The best thing that may have happened to Arsenal in recent weeks is that defeat by Southampton of the Championship in the quarter-final of the FA Cup.
It seemed sobering at the time and certainly exacerbated a feeling of incoming collapse as it came immediately after an equally meek Carabao Cup Final defeat by Manchester City.
However instead of facing City at Wembley again at the weekend, Arsenal were at home in the sunshine squeaking past Newcastle in the Premier League and edging three points clear at the top of the table.
Given they play 48 hours before City do next weekend, that gap could well be six by the time their rivals next lace up their boots.
It’s strange how football works. Another meeting with City in the FA Cup – only a week after defeat by Pep Guardiola‘s team at the Etihad – could have made it three losses to them in the space of a month. Frankly, it could have finished Arsenal off in every conceivable way.
Declan Rice is a very good footballer but I couldn’t help but want more from him this weekend
Instead, Arsenal can sense opportunity again.
A six-point lead is still something to treasure and Mikel Arteta’s team now have a chance to pile the pressure on City before their difficult game at Everton a week tonight. This is how psychology can sometimes work in football.
Arsenal can still win this league title. Momentum has not been theirs recently but now that can change. City – in terms of points on the board and matches left to play – would probably swap.
But what Arsenal need now is somebody to lead them over the line, to guide them to glory.
With a Champions League semi-final to be played against Atletico Madrid this week and next, Arsenal need a talisman and that person needs to be Declan Rice.
Just like Manchester United once had Roy Keane, Chelsea had Frank Lampard, early City had Yaya Toure and Liverpool had Mohamed Salah, Arsenal need their best player to step up to the next level between now and the end of May.
Rice is a very good footballer. He has improved Arsenal since his move from West Ham two and a half seasons ago. He has started 32 of his club’s 34 league games this season and they miss him when he is not there. He is selfless, willing and generous – a team player.
But he also cost more than £100million and watching him against Newcastle on Saturday, I couldn’t help but want more from him.
I wanted him to be the best player on the field. I wanted him to be transformative and to make up for the recent holes in the performances of his midfield partner Martin Zubimendi.
At times, I wanted to see more risk. I wanted to see more that I could go home and think about. I wanted to see an occasional shot at goal!
But what I think I saw was a player operating within himself. It was all very safe, all very seven out of 10 whereas between now and the end of the season in a title race that may yet be decided on goal difference, Arsenal are going to need eights and nines from their best players.
It always puzzles me that Rice is not one of Arsenal’s captains. He is in Arteta’s five-man leadership group but tends to sit behind Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka when it comes to wearing the armband on match day.
If I was him, I would ask myself why that was and vow to change it.
There is more to leadership than an armband. It’s more about what you do and how you behave than what you wear.
But as Arsenal struggled in the second half against a Newcastle team out of form, I didn’t see Rice stepping forward and taking hold of that football match.
Rice is 27 now. These are his peak years. He has more control over his immediate destiny than he perhaps realises.
City mocking is nonsense
Having a drink with three Manchester City fans at Euston Station on Saturday was a good way to end a long day and their detailed breakdown of how much it had cost them to follow their team to Wembley for their semi-final against Southampton was evidence of what a nonsense it is that City get criticised for not selling all their tickets.
Including the price of a hotel on London Marathon weekend – necessary in case the game went beyond the 90-minute mark – it came out at about £500 each.
City – as we know – are at Wembley all the time and that this was not even a final. It was exactly the same a year ago when they beat Nottingham Forest at the same stage.
It’s the fact that the semi-finals are played at Wembley that’s the real crime here. Wembley is paid off now. What we are looking at is FA greed and it’s scandalous.
Empty seats were visible in Manchester City’s end at Wembley for the FA Cup semi-final
Easy way to solve tactical injury tactic
The BBC’s Guy Mowbray was sensibly diplomatic as Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez sat down with an apparent injury with half an hour left at Wembley.
‘We have to be careful as if there is a proper injury then we can’t say too much about it but the suspicion is that there is no such thing,’ was a brilliantly-put piece of under-statement by the Beeb’s commentary lead.
Leeds were pretty sure what they thought and made their feelings known to those Chelsea players who tried to take instructions from coach Calum McFarlane on the sidelines as Sanchez was attended to in the penalty area.
Let’s face it. Sanchez didn’t look injured did he? And Leeds have been here before this season.
Their manager Daniel Farke accused Manchester City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma of a ‘fake injury’ as Leeds lost 3-2 at the Etihad Stadium last November.
As often with these things, there is a simple solution. Tell coaches and managers to remain seated in the dugout and away from their players during injury breaks – book them if they transgress – and the problem disappears immediately.
It really is that simple.
Ethan Ampadu and Romeo Lavia square-up amid the Chelsea injury ‘tactic’ at Wembley
DCL rightly in the clear
Leeds at least came out on the right side of common sense as Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s brief brush with Marc Cucurella’s hair went unpunished during what was a disappointing semi-final.
It’s worth at least reiterating the law governing violent conduct here.
It’s all about the use of ‘excessive force’ which is exactly why Lisandro Martinez should not have been sent off when – coincidentally for pulling on Calvert-Lewin’s locks at Old Trafford two weeks ago – and why the Leeds forward was right to escape sanction yesterday.
The Old Trafford judgement was a mistake. Yesterday’s wasn’t.
Meanwhile, the FA’s disciplinary panel last week upheld the Martinez dismissal, saying that punishment for hair pulling must be consistent.
Sometimes football does like to make things difficult for itself.
Palace reaction told the story
Play should certainly have been stopped when Liverpool goalkeeper Freddie Woodman hurt his knee in saving a shot from Ismaila Sarr but whether Crystal Palace’s Daniel Munoz was wrong to chip the loose ball in to the goal is rather more nuanced.
Certainly the responsibility lies with match referee Andy Madley first and foremost and if so many players didn’t feign injury these days the job of the officials would be made easier.
Here Woodman genuinely was hurt but what was Munoz really to do?
Do his job and let the powers that be sort out the rest seemed a sensible enough approach and it’s hard to blame him for doing that.
But to see some of his team-mates barely celebrate his goal as the ball went in also felt quite telling.
Daniel Munoz’s goal for Crystal Palace at Anfield was not widely celebrate by team-mates
Were Leeds’ minds elsewhere?
Farke’s team were not at their best against Chelsea and that contributed to a poor game. It was surprising, too, given their recent good form.
Maybe the weekend’s previous Premier League results had spooked them a little.
Wins for Nottingham Forest, Spurs and West Ham meant that the gap between Leeds and the relegation spots is back to six points. What’s more, they still have to play at Spurs and West Ham before the season’s end.
Newcastle could also do with winning a game soon, by the way.
Eddie Howe’s team are on 42 points – two ahead of Leeds – and should be safe from danger. But teams on the slide at this stage of the season can drop in to trouble almost without realising it and Newcastle have just lost four on the spin.
They are at home to Brighton this weekend and a win there would settle them. After that come games against Forest and West Ham so there really is no room for complacency.
Burn against Madueke was madness
Most of what Howe has done at Newcastle over the last five years has been beyond reproach but no manager gets everything right and his decision to choose Dan Burn ahead of Lewis Hall at left back against Arsenal was utterly baffling.
Hall’s form has dipped a little recently and he was taken off at half-time as Newcastle lost at home to Bournemouth.
But Burn against Noni Madueke at the Emirates on Saturday was never going to be a fair fight and Arsenal made hay down that side in the early period of the game that they dominated.
To watch Burn labour with England manager Thomas Tuchel in the stands was to be reminded of the big centre half’s limitations.
He will be on the plane to America for this summer’s World Cup but the fact he is ahead of Manchester United’s Harry Maguire is ridiculous.
Dan Burn found it tricky against Noni Madueke and Bukayo Saka away at Arsenal
Freedom from Chelsea is empowering
West Ham’s revival in the latter stages of the season has been helped by another former member of the Chelsea ‘bomb squad’ in the shape of 28-year-old Axel Disasi.
The Frenchman is on loan from his parent club but has shown himself to be a defender of durability and reliability. He was excellent against Everton, whose goal came from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, another player benefiting from the simply not being at Chelsea anymore.
The day after Saturday’s big win, meanwhile, West Ham’s opening scorer Tomas Soucek was out on the streets with his family offering support to club staff running the London Marathon.
Team spirit is alive and well just in time in East London it seems.
Wilson a gem on a free
Former West Ham manager Graham Potter perhaps didn’t do an awful lot right during his short spell at the club but Callum Wilson did arrive on his watch.
Wilson is 34 now and doesn’t score bags of goals – six in the Premier League so far this season – but he does tend to score important ones.
Here he struck late to win the game – just as he did at Tottenham back in January – and the composure he showed to convert Jarrod Bowen’s knock down carried all the hallmarks of naturally born finishers.
It’s about calmness and the ability to slow everything down that matters in those moments and you either have it or you don’t.
Wilson may yet transpire to be one of the most important free transfers in West Ham’s history.
Pickford needs to calm down
Nobody was really sure why West Ham’s Crysencio Summerville was wearing gloves (and a short sleeved shirt) as temperatures brought a summer feel to the weekend or indeed why Everton weren’t given a penalty when Mateus Fernandes handled the ball.
Both things felt vaguely peculiar.
At the other end, meanwhile, the sight of Jordan Pickford berating Valentin Castellanos after sliding into him in the area was evidence that the England and Everton keeper still struggles to keep his emotions in check at times.
Pickford was booked during last weekend’s Mersey derby for screaming at the referee and the Everton goalkeeper probably needs to keep in mind that if he brings any of this to the World Cup this summer then his country may end up playing with 10 men.
At 32, Pickford remains England’s best goalkeeper but that doesn’t mean he is perfect.
Jordan Pickford needs to calm down or he could end up costing England this summer
Time to moo-ve on
It all got a bit surreal outside the Emirates before kick-off as a hoarding advertising a well-known milk drink let out a very realistic ‘moo’ every time somebody walked past it.
The group of police officers gathered by a van along the road seemed briefly to think they had a genuine cattle problem on the streets of north London. The panicked looks seemed beautifully real.
Meanwhile, stopped by security for the obligatory bag check a minute or two later, the young steward on the desk probably regretted asking what the book was at the bottom of my rucksack.
‘It’s called the Cow Book,’ I told him.
I have been on the end of less puzzled looks during all these years on the road.
*It’s a book about life in rural Northern Ireland and is rather good.
