Is it ok to hope now?

By Declan Varley

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us. 

Here in Ireland, I come from a county for which hope has been a constant harbinger of doom. My native county Mayo, has been in a dozen All-Ireland Finals (equivalent of the Cup Final) since 1951…and has lost every single one of them through a series of double own goals, late leads conceded, inexplicable brawls, crazy physics and stupid sendings off. Whatever it was, the hope which sustained us was that which constantly battered us. There is a myth of a curse on the team, but that’s rubbish. Instead, it is a yearly bashing of hope for a fanbase that is massive and manic. That’s hope for you. It’s the killer.

This season with Arsenal, I feel the same. I am reluctant to accept praise lest I jinx it. I was preferring to see how we fared against the big guns before I predicted/admitted that we are challengers for the top or else battling for fifth. I see danger lurking around every badly defended corner. The onset of the difficult October. The horrors of those horrendous Novembers. I am eagerly willing on the World Cup so that we can reset and see where we are. I sigh with relief at every bundle of points gathered in a season so far without any draws.

Yet, privately, I grin with every performance; I sing the Saliba song in places where people have no ideas what the Hell I’m at; I hum the North London Forever song while walking across towns in the west of Ireland, because it is about place and pride and location and identity, and no matter who we are or where we are, that always matters.

But this hope… I still suppress it. Like a lad who doesn’t want to fall in love again in case he gets hurt. Despite beating ‘title contenders’ Tottenham, and Liverpool, who this time last year were being lauded as possibly being better than our own Invincibles.

Once, this club had expectation and hope as its breastplate, but decades of underperformance has seen that eroded, worn away. I want to have hope that we can sustain a title challenge, but am also fearful that we could cascade down to fifth for sixth when the other sleeping giants get their act together. That there will be a bad run of results; that there’ll be injuries and suspensions… and other weird stuff. I want the importance of winning that lottery-like Europa League to diminish in our minds because we have secured its prize through our league position.

I fear the Murphy’s Law of what can happen, (as has happened to my Mayo team) will happen has been prophesied for many seasons and it has always come to fruition.

Last season’s collapse didn’t help. Turning the Burnley draw into a win might have seen us in the Champions League, but we combined that with a Spring that saw us lose so many games against so-called lesser opposition.

We knew what we had to do to succeed. We knew what we had to do to fail…and we chose the latter, to the tee.

But this season is different. Where we were weak, we are strong; where we feared, we have belief. Instead of it being the comedy-fest we feared it would be, All Or Nothing gave us an insight into the emotion that drives this team, into the passion that fires Arteta. Into the lethargy that sat at the heart of last year’s brave, but failed challenge for the top four. Through it, we got a look into the daily doings of the club. Ok, it became repetitive, but then so does every successful and efficient workplace. 

I’m not sure exactly when we began to abandon hope over the last few decades. There have always been a succession of bad Novembers and horrible winters afflicting Arsenal. Moments when the wheel came off the wagon. Too many wet Tuesday nights in the Potteries…too many muddy Saturday afternoons in the Reebok. It is there on those grounds where we have let ourselves down, where we have lost titles. Points dropped in unlikely places have always cost us.

We deserve the joy of what we are now experiencing; we have earned the right to lie in the sunshine of the uplands, to matter once again after years and years of banter.

The emphasis on quality is what has made the difference. The team feels stronger though, and the wider squad has to reflect that. There is a need for us to go to the well again in January and bolster our midfield. There were moments against Liverpool when Ramsdale winced, when Gabi Jesus stayed down, when it all seemed like it was going to happen again.

We have learned that we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Bolstered by what we have experienced in the past, we are entitled to have expectation, to go into the World Cup knocking on the door, asking questions of City and their cyborg.

Arteta and Edu have created a team that is giving us hope, and so it is incumbent on us all to believe with our hearts that this team can achieve as much as it can. 

There is a biting point in theatre where the pretence of the actors meets the pretence of the audience — there the magic happens.   

We are watching the creation of something special. Let us back it with all our might. And hope.