Arsenal vs Manchester City is coming tomorrow.

Mikel Arteta will not be present because he has COVID, but rest assured, the man will be going overdrive to ensure he’s delivering all the strategy meetings and making sure there are no excuses for the players.

This game is the hardest we’ll play all year, City are immense, there is no better-coached team in world football right now.

… but Arsenal cannot let them happen to us again.

We have to show up tomorrow. If we’re going to lose, I don’t want it to be a City gimme. I’d like constructive failure if there has to be a failure at all.

What I’d really like is a point or more.

Everything has to roll our way for that to happen.

City concede about 6.7 shots per game. That means we need to take our chances because they control the space better than anyone.

City average 19 shots per game. We have to be ruthlessly efficient in defence and make sure those 19 shots are speculative.

We also have to have a bit of luck, you simply don’t beat City without all three of those things going your way.

… but why not?

Leicester beat Liverpool earlier in the week and they’ve been awful all season. They nearly made a game of it against City pulling back 3 goals after going 4 down. There is no reason we can’t make a go of it if the belief is there.

There’s a bit of a worry that Tomiyasu wasn’t pictured in training, I know last week they were expecting him back. So fingers crossed on that one, I’d rather Ben White as right-back than rolling the dice on Cedric or Chambers.

Outside that, we’re rolling with a full team. Everyone is in great form right now, so I have no idea who he’ll select, all we can be sure of is there will be a plan constructed by an inside that might give us a chance.

Short post today.

It’s New Years Eve and I want to thank you all for reading.

We had our best ever month with The Arsenal Opinion. We had more listens this year than we did the three previous years combined.

We had our best year for website traffic and repeat visitors.

We gave you 301 stories.

There were 152,000 comments on the blog.

Our top 9 countries by traffic looked a little different. I see you India, climbing into the Champions League spots.

1. England
2. America
3. Nigeria
4. India
5. Ireland
6. Australia
7. South Africa
8. Kenya
9. Sweden

We started live streaming this year and we have a Youtube page. We made 34 videos and people watch them… like, really watch them 20,000 hours of time.. It’s tiny in comparison to the big channels, but it’s still cool, and we are only just starting.

… and most importantly, we end the year with Arsenal in the top 4.

Without doubt, this last year has been one of the hardest I’ve ever had to write for, and I’ve taken on some pretty meaty topics over the years. There’s been a lot of character assassination, a lot of pretty aggressive commentary because of my views, and it’s been very stressful. 14 years of writing doesn’t make you immune to it.

… but we’ve come out the other side. It might be harder being team positive, but people seem to prefer it. I get more traffic on all channels after a win, than a loss. That’s a big change. More people visit my Twitter page monthly than the blog by about double (people prefer to search and read than admit they follow). So the pivot is doing ok.

Arsenal is top 4. People are saying this is one of the most exciting projects in world football. We have a squad of players everyone loves. The fans are rocking in The Emirates.

What more could you ask for? I mean, bar all the good bits continue at a faster clip.

Arsenal might be back people, for once, the hope is well placed.

So here’s to everyone having a great send off this evening, here’s to your health and wellbeing, and here’s to us all having a spectacular 2022.

I love you all, thank you for keeping me going, see you in the comments. xxx