For a while now it seems that whatever needs to be written about our beloved Arsenal has become so blindingly obvious that all articles are carrying this same message. Following our defeat at the hand of the Mancs at the weekend, the quadruple that we were chasing(?!) has now been reduced to one chance of silverware. As written by the editor in his article on Saturday’s FA Cup tie, the chance of winning the Premier League trophy all but disappeared when Johan Djourou’s shoulder popped out of its socket.

I hate being pessimistic about Arsenal’s fortunes and it makes me sad to do so but, since winning the FA Cup in 2005, the club does appear to be in a never-ending cycle which culminates in a short period of self-destruction in March leaving our season to fizzle out into a challenge to maintain at least fourth place. We got much closer to silverware this year than we have since that rainy day in Cardiff. Two minutes left in a Wembley final, with a rapidly tiring Birmingham team packed full of journeymen players. Most football fans with an unbiased view agree that there was a very strong chance that we would have over-powered them in extra-time and won the Carling Cup. Obviously both Koscielny and Szcezny had swotted up on Arsenal etiquette and ensured that we screwed that chance up and kept the dust gathering on an empty shelf in the trophy cabinet. I should add here that part of the cycle is also to throw a winning position away as bizarrely and in the most numb-skulled way that you can (honourable mentions to Kolo Toure giving away a truly idiotic penalty at Anfield in the Champions League, and poor Kieran Gibbs slipping on his arse at home to the Mancs in the same competition). (Ed’s note – well, the latter did not occur in a winning position, but I take your point)

Having seen the possibility of winning four competitions drop to ‘only’ three, the team were hungry for more opportunities to keep us Gooners in our perpetual March-misery. The return leg against Barcelona was the next chance to go down in the club’s history. To make sure we had no chance of snatching any glory here we had to guarantee that we could not field our strongest eleven. With the help of a couple of our Premier League opponents and some poor luck we had lost Walcott and Song. As for our two best players (please feel free to argue amongst yourselves on that point!) Fabregas and Van Persie…

Cesc was struggling with his hammy and apparently effectively only lasted fifteen minutes before aggravating this to the point where he became completely unable to affect the game. Or so we thought, as he managed to play on against the odds, our captain was determined to make his mark on the match. One cheeky little back-heel on the edge of his own ‘D’ and his work was done. RVP had no chance of playing but he did not want to miss out any chance of calamity and made a miraculous recovery from having injured his knee by... kicking the ball! He started the match but, sadly, did not finish. His first yellow card was for an act of petulance that personally I thought had disappeared from his game, although I would find it hard to pass up a chance to slap Dani Alves! The second yellow and resulting red will be argued about for weeks to come by Gooners. My first thought when he kicked the ball was ‘silly boy’, but the referee did seem to take great delight in sending the Dutchman off without breaking his stride to flourish the red card. Our chance of getting anything from the game was gone, we looked heavy-legged with eleven players, with ten we were doomed. Not knowing what was to come the footballing gods had already robbed us of our first choice keeper, injuring his finger by... catching the ball! It would not impact in this game, as Almunia came on and covered himself in a little glory (hopefully all that time out of the first team has allowed him to brush up on where his near post is!), but with the current prediction of six weeks out for our Polish stopper, we will definitely feel the effect.

I confess that I missed the FA Cup game at Old Trafford, having a prior engagement with Mrs C. I had told a few workmates that we would get a result out of this game, as I had a ‘funny feeling’ about it. As it turns out I was wrong, of course, this is March after all! Gone was another shot at a trophy, sublime goalkeeping by United’s ageing Dutch rodent kept us at bay and we failed to register a goal (for the third game in a row, unless you count the O.G. in the Nou Camp!). ‘Crashing’ out of the FA Cup, as any good tabloid worth its salt is putting it, left us with only the League to fight for. Three points off of first place with a game in hand (despite throwing away countless more chances to claw back the gap between us and United) puts us in a strong position, especially with them still involved in three competitions. To even up the score, or tip it dramatically in their favour, the Arsenal came up trumps again with Djourou’s horrible injury. Surely our most improved player this season, I think that the Swiss defender has been a rock at the back. Now we are left with Stan and Ollie (copyright Alan Davies) at the back, and all hope is surely gone! (On a serious note, I hope that Johan has a speedy recovery)

I usually refrain from ‘slagging off’ the Arsenal, it’s my club and I love it. I always try to take the positives out of situations, but runs like this make it really hard. It drives me mad that EVERY time we have a real ‘crunch’ game, we come up short and go home empty-handed. Be it confidence, immaturity or a lack of quality in the squad (I will leave the Rosicky, Denilson, Diaby, Eboue and Bendtner bashing to other Gooners), currently we are just not good enough and that hurts us all. The positive I am trying to take from this is the (slight) parallel to our Invincible season. Crashing out of the Champions League at home to Chelski, followed by being knocked out of the FA Cup by United at Villa Park, and then being 1-2 down at half-time at home to Liverpool in the league. Feeling the possibility of our unbeaten run and the league slipping away was a real low point for every one of us Gooners at Highbury on that day. We turned that around in truly spectacular style and went on to claim the Premier League trophy. Let’s hope the same happens this season, and it all starts away to West Brom on Saturday. Come on Arsenal! (Note – I said ‘slight’ parallel because that Invincibles team had Henry, Pires, Vieira and Bergkamp in it. This current team... doesn’t!!)