Attention to detail

Back in December, I wrote 'Do we dare think about the title race?'. The progress we've made since then is evident in the fact that our question is now, 'do we dare think about the title?'

When I wrote that article our season was almost exactly at the half-way point, and we were about to play a very in-form Aston Villa at the Emirates. I predicted that the outcome of that match would serve as a pointer as to where our season was going. We'd already lost at home to Chelsea by this point, but beaten most of the teams below us, including Liverpool and Spurs. Villa at this point were the 'best of the rest', and we needed to prove our superiority, and show that we would be challenging Chelsea and United, rather than fighting for third or fourth.

I suppose at that point it felt like even challenging for the title would be something of an achievement. I asked if we dared think about the title race, and now, three months on we're definitely thinking about it, and rightly so. So where do we go from here?

I worry that some Arsenal fans are setting themselves up for a fall. The fact is, we're still in third place, two points behind leaders Man Utd, and potentially three points behind Chelsea if they win their game in hand. Fans and pundits alike have pointed to our 'easier run-in' and there's a real air of expectation around us now.

No doubt about it, the character shown in the games against Stoke and Hull are something new, and something to give us hope, but we have to remember that what happens from now until the end of the season is not really in our hands. It's quite likely that we'll have to win ALL our remaining games, and in theory even that might not be enough if one of United or Chelsea can win all of theirs too.

If something goes wrong for us, or just really right for one of the other two, history will say it was another trophyless season for this young Arsenal team and Arsène Wenger, who chose not to add reinforcements in the January transfer window.

Fans have short memories; we were very close to the title in 2008, but again the facts show that we finished 3rd, and it is these facts that stand the test of time, while the details fade away and become slowly less important. Likewise, a lot of people point to the 05/06 team as a failure, even though we were fifteen minutes away from winning the Champions League with ten men. Likewise, after posting this article, I'll get people complaining about me being so negative, even though they are the same fans who criticised Wenger's decision not to buy, but to show his faith in Bendtner, whom they now praise because he's repaying that faith, but whom they will again criticise if we miss out on the title.

These are very fine lines we're dealing with. If the linesman had rightly called Samuel Eto'o offside that night in Paris, we might well have lifted a trophy in 2006; if Clichy hadn't slipped in the last minute against Birmingham we probably would have lifted another in 2008, and this five-year silverware drought would be non-existent, and the pressure less great.

Fans forget (and I include myself in this) that, although we haven't won a trophy in five years, that doesn't tell the whole story, and it won't this season either.

If it goes down to the last day and we learn once again that we missed out, remember that most of us thought that day had already come at about 6pm on the 29th of November.

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