Oh COME ON, I have to shake out of this. YOU have to shake out of this. We have to pull through this together.

It’s just football. It doesn’t matter what the others do. We’re not going to be the obsessed bitter ex from down the road.

Arsenal head to the MIGHTY Valencia tonight. The Spaniards ripped 5 goals in a single half at the weekend against a team that sounds like a dodgy shot of tequila, Huesca.

We really shouldn’t have that much of a problem against the Spaniards this evening, the problem is we’ve been ugly on the road and we unfortunately don’t have the team metronome that was Aaron Ramsey.

Now we’ve fucked the business end of the season there’s no reason we can’t play all of our players, unless there’s some mega redzoning going on on. Tonight, we must play our best hand which should at the very least be enough to stay level for the first half.

We don’t need to be the protagonists this evening, we simply need to keep a clean sheet. All we need to do is replicate our GIANT performance in Napoli and we’re in.

Thinking back to that last game, it’s quite amazing how across both legs we stuck to a game plan… if anything, it was all a bit boring in the second leg.

I LIKE BORING

I’ll take boring, like the slow drawl of Alan Shearer reading the back of a cereal packet, or putting furniture together with a Spurs ‘nearly did it’ highlight reel lightly buzzing the background. I don’t need exciting. We just need the final, then we can truly go for it.

After the last two games we’ve watched in the Champions League, it’s hard to take anything for granted. These stats by the BBC make for grim reading if you’re a fatalist today.

• No team has lost the first leg of a Uefa Cup/Europa League semi-final by two or more goals and gone through since Espanyol did it against Club Brugge in 1988.
• In total, five of the previous 28 teams to lose the first leg of a Uefa Cup/Europa League semi-final by two or more goals have ended up progressing.
• Including finals, Arsenal manager Unai Emery has won his past 18 Europa League knockout ties, last being eliminated from the competition in the 2011-12 semi-finals -with Valencia.
• Arsenal have never lost a European tie in which they won the first leg by two or more goals, progressing from all 27 previously.

So many records there to be broken.

Unai is talking about the trophy like you’d talk about an unsightly frocked beast in an old pub in the suburbs back in the day…

“It’s an attractive title and it’s getting more attractive,”

Yes it is Unai, after 5 pints of Ye Olde Battering, the Europa is looking like a young Kate Moss right now. He needs the trophy, the fans need the final, we all need a little whisky chaser of something to get us through the potential horror show gearing up in June.

“I first competed for this title when it was still the Uefa Cup and was a lesser title than it is now.

“It has grown and I have seen that shift. Giving teams a Champions League place through the Europa League is a fair reward and it’s a title they all want to win.

“It’s an important title for those teams not in the Champions League – and for some who drop into it as a second chance, like Valencia did this season.”

I think if there’s any critique about Unai this season, it’s that he chased personal glory of being the Europa mega title holder over just doing what was sensible in the league. We know he loves this cup, we know he wants to be the most titled guy in history… just like Wenger wanted to beat Alex Fergurson for tenure.

Well, now we’re in a space where this isn’t a bonus, it is an absolute MUST.

No Champions League is a disaster for our finances, but it’s also a disaster for his reputation with the fans. We didn’t just drop out of contention, we plunged out of the sky with all 4 engines on fire against weaker opposition.

This is his way out for most fans… again, it’s a single data point of glory, as a single point of data it’s positive but clouds little… but it’d certainly plaster over the doom of the reality and it’d make whatever goes on with ***** a little easier to digest.

The final is on a platter. Are we going to be greedy and eat directly from it like some sort of dirty wilding, or will the team have public buffet fear like me and my siblings because of years of being hounded by our father for being fat c*nts if we took from the tray? Let’s hope not. Buffet PTSD isn’t cool and I’ll chuck myself out of a window if we lose this tonight.

Excuse me? That is a horrible thing to say. You’d miss me if I were dead.

BIG GAME, let’s see you ALL in the comments.

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