SEASON ON FIRE, BUT STILL ALIVE

EVERYTHING THAT COULD GO WRONG HAS GONE WRONG, BUT WILL IT LAST?

Wild to feel like this after 12 games unbeaten in the Premier League, but that's the product of probably blowing the title race. Arsenal giving up a 2-goal lead at home to an unimpressive Aston Villa side put us back to that 9-point gap (worst case) we've been trying to catch all season.

Football is a weird old game. It was looking like Brentford might get an unexpected point until Liverpool showed up in injury time to nab two unlikely goals. It was also looking like an impressive and dominant Arsenal side had done enough to bury Unai Emery for the second time this season.

The Football Gods had other plans. Thomas Partey, playing at right back because we had no option, was kind of responsible for two goals. Our makeshift defence, which was largely excellent, didn't have cover for a Tielemans header, and it seemed to forget to track Ollie Watkins at the back post.

It's hard to really find scapegoats here. Thomas is not a right back. Arteta didn’t have another option. There aren't many teams in the Premier League that could sustain the sort of injuries we've had this season and still be second in the league. Spurs have similar issues and they’re bottom half of the table. But it goes without saying... the injuries are an abomination at this point.

Losing Saliba cost us the three points, the same way it did when losing him for the Liverpool game.

Injuries can't be solely put down to bad luck. If you go into a season with a small squad, you can't be shocked when it's unable to absorb shocks. When a small squad gets smaller, the load can't be spread, that causes fatigue, and opens you up to more injuries. You get caught in a doom loop of broken players that look dead on their feet. When you're at the top of the football pyramid... playing 3 serious games a week, it's hard to recover, so you end up rolling out dead players every week. Arteta also needs to look himself in the mirror and ask why he beasts the same players every week when he has a full squad to choose from. If he doesn’t address that, we’ll never see the promised land.

More broadly, if we’re totally honest, there’s just too much football these days. Squads need to be 28 players to sustain 3 games a week for 9 months. Shocking that the federations keep adding games to the mix - it degrades the quality of the product in my opinion.

Hunting Liverpool with a full squad of players? I could see it. We're better coached and we have a better team. But without so many key names? Kai and Odegaard looking dead? Saliba out for a few weeks? It's starting to look very, very difficult.

The good news is it would seem Arsenal are almost certainly going to make moves on players this window. Nypan looks like he'll be coming in to give cover to Martin Odegaard. He's only 18. So hard to imagine the impact will be felt too much this season, but at least there will be a body. I also suspect we're going to see a striker at the club, be it a deal pulled forward, or a cheeky loan from the continent. My big hope is we don't do something we don't really want to do. I don't want a 75% striker. You know, an Olivier Giroud type. It looks kind of good and can pick up some of the burden, but it doesn't really kick you onto the levels you need.

You know who is a bit like that? Darwin Nunez. I've seen people banging the table pointing to his tremendous impact. I've seen people say he's the sort of player we need at Arsenal. That's a little unfair in my opinion. This is how his minutes have stacked up:

Darwin 6 goals, 27 app, 1403 mins

Jesus 7 goals, 27 app, 1204 mins

Even when presented with this info, people still tell me 'we could do with him at Arsenal' and that sums up why January is dangerous. Emotion takes over and you end up saying that £85m would be well spent on a player who has collected dust on the bench at Liverpool, despite him having worse output than Gabi Jesus.

If we're going to sign a striker, I don't want to see one at the club that needs to be explained to me. I said that about Jesus before we signed him.

'Why are we signing someone who doesn't score?'

Then he landed, he didn't score, and people fiercely defended his impact, suggesting the goals thing didn't matter.

GOALS MATTER. If your 9 doesn't score goals, he's not a good 9. We need a 9 who can score different types of goals, work hard off the ball, and cause CHAOS. If we can't find that, we shouldn't sign anyone. My hope... is that we will find someone.

Back to the Villa game. Arsenal were brilliant for most of the game. But we fell back to the pattern of conceding goals from limited chances.

The attack can't be critiqued. It did its job. We scored two goals. When you have the best defence in the league, you should be able to hold out when you're 2-0 up at home. Issue we had is our best defence was degraded and we had to pull back-ups out of other positions. Jurrien Timber played in the middle, Partey was on the right. It was mostly good, but in two key moments, it failed.

But damn, MLS... what a player. He just gets better and better. Imagine how good he'll be in 3 years' time? He's been grown in an Arteta Lab. Utter perfection. Loads of character. Great range of passing. He nearly landed a season-defining assist when he slipped Trossard in last minute.

The Belgian was also excellent. He looked like he was keyed into the mission and ready to step up in the absence of killers. His last-minute miss was painful to watch, but he'd done a lot of great things in other areas of the game.

The team really did box Villa in, particularly in the first half. All they had was outballs for Watkins. They created 0.14 xG in the first half. The issue was what I alluded to earlier, it was hard to keep up the pace after extra time in a domestic cup game we should have managed better. The team didn't have the magic they needed to get the game over the line... even though Merino looked like he'd done exactly that with a volley he fizzed in off the ground. But VAR intervened, like they always seem to with Arsenal, and adjudged a handball. It's always amazing to me how fast they call contentious decisions against Arsenal. Barely 30 seconds. I still haven't seen a defining angle and I was sure two seasons ago they weren't overturning decisions without clear views (Newcastle away, West Ham at home last season). But, when it's Arsenal, they desperately want to make the decisions against us, and they do.

I wouldn't chalk that one up the same as the other 15 points we've lost to their ineptitude, but it's another example of how you can get at teams by over-officiating against them. Remember, Chris Kavanagh, who had to send off Declan earlier in the season, didn't have it in him to book Rogers until injury time despite back chat, pulling a player back, and making lots of fouls. It also didn't go unnoticed that Chris ignored delayed restart offences by Aston Villa. It's not the lack of consistency that bothers me, it's that Arsenal are very specifically targeted and we all know it. Why is he even working on Arsenal games after his horrors?

Anyway, it is what it is. This season is as unblessed as they come. In sport, you have to accept that sometimes. You can be doing all the things required to win a trophy and the gods just aren't with you. Ask yourself this, how many times have we been outplayed? Not many. Maybe Atalanta away? We just haven’t got the rub this season. It’s been maximal punishment far too often. It won't be like that forever.

We just need to change the things that we can control.

• Don't go into a season with a short squad next season

• Rotate key players and don't play big names in pointless domestic cup games - don't even have them at the stadium

• Don't break players in training

• Only sign players that are robust

Liverpool will lose two of their three stars and they won't be the same.

City is already in a rebuild and that's before charges have been decided. It's going to be a rough few years for them. They seem to be signing players that they can sustain on low wages and I would be shocked if they didn’t address the elephant in the room with that new Haaland deal.

Arsenal won't have a season with as much bad luck again. We’ll sign two or three young goalscorers, raise the floor of the squad, and go into next season better equipped to win it all… and look, I am not good with the timings of my predictions, but the predictions on the big things have been consistently solid on this website. I won’t budge on my 100% belief that we’re winning Premier League and Champions Leagues with this manager at the club. Pin it to your fridge.

Arsenal just has to ignore the noise, look for the positive patterns, and keep the faith. The league will be hard, but it's not impossible. The League Cup is still on, I just watched Bournemouth score 4 at St. James Park. The Champions League is a real possibility. Ben White, Tomiyasu, Ethan, and Calafiori will all be available very soon. The club could add bodies.

Feels shit right now. But we are in great shape as a club. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

ASTON VILLA (H) - LIVE ON THE WHISTLE