Dave’s Ramblings – Arsenal

March 2, 2026 Admin

I always try to find something positive to say, or at least slap a mildly amusing twist on it like emotional duct tape, but today?

Today my optimism called in sick, my sense of humour is buffering, and even my inner motivational poster just shrugged and said, “Yeah… I got nothing.”

So, forgive me, I genuinely don’t know where to begin with this report. The team selection? Fair enough. Sensible. Logical. Almost suspiciously so. The tactics, however, appeared to have been drawn up five minutes before kick-off on the back of a fag packet.

Now, Liam has had some while to coach this group. He has had time to get us ready to play a team whose primary hobby is scoring from dead balls. Corners are basically their love language. So naturally, you’d assume we might prepare for that. Maybe even… defend one?

But no. Instead of progressing, we seem to have unlocked a bold new strategy: competitive corner spectating. As it sits, we’re not defending set pieces, we’re hosting them. I’m fairly certain their players were receiving more hospitality in our penalty area than in the corporate seats.

What baffles me most is that we haven’t just stood still defensively, we’ve actually evolved backwards. We’ve somehow reinvented the concept of marking by removing the marking part.

A few weeks ago in the League Cup, we discovered fire.

Right as the corner was about to be taken, three of our players suddenly bolted out of defence like they’d just remembered they had forgotten to pick the kids up from school. And guess what? Three of their players panicked and chased them. It was tactical genius. It was chess. It was art. Pep himself would’ve squinted at it thoughtfully.

And now?

Now we line up for corners like we’re queuing for a theme park ride that’s already closed. No movement. No plan. Just eleven men staring into the middle distance like they’ve been dropped into the Sahara with a vague memory of football.

We have gone from revolutionary set-piece masterminds to lost souls wandering the desert looking for a tactical oasis.

Did we misplace the playbook? Did someone accidentally wash it with the kit? Did the three runners get told off for cardio?

We cracked it… and then apparently decided cracking it was overrated.

Either way, if conceding from corners were an Olympic sport, we’d be on the podium.

And then we arrive at the unsolved mystery, the footballing Rubik’s Cube, the enigma wrapped in goalkeeper gloves… Robert Sánchez.

Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that at some point, someone has gently explained to him that his main job is to stop the opposition from scoring. Radical concept, I know. This includes saving shots. That’s the obvious bit , but it also generally involves not assisting the other team like he’s on a community outreach programme.

Passing the ball directly to an opposing striker is, traditionally, frowned upon. So is casually rolling it into areas that put our defenders into dangerous situations.

Sometimes when he has the ball at his feet, it doesn’t feel like a football match. It feels like one of those halftime competitions where a fan gets picked at random and told to have a go at the dressed-up dinosaur between the posts.

And yet… he is picked. Every week. Which leads me to only one possible conclusion. He is actually playing to orders.

Because the confidence with which he launches the ball to absolutely anywhere he fancies suggests this is not chaos. This is clearly someone operating within his brief. A very mysterious brief. Possibly written in crayon

At this point I don’t even get nervous when he has the ball. I just lean forward slightly and think, well, this could be interesting.

I must be honest. I’m not exactly a fan of the way Arsenil play football. Watching them is like ordering a five-star meal and being served slightly burnt toast. Technically food, but where’s the excitement? At their absolute peak, they can be described as aggressively average. And even that feels like I’m writing their Tinder bio.

They play with the intensity of someone trying to assemble IKEA furniture without the instructions. Lots of effort, plenty of confusion, and somehow you still end up missing a crucial piece.

And their fans? Oh, their fans. A fascinating species. Every August, they speak as if the league title is already engraved. By November, they’re mathematicians calculating “if City lose 14 in a row and we win every game 7–0…” By March, they’re historians reminiscing about 2004 like it was yesterday. Confident? Absolutely. Delusional? Potentially. Loyal? Undeniably. Realistic? Let’s not get carried away.

Anyway, having already gifted them a goal, getting that back, then presenting them with another, we get a corner.

Pedro Neto delivers a corner that a seven-year-old would apologise for.

And somehow, in that exact mental state, Pedro Neto decided the next logical step was to absolutely scythe one of their players down like he was harvesting wheat.

I’m just trying to follow the thought process here.

“Hmm. I’m on a booking. My last contribution was a corner that barely cleared the first defender. How do I respond to this? Ah yes, aggressive stupidity likely to cost my team another three points.”

It wasn’t even subtle. It was the kind of tackle that makes the referee reach for his pocket before the player’s even hit the floor. The man didn’t think twice. He didn’t think once.

At that point you’re not even asking why, you’re just admiring the commitment to chaos.

There was still time for Liam Delap to think he’d written himself into club folklore.

96th minute. He bundles the ball in like a man fighting for the last slice of pizza at a party. Absolute scenes. Pandemonium. I’m halfway through hugging someone I don’t even like.

For a glorious 14 seconds, we believed.

And then… the big screen. VAR.

The slow motion replay of doom.

Up pops João Pedro in the build up, not just offside. Not tight call. Not freeze it at the right frame. Offside in the he could’ve high-fived the goalkeeper and still had time to step back sense.

The flag didn’t just go up. It ascended. It achieved liftoff. NASA are still tracking it.

Goal ruled out. Limbs reattached. Shirts back on. Dignity? Nowhere to be found.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was that. Hope briefly rented, immediately evicted, deposit not returned.

My takeaways…

I don’t know why ArseNIL fans have taken to singing Liverpool songs and holding up their scarves as the Scousers do. Perhaps they got lost on the way to a game once and now think Liverpool play at the Emirates. Regardless, it makes them even less classy (if that’s actually possible) and they should instead try to write a few ditties of their own!

The frustrating thing about this game is that Arsenal aren’t exactly 1970 Brazil. They didn’t so much win the game as politely accept the gift basket Chelsea left on the doorstep. Inside: one slice of ill-discipline, a complimentary “What is goalkeeping?” masterclass, and our now-traditional performance of defending corners: An interpretive dance in three acts.

Honestly, if conceding from corners were an Olympic sport, we’d be on the podium draped in blue, singing the anthem while the opposition just stands there like, “We didn’t really have to try.”

Yes, the referee was… involved. But blaming him feels like blaming the smoke alarm when you’re the one who set the kitchen on fire. Again.

As Henry Ford supposedly said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

Which, in our case, appears to be mild chaos, existential dread, and a weekly group therapy session disguised as 90 minutes of football.

There are flickers of hope. Little sparks. Teeny tiny “ooh that was nice” moments. But then you look at the club structure, the methodology, the personnel, the vibes, the moon phase, and Mercury being in retrograde, and you start to wonder if we optimistic Blues are just emotional support fans at this point.

And yet.

Still in the FA Cup.

Still in the Champions League.

We’re Chelsea. There’s always a chance.

Remember 2012? We had less possession than a lost wallet and still ended up in Munich lifting the big one. Logic has never been our brand. Chaos is. Destiny occasionally joins in.

Anyway. I’ve had a drink. Possibly two. Tactical analysis may now be 73% vibes.

Photos can be found here

Finally, if anyone from Chelsea is reading this, when are you sending out the Aston Villa tickets? The game is in a couple of days FFS!

Onwards and upwards UTC

Dave M