guys have picked it for me, the Liverpool game and the United game.

1:02:59I mean, the United game, the thing that really frustrated is having the lead in that game and then looking like we were terrified of being in the lead, which was something that we would see again. But I'll just pick the Forest game, Gabriel Martinelli missing at the back post, clear moment. Just a game that, again, encapsulates sort of where we were in terms of being a team that could be held to nil. It was something we talked about the season before. Too many draws, too many times we were held to nil. In this month, we were held to nil twice, both by Liverpool and by Forest in consecutive league games.

1:03:31A weird month too, right? Because we play a league game on the 8th and then not again until the 17th. So, you know, there was hope that it might spur something, but essentially back-to-back Premier League fixtures that were nil-nil. so we had not scored a goal in 180 minutes of Premier League football. That was something that worried me. You have a player for the month, Tim? I've gone for Noni Maduweke in this month because did Saka get injured during this month? I believe that's right, yeah. Because Maduweke seems to have a lot of involvement. He actually starts at Bournemouth and actually Saka wasn't injured.

1:04:09He came on in that game. Obviously, he plays at Portsmouth. And I just think we get the full Madueke experience in January and perhaps the first time he's really, really involved. Not least because, you know, at Portsmouth, I think he scores a nice goal, but he also takes an absolutely dreadful penalty. Sorry, everyone talking about why didn't he take a penalty in the Champions League final. Go back and look at that Portsmouth penalty, please, because it might answer some of your questions. but then at the end of the month the leads game where Saka gets injured in the warm-up or at least he limps out of the warm-up and Maduake has to play and he ends up playing a really really important role a couple of set pieces almost Saka-esque deliveries did that at Portsmouth as well so you know that's one of the things you miss Saka for but Maduake was kind of showing that he could hold his weight with that so yeah Maduake the most interesting but also I think we begin particularly in that forest game to see that the maduake martinelli jocarez front three of hell uh which i have christened it and and anything that you christen with of hell on the end is generally not a good thing yeah paul uh it was a tough month for players to stand out but it was the return of Havertz and you may rubbish Carrot Almighty, but man does Havertz score an absolute curler, screamer, having beaten half their team around the penalty area.

1:05:44And you're like, here we go, Havertz for the rest of the season. Now, we saw him sporadically sprinkled in later on in the season again, but he's back, baby. and he was back with a bang in maybe not the most important game of January, but it felt like it presaged. Is that a word? It augured well for the run in. And I'm like, here we go, baby. Havertz is back. That we might finally be getting the attack I'm looking for. You know, it's funny though. He wasn't really back, was he? No, he wasn't. And that's one of those things. Yeah, yeah, he did. I mean, all right. Isn't that coming out of this podcast quite a lot, though?

1:06:26Like, this happened, and we thought it might happen forever, and it didn't. It just happened in this month. Like, it's happening quite a lot. Yeah, we're doing our best to remember how we saw things at the time. It's like, here we go, baby. Here we go. Yeah, well, boy. Who do I want to pick as a player? It's not that easy. January. No. We were very, very tired. I mean, Jokerez. Yeah. He's still hanging them in, doesn't he, at this point? He had that really nice goal at the San Siro, didn't he? Yeah, a really good one at Leeds as well. You know what? Scores away at Chelsea. Yeah. He played San Siro?

1:07:05I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to pick a funny one. I'm going to pick Matthias Cunha, and here's why. It's not funny. Well, he assists the goal that helps United beat City. And then he obviously scores against us and does that surfing dance or whatever the heck it is that pisses off our players enough that they certainly wanted to have a little back throughout the season, maybe motivates us. But he's a player that impacted both title contenders at that time. So we finished the month. Six points clear. I'm going to give you my confidence index, and you guys are going to laugh at me.

1:07:38I think I was at like a six. And the reason is, so first of all, in the Premier League, we went three games without winning, right? Draw, draw, loss. but I think the reason I was at a six is I said you know what City wobbled like mad the last few weeks if you remember they were dropping points left and right and I thought this is where you step on their throat this is where you make this title we had the chance to turn it into the Liverpool title season you know what I mean to run away with it so that the second half was about the Champions League and the title was gone and suddenly City are rotating for Premier League games and focusing on the Champions League and so on and because we went draw draw a loss in January.

1:08:17We did not extend the lead where it should have been. And actually, when it got nervy towards the end of the season, this would be the period I'd point to. Beat that bad Liverpool team at home. Beat that bad Forest team. Hold the lead against United at home, and nothing in April would have mattered, right? So I'm going to go with a weird six here because I thought, not that we were bad or anything, but just that I think we had missed an opportunity, a big opportunity to put City in your rear view. And with Manchester City, you always worry they're going to go on a run, win 18 in a row or whatever to finish a season and you're going to be left with regret.

1:08:52So Tim, what about you? I would have agreed with you. But again, another theme that's coming out is that quite often the last result of the month is quite a good one. And we get that 4-0 against Leeds. And I remember as well, Arteta, it was before the Kairac game, Arteta gave that press conference where he talked about how he talked to the players and maybe that was, did he used to get on the boat there or was that later? No, it's later. It's later. Yeah, but he talked about like, you know, this is a beautiful opportunity and all of that. And like all of the reasons I think Arteta is such a great communicator, both in terms of to the fans and to the players.

1:09:31And this really felt like, yeah, you've nailed that speech. You've nailed like, you know, what's that line in the Truman show? Like here's the hero shot type thing. where the camera angle is just up a little bit, which is literally called the hero shot in the business. But yeah, and I felt, okay, yeah, we've had a little bit of a, we've had a blip here, but the managers put his arm around the players and they responded, I mean, who cares about the Kyra game really, but they've gone and thumped Leeds 4-0. And I kind of felt like, yeah, we're all right. We're out of it now. Again, I wasn't entirely right about that.

1:10:09So I was seven and a half, eight after that game. What about you, Paul? Yeah, I was like, I think I'm back to a seven. Okay. It felt like we were, like you still look to the run-in at this point and the run-in's okay. City have a good run-in too, but I don't care. Our run-in's manageable. And like, they're still not doing anything that scares me. Yeah. Okay, let's move on to February. And we book our place at Wembley by beating Chelsea at home 1-0, 4-2 on aggregate. Then we beat Sunderland badly 3-0, some revenge there. We draw at Brentford, another painful one. We beat Wigan 4-0 in the FA Cup.

1:10:56We draw Wolves away, maybe the nadir of the season in some ways. Bournemouth is coming. And then we batter Tottenham, and again, the month ends on a high, to Tim's point, which is very funny, as it does his thing against Spurs again. So you've got a couple of interesting directions to go with this one, Tim. I'm wondering whether you're going to go high or low. Yeah, this time I'm going to be obvious. I'm going to say the Spurs game. You're going to do a Tim. It's called a Tim, Tim. I've gone for the Tim. Pull a Tim and pick the right thing instead of some wacky wrong-ass thing. I've got a really good Paul coming though.

1:11:37Yeah, Spurs away. I could pick Wolves away because I'm with you. I think that's the low point of the season. But Spurs, obviously, because it's Spurs away, Ezer scores twice again, very, very funny. Jocarez bags a couple of brilliant goals as well, like real Jocarez Hulk smash type goals. And beating Spurs away 4-1, always very, very funny. the fact that they sat thomas frank before that game because they couldn't bear for the away fans to all be singing about thomas frank being a silver member um for the whole game which i don't think stopped them anyway um inflatable thomas frank's in the away end as well just like was this the coffee cup month yeah well and actually i think that was the month before because they played away at bournemouth straight after us that's why the coffee cup was there but yeah like you know Spurs I think it was Igor Tudor's first game in charge Tottenham at their absolute nadir I think of the season the point where it was like you guys might go down and to absolutely thump them and typical Tottenham hubris the speech that the stadium announcer makes just before the game I don't know if you remember that he says we're calm and ready they're nervous as hell but I just think coming off the back of that horrendous Wolves game, it was Dr.

1:13:07Tottenham. It was, we didn't just need a win. We needed like a super morale boosting win and Dr. Tottenham got the magic sponge out for us that day. Love it. That's what I want to do. Can't smile without them. Paul, you want to go with the Wolves game? So I want to do a pair of games as the pair because I think they go together. And that's Brentford and Wolves. Because in both games, we go a goal up. And the one thing that made us sleep at night was the ability to defend a lead. And here we were in both games away from home, okay, but against kind of lower-end opposition. Brentford are dangerous, sure.

1:13:52Wolves were not dangerous in theory. And we just coughed up goals. We went from three points to one in both games, and it just seemed like that was a measure of where we were at the time and kind of what we were at. I remember I had a look at it earlier today. Arsblog's heading for Wolves 2-2 panic stations. Not good. Yeah, second last game of the month, and Ars Blah goes with panic stations. And that does ring true. It's like, if you have two games in a row and you get what you want and you go a goal up, the one thing we're really, really, really good at is defending a lead. And we can't do it against Wolves and Brentford right now.

1:14:46So, yeah. And then Dr. Tottenham shows up. Yeah, and the thing with the Brentford game too is that was like we had seven shots and 0.6 expected goals 0.6 and it was sort of that moment of like what is this attack right now what what are we from an attacking standpoint but for me and I hate that we're we're staying on the negative but we did the Dr. Tottenham thing I could go with the high of the four nil win over Wigan but I'm not going to um Marley Salmon got his debut but I'm I'm gonna say it's the Wolves game because that was if you remember we we did a we did an Instagram reel of a little clip from that.

1:15:22We were critical of the game. We talked all through the game, but towards the tail end of that podcast, we talked about, we need to stay with them because right now they don't look like they have it and we need to stay behind them. And like, it was the moment I sort of felt like the weight of trying to win a title was, was on our backs that, and obviously before Tottenham came and showed up and cheered us all up. But like, that was, that was really, really poor. I think the, does the, is the equalizer. And he threw Rory just back into the team, and he wasn't up to speed, and he closed the own goal.

1:15:53That was where Raya drops the ball too, right? Gabby backs into Raya, and he drops it. It was just – it looked like mental errors. We weren't particularly good at either end, and that felt like the kind of thing that title winners don't do, to my point earlier, right? You have late gut punches from Sunderland and Liverpool, and now you've got this one from Wolves. And yeah, it was a low point that I think had a lot of people saying, I've seen a lot of Premier League football and this title winners don't do this. I think what we maybe didn't contextualize and understand enough at the time is just how attritional the whole Premier League was.

1:16:31And that proved to be basically the story of the season was just, it wasn't a sprint. It was a marathon, but it was like a marathon with booby traps. Just incredibly attritional and teams dropping points when you least expect it. So that was the moment for me. Player, that's a tough one. Thin pickings. Yeah, it's thin gruel. You want to go for that one, Paul?

1:16:58I mean, we end the month on a high. It's the Eza and a bit of Yaka Resh show. I'm going to go with Eza. Yeah. And like, it's maybe the point at which Arteta is now starting, kind of has to at this point, but he's had his training ground time. Ezza was bringing joy and lightness, and we started to lean into that more and more. So, Ezza. Yep. What about you, Tim? I'm going to say Kai Havertz, because he kind of comes back and then goes away again during this month. I'm cheating a bit because this bleeds a little bit into the Leeds game at the end of, on the 31st of January, but Kai Havertz starts away at Leeds.

1:17:40We win 4-0. he starts at home to Sunderland we win 3-0 and I think those were two of our highest xg games of the season and it just again at the time I was thinking yeah this and and when I was really you know leaning into my Jokeres doubt I was like yeah we just look so much better with this guy up front we create so much more look so much more fluid obviously he gets that that late well it wasn't a winner really but he gets that late goal against Chelsea that's a lovely moment as well Kai Havertz getting a last minute goal against Chelsea um and yeah I felt he was he was pretty instrumental but then he gets injured again and then Jochores ends the month with two very Jochores goals yeah and and I mean the month starts by the way we're in the washing machine a bit I think it's easy to forget.

1:18:31Havertz starts the Brentford pardon me, the 3-0 win over Sunderland with Gabriel Jesus up front and then Jokras comes on and scores a brace in that game and he also scores in the Spurs game so I'll go with Jokras. Confidence index I mean I'm still at a 6 here guys and at this point we end the month with City just two points behind us and to my point from January you think we had a window when they were dropping points, we did not leverage it and now they're right on our necks. And so with City two points behind us and again having dropped points to Wolves tail end of the month, even with the Tottenham win, I think I'm at a six.

1:19:09What about you, Tim? I'm going to say I dropped to a seven. Probably after the Wolves game, I was at about a four. To be honest, again, we bring it back around with that kind of Tottenham win. At this point, my confidence of Arsenal winning it is based just as much on Man City's fallibility as it is on us. So that's why it doesn't drop enormously. I'm still kind of thinking, I think we can outdo them in the running, particularly with the kind of fixtures. But yeah, I think the confluence of January and February didn't feel great. I was probably at a 6.5 or 7. Attacking concerns, dropping points to teams you shouldn't drop points to in a title race.

1:19:53City starting to close the gap to a level where you no longer have a cushion. this was the time if you remember like betting markets have us 98.2 % to win the title and everyone's like betting markets are idiots as it turns out there's a reason that they gamble for a living they actually know what they're talking about Paul what about you yes where was I in probably like seven I still thought we were going to do it I still thought it was significantly better than 50 % chance we were going to win it despite or maybe because February was a bit grueling and I thought things were going to get better and players would get fitter and we'd still get to see this attack that hadn't yet fully arrived so yeah I think in February I was still around the seven market yeah I mean Paul were you I can't remember we talked so much but were you did you end this month more low from Wolves or more high from Tottenham like it the wolves thing was a gut punch for people and i know there were some people that really lost their rag over it they really were not able to rally themselves from it so do you kind of remember how that hit you if if the spurs thing was able to lift you because at this point i think we understood tottenham were terrible they were terrified of us coming there i don't think they had any expectation of of getting a result against us it's the most fait accompli away darby i think i've ever lived through in terms of people knowing what was coming you know yeah i mean i have to give myself credit i thought top number terrible the first time we played them and we were very very excited about the performance and i was like i'm not buying it there's good things in there and i'm like i'm you know as as a player and stuff but i'm not buying it it's like massive two asterisks after both results so like it definitely took me down a couple of a couple of notches hence my moment of the month was more about the the the easy draws we coughed up uh from winning positions the snatching draws from the jaws of an easy victory that we should have been able to defend so it brought me down a bit and this is where i don't want to police fandom we're like we wound up winning the league and i think people sometimes do this thing we're like if you don't win the league everyone goes back it says you jerks were positive at the time when things were going well, how dare you?

1:22:14And then if you do win the league, there are people like, you jerks were negative at a time when things were going badly. Like you can't help how you feel when things are going on. And if you look at February and January, draw, draw, a loss, another draw to Brentford, a draw to Wolves. Like there's a lot of results in there that have you questioning the credentials. And like I said, as it turns out, maybe if we understood that the era of the 95 point title win is gone, or at least seems to be gone. Maybe we would have thought differently. You look at next season, for example, and Mikel Arteta is the only manager in the Premier League to have won the Premier League.

1:22:52It's just, you know, there's a lot of turnover happening. So we get to March. And March is a weird month because we play in the Premier League three times. The last time is the 14th of March. We don't play in the Premier League again until the 11th of April after that. Very, very weird period of the season. March, we beat Chelsea 2-1 at home in the league. We beat Brighton away. We beat Mansfield Town away. We get a draw against Bayer Leverkusen away. We beat Everton at home. We beat Bayer Leverkusen at home. So we progress, as everybody knows, and we lose the League Cup final. Now, a pivot, right, where instead of ending the season on the high, We end the season on a big low, losing a cup final.

1:23:41But actually in the league, we do the business again. Beat Chelsea, beat Brighton, beat Everton, get through in the Champions League and get through in the FA Cup. So a weird one, Tim, because it's a month of all highs until the last day of the month, which is a cup final loss, a big low. So what's your moment? Yeah, I'm going to pick Brighton away here. Now for my column this week, I picked three games this season where I chose the three games where I felt like my belief or what I felt the belief of the team and the fan base. Newcastle away was one of them. I picked Brighton as well because, I mean, the main factor, this game was the first time since October where we'd played at the same time as Manchester City, where our games were going on concurrently.

1:24:29And they draw 2-2 at home to Nottingham Forest that night. and what's kind of weird about this game it's very Arsenal we go 1-0 up on nine minutes and then nothing happens there are no shots we don't have any shots they don't have any shots the game's kind of we grind it out from there as we've done so many times this season but kind of in the away end we're just as preoccupied with what's going on at Man City and keeping an eye on that as well so we're defending a one goal lead and we're like it's 2-2 at City and then both final whistles go within a couple of within a minute or so of one another and what's really interesting is there's obviously there's a cheer for the final whistle at brighton but we know the city game's still going on and then there's a secondary cheer bigger and yeah much bigger because obviously it's obviously because they're connected right it's because okay we've won great but this could get even better and it did get even better they're dropped points that made us seven points clear and the other thing about that night getting away from Brighton it's a tiny little train station so what Brighton do is they keep their bars open in the stadium and they do it in the away end as well I think they're the only team in the country that does that so you can stay there and have a beer my mum lives around the corner from the stadium so I always take up that offer but most of the away end took up that offer as well and I don't think it was just about avoiding the queue I think like people wanted to celebrate there was there was hugging there was back slapping there was the first chant of now you're going to believe us of the season I'm sure one of you is going to pick the Everton game where that probably multiplies where we have a very similar experience but that Brighton game as well I think the other thing it did to the fan base because the Brighton manager whinged so much in advance and after the game and there was a very hostile atmosphere from the home fans which had been whipped up by the manager.

1:26:26I think this was the point where we learned to lean into being, you know, the villains of the Premier League or whatnot. And we created a siege mentality. I think this Brighton game is huge, not because it's a very good performance or even because we beat Brighton, but because of all the context around it. And as someone who was watching the City game as our game went to full time, not an experience I need to relive. Let me tell you that. I mean, I don't know how City didn't score the winner. I think blocked on the line or something like that. Just an insane flurry of shots from point blank from City at the end.

1:27:03When that final whistle went, the roar in the away end was incredible. The roar in my house was incredible. Big, big moment. There's another big moment in this month, though, Paul, that I assume you will choose. Yeah, I'm going to do a Tim, Captain Obvious here and go with the Arsenal 2, Everton 0. Pickford was on one that day. uh we knew the importance of this game but like everton just seemed to have what it took to hold us out and uh york rush gets a goal on 88 minutes but max downman steals the show him and martinelli streaming down the pitch martinelli with the flick on from a corner actually i think it's york rush who gets the first header out uh off the corner to clear it onto martinelli who flicks it on then he sprints down the pitch thinking he's going to have a Martinelli moment but he's he almost does it's on to Daman who rounds one man puts the keepers up the pitch I always think he's he rounds the keeper but the keeper's up the pitch Pickford's up for the uh the corner kick and then goes uh streaming backwards fast as he can but Daman jinx past two players looks over his shoulder can't believe it um and then you start thinking a 16 year old boy they might catch him up i don't actually think they narrow the gap that much but it feels like they might narrow it but he's like just running out and he's got so much time that everybody's ready to go bananas and this was i think on three or four occasions i said this is the game where we won the premier league and we had like one two hands on the trophy and we're starting to lift it up and a week or two later we have to put it back on the table but it felt like a moment so much release so much excitement we'd found our fun again the outside noise became much more positive around the max down and the two goals at the end this is what champions do so there was this great moment in the season you need those releases every now and then we've been so bloody tense up to this point yep yeah i mean it was huge and uh and special and wonderful.

1:29:16And we went nine points clear. There was no more Premier League football for basically a month. So we knew we could just sit and enjoy being nine points clear. Except we get through in the Champions League. That's exciting. We have a cup final against City. It's probably our worst performance of the season to that point. I mean, just in the sense of maybe I'm wrong about that. There were worse ones. But the point is, if you remember, City put that screen of four in front of our back four. They kind of 4-2-4'd us. We didn't have a solution. We didn't know what to do. Mikel looked a little bit out of ideas for how to handle it.

1:29:49They big little brothered us, kind of kept his arm length. Even still, Kai had the best chance of the game early to make it 1-0 doesn't. Nico O 'Reilly starts to become a big player in the season. He pops up with goal. He's there for City and they win the League Cup final. Not a priority tournament, a tournament that if next season we decide to just play kids the whole way through, I would not only support it, I'd probably we'd be mad if we don't. We have much, much bigger ambitions in this tournament. I'd be fine sacking it off every season. I know others get mad about that. But now we've at least laid to rest this whole argument of, we can't afford to look down our nose at any trophy.

1:30:24Well, now we can't afford to look down our nose at this trophy in particular. It's a low moment, but one that thankfully doesn't wind up mattering. Your player of the month, Tim? This time I am going to go for Ezza. Resisted it to this point because... The Thierry on Regal? Yeah. Yeah, but also, and again, this is another kind of a bit of a time capsule of our season. This is the month he really kind of gets it, you know, that there's like the player and the team move towards each other a bit. I think Arteta said something, didn't he, about, was he left out against Wolves or something? Yeah. And Arteta said, like, he was upset about it and he had like a light bulb moment about like, okay, I know how to manage this player.

1:31:08and he really starts to look like part of the furniture. That Everton game, I think he has seven shots or something in that Everton game, gets that brilliant Leverkusen goal and then what happens? He gets injured because this is just what happens to our attackers. Like, I picked Odegaard for December, looked like he was coming back into form, injured. I picked Havertz for February, looked like he was coming back into form, injured and continuing that theme with Eza for March. Yep. What about you, Paul? Yeah, stop picking players, Tim. I keep getting injured. I'm going to go with Max Darmann because he wins the Everton game.

1:31:45The second goal is the moment we take forward. But the first goal, if I'm remembering right, is Darmann's only on a few minutes. He does great things. And then he arcs in that ball that Jokeresh knocks in the net on 88 minutes. And it's a beautifully crafted cross. That in itself was worth the statute. And then he has the crowning moment after that. So he has the assist. He has the goal. It's the signature game, the signature moment in many ways. Max Damon. Yeah. I mean, hard to pick from there. You know what? We haven't picked him yet this season, which is insane. So I'll just go with Declan Rice.

1:32:29Declan Rice scored a beautiful goal against Leverkusen to make that tie safe to put that threat away. And yeah, just a player who probably deserves to be picked in some month. So I'll pick him in this month. Why not? In terms of confidence index, I mean, I think you got to go back to like eight and a half here because even though it ends with the cup final loss, we're through in the Champions League. And oh, by the way, we're nine points clear at this point. This was the peak of 98.72 % model likelihood of Arsenal winning the title. So, Tim, I'm at 8.5. This might be the highest I've been all season.

1:33:11Yep, same here. Obviously, because the Carabao Cup final, obviously, well, does it have an impact on the league? Will it have an impact on the league? I still think that's unclear, to be honest. But, you know, I at least came away from the Carabao Cup final kind of thinking there's some teachable moments in here. we were missing some players. We probably played some players who weren't entirely fit. Again, I felt like I could kind of write it off. I'd have been at a nine were it not for the Carabao Cup final, but with what we did in the league. Yeah. Yeah, 8.5. Yep. Paul? Yeah, I'll go with 8.5.

1:33:48Same logic as Tim. Nine-point lead. Off we go to April. Not our best month, I think it's fair to say. We wound up playing seven games, and we won two of them in April. I think you can guess if that's good or bad or not. So we lost in the FA Cup to Southampton, got knocked out, probably for the best, but don't say that too loud. We beat Sporting away in a low-quality football match where we were the better side. We lost to Bournemouth, probably there with the Wolves game in terms of people just absolutely losing their mind and being very, very worried. We drew Sporting nil-nil to get through just about.

1:34:31Manchester City, obviously, maybe the best game of the month in its own weird way, but we wind up losing it 2-1. We beat Newcastle at home 1-0. Ebrecha Eza, I believe, bails us out with a beautiful goal there. And then we draw Atleti 1-1 in Madrid, having been 1-0 up. We give them away back with, I want to say a penalty. And that's going to be, unfortunately, familiar for the Champions League campaign. So, Tim, you got a favorite moment in the game? Well, no, you have to have one. what is it yeah well not not necessarily a favorite but again the column i wrote this week this was the third game i chose uh man city away losing now obviously losing not good not very good it turned it into thank you for your analysis tim turned it into a five game playoff we're both basically level on points it's squeaky bum time quite type thing i think what's remarkable about this game first of all it was a much better performance than anything we'd seen in weeks which and you know the receipts are there on the instant reaction and the pod we were all quite bullish after the game about what we'd seen I think and still think that Man City thought they'd done it I thought I think they thought look at that Harland look at the camera look at Jerky's celebration when he scores I'm sorry they thought they'd done it and they don't get pulled apart or criticised for that because they've been very successful but that doesn't mean they're flawless they thought they were over the line they thought they were going to beat us the fans clearly thought that as well but what's so remarkable about this game Elliot to me is that there was so much and I think this is completely understandable there was so much about the psychological implication and what actually happened after this game was nothing changed we went and won our five games and we won four of them by one goal.

1:36:23We just went and ground it out and City had a couple of good performances and they had a couple of shaky away performances. Both teams, their chemistry was entirely unaltered by this game. City didn't get momentum and we didn't crap ourselves and fall apart. Both teams just went away and carried on being exactly who they were. I think that's quite rare for a game of this magnitude at this game at the stage of the season, that it changes absolutely nothing in hindsight. I think it's really fascinating. Yeah, and I mean, it is interesting though because days later, City go level with us at the top of the table, having been nine points clear the month earlier.

1:37:05So certainly a difficult emotional moment in the season. Now it's funny, we did a Friday Night Clive episode just before the City game and I said, I think we will lose to City and I think we will win the league. you know I said I think they've got the harder run in and I trust us to pick up the points we need and I think they will drop the points people were mad because you don't want to hear we're going to lose to city on the eve of playing city the funny thing is I lost my nerve a bit and then on the main pod after I said I think we might have blown it I think we might have blown it because the emotion of it had hit me and I realized why like it's so hard to make a prediction like lose to city win the league because the emotion of that moment where you've you've lost the the advantage is hard i think it's a huge credit to arsenal that we held our nerve because city didn't ultimately the bottlers were city i mean i hate that narrative but if we're going to use it if the media is going to use it and level it at us city were there they win their games their champions almost certainly and they couldn't even push it to the final day that you know they they wobbled and i think it was the story of the season that it was a hard league was a hard league to navigate and we ended the season with the resolve more than the quality.

1:38:15I mean, this season for Arsenal is probably the least quality of our three genuine title challenges. The 22-23 season, the 23-24 season, and this season are our three genuine title challenges in my mind. I think we showed the least quality, but by far the most resolve and the most squad resilience, and that's going to probably come up here in a moment. So yeah, I think the City game is a great call. Tim what about you Paul who's what's your moment or your your game for this one um I'll go with the Newcastle game the as a goal but really the game because yeah when you think about how the story plays out from that point to your description description we come out of the city game and we need to re-establish emotional equilibrium and then you simplify it it's you got five games do you think city's perfect no and they got got to play more games than us we probably if we can win our five games and they were all winnable even though there were one or two tough ones and here it was newcastle were just there to spoil our our fun spoil the party but if we could eke out five wins no matter how we do them they didn't need to be better wins than man cities assuming they'd slip somewhere and they did just find a way one zero all the way would be terrible for the nerves but adequate so this was not an enjoyable game we get our goal we hang in there you know Havertz is goes off after 30 minutes with a muscle injury that doesn't augur well for the run-in again but again go back to the formula okay but can we get a 1-0 all the way through to the end of the season or better.

1:40:09And this was essential to kind of nail the formula. This or better gets probably, very probably gets us the Premier League. Yeah, yeah. So I have to pick a game slash moment. And like, unfortunately, I can't spin it positively. I think it's the Bournemouth game then. Since the City game has been picked and the Newcastle game has been picked, it's the Bournemouth game. it is the game that we were pointing to if you remember again we had not played in the premier league this is kind of staggering right we had not played in the premier league since the 14th of march we now have a home game on the 11th of april and on the 14th of march we were nine points clear so we had a month to think nine points of advantage yes city had a game in hand they play it they get it to six points and now we're thinking all right let's let's put it back to nine but they play their game in hand they get it to uh to three points right and you think gosh all of a sudden nine points what was nine points it was nothing it was city winning a couple games a game in hand and playing before us so we have to answer and we have to make that that eddie had game a huge pressure moment for them not for us and it was very redolent of 2022-23 where we had been leading all the way but then we wound up going to the eddie hat after the injuries needing something at the eddie hat and we lost to Bournemouth and we lost to Bournemouth justifiably.

1:41:31We were well beaten and it was a moment where I think for me with Mikel, I thought you keep trying something that hasn't really been working and he changes it a bit for City, right? He picks something different and he starts to realize he has to make some changes and things turn around. So the Bournemouth game was the Nadir. Even though the City loss hurt, the City loss was actually the turning of the tide. The Bournemouth loss was where it was panic stations, I think, and we really had to make a decision to go a different direction to salvage the season, which we wound up doing. Your player of the month, Paul?

1:42:13I'll give it to Eze for the critical goal. It's Newcastle. Yeah. And, you know, it was – he hits the first time and rips the net and he seems to be the player who's going to be stepping up to get those goals out of nowhere. Again, thin gruel, a lot of injuries, and that drags down our overall level. But Eze's in, he's the new face. He's part of the formula, and you can see that Arteta's needing to trust him and starting to trust him to get us results, to get us goals when we're scratching our head where else they're going to come from. Yeah. I mean, that goal is so huge. The moments where he stepped up this season were big moments.

1:43:00Tim, who's yours? David Raya. Obviously, he came out of the team for the Carabao Cup final in the Southampton game. And it's a bit, in the immortal words of Joni Mitchell, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. and I think we learned. Also, we have to pick him at some stage because he's a bona fide player of the season contender but I think he also makes that save at sporting, doesn't he? That's absolutely unreal. He keeps us in some very, very tight games. We had to pick him at some point but I feel like that point where Kepa goes in for a couple of games and then David Raya comes back in, it's a bit like, you know, it's a bit like going to a restaurant and having a good steak after you've had a steak out of the freezer.

1:43:52You know, it's just like, ah, this is what it's supposed to taste like. And it was one of his better months as well. Yep. I'll pick Kai Havertz just because I think, you know, everyone was furious at him for missing the chance against City, but I think this was a month where you saw just his, I mean, didn't he score the late winner against Sporting in the away leg, right? Stoppage time winner. He plays against City. He makes a big impact. Confidence index, this is a tough one, guys. I mean, it's an interesting confidence index because after the City game, they play Burnley, and they win to go level with us on points.

1:44:40But the interesting thing about the Newcastle game, and this is where schedules matter, the fixtures matter. City have the FA Cup, so they don't play. So we beat Newcastle and we go three points clear again when they don't play. And then we have another chance to play ahead of them again and we go six points clear before they play again in the Premier League. I think that is a huge psychological edge that wound up mattering. But what was your confidence index, Tim? I'm going to go with a six, maybe six. I'm just going seven out of 10 because seven out of 10 really means about half and half, doesn't it?

1:45:13Basically, it's a baseline. Some would say five out of 10 means that, but we're using football rankings. Yeah, but really seven out of 10 is like your baseline, isn't it? I felt it was a coin flip still. I wasn't confident either way. Yeah, what about you, Paul? So I'm going to do it on aggregate for the month, not the end of the month. I'm going to go with 4.9. I remember thinking it's a coin flip. They're favorites. They have to be blah, blah, blah. But I basically think it's a coin flip. I remember thinking not quite 50 % and up to supercomputer, that's one thing. But the betting markets have begun to flip.

1:45:58And I'm like, and they'd flipped badly against us at one point. I'm like, no, no, no, still 50-50. We just got to do our thing. But I'd certainly put the trophy back down on the table, rubbed it, explained I was just cleaning the trophy, not lifting it and walking away with it despite my Everton pronouncement the month earlier. Yeah, no one heard that. It's fine. Look, I don't think we will ever know how much it mattered, but I think it mattered that we played twice before they played again after they went level and we were able to get six points clear before they played Everton. I really think that mattered.

1:46:35And it mattered in all the right ways. So we come to May. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead out on a limb, guys. Confidence index 10 out of 10 at the end of May. Pretty good. Pretty good as you see the scenes of an open-top bus. I know we just lost the Champions League final. The less said about that, the better. But okay, this is going to be a hard one for a moment or game. This is the most mental month maybe in the recent history of our club. I honestly can't think of a month that had this many moments and swings and excitement and celebrations. And Tim, I'm going to give you a first whack at your moment of the month.

1:47:11Bournemouth won, Manchester City won. How did you come up with that? We didn't even play. Yeah, I mean, one of the greatest nights of my life, I think, to be honest. probably you know um presaged i've decided that is a word pull we'll work out whether it is later we'll get it in the dictionary if it's not we'll get that sorted um just one of the best weeks ever um really and watching that game what was really funny as well is all the secret plans everyone made like i knew a couple of my friends would they you know they'd stated weeks in advance If we can do it that night, we're going out to watch it.

1:47:50But it later transpired that only two or three of them admitted it. And actually about 20 of my friends did. Maybe they just didn't want me to go. I don't know. Maybe that was what was really behind their candor. But yeah, and then it kind of emerged that quite a lot of North London had done the same thing. And then I've got friends who live nowhere near North London who at the final whistle were just in an Uber. Yeah, I'll pay 100 quid for an Uber to get up there. But watching that game was, it's one of my favourite and least favourite things about being in the title race is that you have to spend the emotional energy not just on your team's games, but on the team you're competing with as well.

1:48:32and even at the end when City score and it's just like why can't we just enjoy one football game this year without uh kind of nerve shredding anxiety and yeah just just wonderful um really and and it defined the months didn't it like we won without playing and um everything else well not everything else but like not felt like an irrelevance but that that was just that was night that you know the cloud broke open on all of us we'd just done union chapel i'd been to see us play and win that horrible burnley game that i never want to even think about again having just done it um it's one of the best nights of my life it's one of the the most powerful feelings it's kicked off celebrations lights of which you've never seen before it's made the club feel like the biggest in the world it's brought everybody together it's been the the catalyst for a huge outpouring of love and affection for people that massively deserve it and um yeah impossible to turn away from it but i'm gonna force you to paul and pick another one uh i got three two are celebrations but uh maybe we can talk about them as we go along but like i'm actually going to just go with the fulham game and the miles lewis skelly selection which we didn't know what that meant at the time but it completely shaped and informed how we saw out the season and could be one one more of those that's the moment we won the premier league and it's also the moment we took psg right to the edge uh for the champions league final because we we found something and you know There was the whole thing about why did Arteta play Rice at right back against Burnley.

1:50:22I think it was because he didn't want to lose what he thought he had. That was his way of keeping the format the best he could. He brought on Zubimendi and moved Rice to take over from White. He was trying as long as possible to keep that thing he'd found going. And the thing he found going was Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield. yeah I I mean I think Miles Lewis Skelly in midfield is a story a huge huge story not just to this season but of the seasons to come now um changed his career changed our trajectory helped us win the league changed everything and and I think probably has also led people to underrate Zubomendi who just I think faded over the season still a very good player in his own right but the way Miles ended the season for me and Mikel going with him Mikel making that important call for the Fulham game.

1:51:12That is one of the moments of the season. The Fulham lineup coming out was a big moment of the season. I mean, we got a problem here because beating Atleti was huge. That felt huge. That night felt huge. The meet the bus. The TIFO was extraordinary. The Emirates came to life. It was a big, big, big Emirates moment. It really, really was. In a season where we didn't get to win in front of our, win the title in front of our fans, we got to go to the Champions League final in front of our fans. And that was a huge celebratory night. That moment's in there. I have to say this month had two of the biggest moments and the craziest games and the most emotionally upsetting and exciting things I've ever experienced in football happen.

1:51:59And both of them were games we didn't play. Because there was the Bournemouth game where Kruppi scores and then Holland gets a late goal and you're sure, oh no, they're going to do it now. but the Everton game was one of the most mental games of football I've ever watched in my life. Everton missing it, not even shooting on a completely empty net to win the game. City coming back, Holland scoring right after they'd made it 3-1 to make it 3-2 again, scoring the late equalizer. I mean, that was mental. So those two moments, the title being clinched the the atleti winner i i think obviously you can't look past the title and the interesting thing is though there are 31 days in may so i can pick the parade and that's the moment of the month the moment of the month is a million plus arsenal fans in the streets and millions more around the world celebrating the achievement of this team an extraordinary achievement.

1:52:58Um, something that was way too long in the making saying that maybe if there wasn't sports, Washington corruption in football, we would have done sooner, but maybe the comeuppance is coming for city. Pep Guardiola is gone. Who knows what their future looks like. Our future looks bright and, and we got to celebrate the achievement that we all wanted. Maybe not the ultimate double, um, but the achievement that we all wanted. So we'll wrap this up really quickly. I don't think we need to do a player of the month or a confidence index for it. Just some last words, Tim. It was a season that started a little slow, hit a full throttle where we thought we're the team, a little bit of a wobble.

1:53:38Those high highs following Everton, immediate low lows thinking we've thrown it away. And then I honestly think May with the Athletes semifinal and the Fulham win and the West Ham-Var decision, which, you know, in pure, pure insanity, both the Everton and Bournemouth games for City, a Champions League final and a parade and the scenes of celebration. May 2026 is probably going to be one of the most memorable footballing months that I will ever live through, you know? Yeah, absolutely. It's difficult to think of a more eventful or emotional one, quite frankly. So yeah, a crazy end to a kind of crazy season.

1:54:20It's a weird one when you win the league and you talk about it being a bit of a rollercoaster, but it really, really was. But listen, we won the trophy. I think we really deserved to win. I can eat the fact that PSG are the best team in Europe. I think they are. Not that the best team in Europe always wins that competition. We were the best team in the league. I think really it should have been done earlier and more straightforward than it was. But I think we got the minimum we deserved from the season. And I think Macau would certainly agree with you. There should have been one earlier, and some of his comments following the Champions League show that he has already focused on how he's going to see that we are more ruthless with the opportunities we have.

1:54:57Paul, final thoughts? Yeah, incredible last month. Absolutely shooting fish in a barrel for moments that you live off for, like, whatever happens next year. uh i can't like that tim's moment of the month with bournemouth the the actual instant of the month is could easily be just that video of the players the moment they found it the final it's so it it absolutely bottles and encapsulates us and then that moment in the celebrations on the pitch against crystal palace the kind of what was the name of the song freed from desire with the chant and the players and the away section and Tim and Saka from both sides leading the Tottenham chant.

1:55:52It's just incredible. Just so elevated, so high, so connected. Those moments just live off that forever. That's what it's all about for me. It's probably what it's all about for everybody. Those moments. not the trophy yes the trophy is the reason but those moments are just yeah yeah go ahead tim i was gonna say and we saw him capier's ass i mean yeah that alone is worth it may took you to the places that only football can take you there was there was more emotional intensity of the month of may in the city games and the games we played in the in the cup final in the celebrations then then you get from anything else in life and i hope you just really extracted all the joy out of it because well that's done now we talk transfers jeremy manga is he in we'll see a lot of transfers talk about director of football episode with tom canton tomorrow um scouting videos will be back next week world cup daily will start next week as well and you'll have your chance to follow along with the world cup here we um have michael tims coming on to host that while phil is in recovery we hope to have phil back for the knockout rounds but michael Tim's.

1:57:00Tim's you'll be on to host that with a lot of your regular Arsenal Vision favorites. He said tongue firmly in cheek if there are such things. But we love you so much for going on this journey with us. Hope you enjoyed reliving this season. Now we look ahead. So thank you, Paul. Woohoo! Thank you, Tim. My pleasure as always. My name is Alex Smith. We love you. As we always say in the summer, we will talk to you after Arsenal 10 transfer when I do.

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