REAL MADRID AWAY AND A CHANCE TO MAKE HISTORY

WE'VE WAITED SO MANY YEARS TO BE PART OF MOMENTS LIKE THIS, ENJOY IT, AND READ THE DAMN POST

Did you wake up in the middle of the night? Heart racing like you’d accidentally forwarded a red-hot woke-gone-MAD meme from Cousin Steve into the corporate GC? Did you soothe yourself with Declan Rice freekicks? Have you rewatched the Thierry goal against Madrid? Have you been using ChatGPT as a cheap therapy crutch to get your through all of this?

Get it together, man.

We’re 3-0 up heading into an away day at Madrid. Life doesn’t get any better than this. Eat this stat up.

As of April 15, 2025, Arsenal has not conceded more than two goals in a single match for 78 consecutive games across all competitions. That is 472 days. CRAZY.

Madrid are pretty good at turning around two-goal deficits. But three goals? This from Arsenal.com:

They’ve not overcome a three-goal deficit in Europe since 1985/86, when they were competing in the UEFA Cup—losing 5-1 to Borussia Mönchengladbach in the first leg before blowing the Germans away with a 4-0 hammering in the return fixture to go through on away goals and ultimately claim more silverware.

In Champions League history, only 47 teams have gone into the second leg with a 3-0 lead, and it’s only been turned around 8.5% of the time.

The odds are in our favor. The team we have is very well suited to seeing off attacking sides. We’re not under pressure in the same way Madrid are. Arteta is a Simeone regen. This is his night.

My main concern is maturity. The thick smog of expectation in the air. Referees who seem to lose their way. FREAK individual talent that can do obscene things when the bright lights of the world are shining down on them.

I have two theories about tomorrow night:

1. The first 25 minutes are the most likely to throw up pain for Arsenal. Matt raised a good point on the podcast last night—the pop/POP two goals that Villa dropped put PSG off balance. They were lucky not to concede three more. Madrid’s best bet for knocking us off balance is the time period where our players might be overawed by the moment, the stadium, and the job ahead. If we can lock them down for the opening 25, we’re in really good shape.

2. Spanish and French clubs don’t have the same level of athletes performing at the same level as Premier League players. If Arsenal can get the game to 60 minutes without taking too much damage, I fancy Madrid to drop a level like they did in London. Arsenal are really, really hard to play against. They have the ball-playing skills of Madrid, but they work like relegation-scraping dogs. They shift players around and force them into running they don’t want to do.

Things we need to watch out for? Outside the obvious, like dumb mistakes, I think the key thing is we can’t motivate the crowd. Madrid needs emotion like the Yellow Bastard in Sin City. Their players aren’t about the hard life they had in London. They need to be slighted, emotionally charged, and they need to have Arsenal crying and feeling victimised. That’s when they are at their best. We can’t be triggered. Arsenal can’t become a character in another Real Madrid snuff movie. We have to be humble, do our business, and trust the process.

A semi-final would represent a huge achievement for Arteta. It’d take the edge off the dreadful league campaign and it’d refocus Europe on our managerial talent and our squad levels.

Arsenal need this win.

Ok, that’s me done. See you in the comments. Sign up for a membership to get the FULL On The Whistle after the game. Should be a BANGER.

P.S. For the old school Grovers, Geoff has flown out to America to watch the game with me. So it should be special. Can’t wait to see him and hear his thoughts on how bad Alex Song was as a player—for about 35 minutes before I have to point to the post-it note on his knee that says, “he left in 2012, he can’t hurt you no more.”

ENJOY THE GAME. x