Four Takeaways from Arsenal's season as crunch Champions League clash vs PSG looms large 

Here's exciting new Gooner Fanzine writer Scarlet Katz Roberts with Four Takeaways from Arsenal's 2024-25 season so far with PSG on the horizon 

1 - Nothing Means Anything

“Don’t be satisfied.” Were Mikel Arteta's words of defiance on the last day of the 2023-24 season, when we missed out on the title by just two points.

This was meant to be our year. This was the no brainer. This was the banker. This was the one that couldn’t fail… (and so on).

Phase five of a painstaking chess offensive. We made sacrifices, Emile Smile Rowe stepped aside after shouldering much early hope. What piece was he? A Bishop? Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were axed, surely Kings but that doesn’t work with the analogy...

Two years of being cruelly eclipsed by Manchester City. I

t was only right that we took a step forward and just won the league, it’s no more than we deserved.

But we haven’t, and everyone’s been enjoying it.

It’s been a campaign marked by controversial decisions, injuries and cumulative sense of heaviness reflected in some turgid football.

Narratives turned against this once lauded Arsenal side. Gary Neville told us we’d regressed. Rio Ferdinand still questioned in the Bernabeu whether Bukayo Saka was world class.

The point is, you don’t earn credit from doing the right things, and then automatically get rewarded with trophies.

Winning is an intangible alchemy: different every time.

The Madrid tie taught me a lesson in judgement. I too had succumbed to the idea that the team wasn’t functioning right. And maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe it was all along it was just without its key pieces. Or maybe it was some cocktail of injuries, a strange summer of recruitment and poor refereeing decisions, affecting flow, belief, that invisible juice that turns draws into wins (very much like the Brentford game at home last year).

Should we have known the moment we turned to Raheem Sterling, that something was wrong? Was it wrong? What type of player did Arteta and Edu think they were getting?

We thought we knew who the protagonists were, and last week at the Bernabeu, while Tottenham watched Emmerdale, was a moment of glory for some of the founding members of this era: Saka and Gabi Martinelli - who continues to look more and more Brazilian. I particularly enjoyed his nutmeg on his countryman Endrick, can’t say more jogo bonito than that.

But look closer and the tie unlocked a host of new stars.

2 - Jakub, I’m sorry

I don’t think anyone envisaged beating Remontada FC without some aggressive Gabriel defending and equally aggressive attacking of set pieces.

Step forward Jakub Kiwior.

Jakub, I’m sorry I ever doubted you. I’m sorry I still do. Maybe I’m clouded by the aura of Madrid, sorry for saying aura.

But keeping at bay the likes of Vini, Jude, Mbappe, Rodrigo & Co is not for the weak. Despite Madrid’s lack of attacking structure and general endeavour to work as a team, Kiwior, who has looked error-prone, weak, not cut out for the project, shone.

3 - Who needs Isak when you’ve got Merino

Others too have put their best foot forward with the squad on the back foot. In Mikel Merino we unlocked a left No8 turned No9. Mikel’s namesake, a fellow lego haircut possessor and Basque country native. In many ways the manager’s on field avatar: he’s so willing to carry out instructions.

All of which is to say, there was no one who thought Arsenal’s injury crisis at No9 was a good thing.

His goal last week was brilliantly taken, yes. But it wasn’t Martin Odegaard who’s surgical forward passing set up two goals in the Bernabeu - it was Mik’s!

I thought there was some good pressing in his locker, a few headed goals, impressive feet for a big man, but I didn’t think he had all that. Did anyone? Mik Merino sums up the Arsenal team that beat Madrid: invention, fortitude and endeavour.

4 - In praise of MLS

And can I just say what a player MLS is. Truly a main character with the skills to back it up. Rumour has it Jude refused to shake his hand after the game because he asked where Remontada was - what a guy! 

I think we’ve all felt that Arsenal have something approaching a winning formula that includes: Saliba, Gabriel, Odegaard, Saka, Kai Havertz - all of whom have been missing at various points this season. 

Of course, the reason why we love football is that it is sometimes just logic defying enough to make us believe that winning is always possible. But within reason. And the prevailing reason around Arsenal’s season was that we didn’t have enough.

The haters, the January Arteta-outers (you know who you are) may yet be proved right.

But I am going to try a bit harder to adhere to two truths.

A. Arsenal are a very good side.

B. Don’t be too quick to judge.

I can’t promise I’m going to be able to stay rational under the psychological stress of the Parc des Princes, or a first leg of a semi final without Thomas Partey. But I’m going to try.

PS: Did you know: The last time the Pope died, an English team won the Champions League...