To make it worse on this most super of grand slam Sunday's we have a meaningless match; the points will make no difference to either team. Arsenal can't move up a place, and Sunderland are safe. Wenger will give his youth a chance, and Keane will give his underperformers, including Stokes, one more chance to convince him they are good enough to stay.

I remember some fans being gutted when Stokes left, not really proved Wenger wrong has he? But I digress, I don't want Arsenal to lose this meaningless match because Keane may gloat as if he has defeated our first eleven, and if he doesn't Sunderland fans will. With no Flamini, Fabregas, or Hleb it is hard to see Arsenal being that dynamic, but I will be happy to be proved wrong.

Why the bitterness?

So yes it's more Sunday blues than Super Sunday for Gooners, but for a few it is more than feeling hurt, there is a feeling of bitterness. Suddenly this has become one of the worst teams Wenger ever fielded. That can't really be true can it? I know stats are not always the full story but they are some kind of indicator. Eighty points is far better than the last two seasons, and we have in the past won the Premiership with less. The Invincibles won 26 games, this team 23, and when you take into account that the bulk of those wins occurred in the first two thirds of the season it's not a bad achievement. 

Added to this is the fact that this team has only lost one game at home in two seasons, and this season is undefeated in all competitions, including matches against Milan and Manchester United. It has only scored fewer goals than Man Utd; it was vulnerability to the long ball that undermined it.

Disaster Predicted

At the beginning of the season most pundits, not all, predicted disaster for a post Henry Arsenal. Many, including a few Arsenal ones, told us that Spurs would push Arsenal out of the top four. Let's be honest most fans didn't expect to win the league, the more realistic scoffed at the Spurs theory, but only the tiniest of minorities predicted the Championship.

So if we look at all in perspective this has been a season where Arsenal overachieved in a context of the pundits predicting every week that Arsenal would implode. If you say something often enough you may eventually be right. When the implosion came it was caused by several events, but to my mind the Eduardo episode was probably the most important for two reasons. One the mental effect the shocking injury had on the team, and secondly the long term absence of RvP took its toll on Adebayor. Eduardo had begun to take the strain off Ade's shoulders at the right time, but that support was cruelly removed at a crucial time.

The rest doesn't bear thinking about, and doesn't need going over again and again. We could argue whether Arsenal were unlucky in the final important games, but only the criminally insane could argue we were lucky. If we had any luck in meaningful measure I certainly missed it. However that doesn't take away from the fact that it was lost at home against lesser clubs, we didn't lose at home, but there were three draws to many. Two or three less draws and it would be a three horse race on Sunday. So the margin of failure was very narrow, yes it hurts, but bitterness and blame doesn't help.

The better response is that we just missed it and that we could have done it, one more push and it can be done next season. Off course for the feint hearted that is not an attractive option, which is probably why Flamini is off, and Hleb wants to join him. No such luxury is open to fans, hopefully Wenger will strengthen the team, that some of the youngsters will step up; and that next season the rest of the team puts what it has learnt into practice.  Those players that have no stomach for the fight ahead should do us all a favour and piss off.

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