{"id":9630,"date":"2024-05-18T14:21:28","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T13:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9630"},"modified":"2024-05-20T00:08:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T23:08:08","slug":"the-final-countdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9630","title":{"rendered":"The Final Countdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Well, here we are. The final game of yet another season. It is frightening how quickly they go by, isn\u2019t it? Perhaps it is a symptom of the rising levels of fun we are having. The phrase, \u201ctime flies when you\u2019re having fun\u201d comes to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, it\u2019s been another fantastic season, progress wise. We have already surpassed last season\u2019s points tally of 84, sitting on 86 going into the final day. That is the most we have amassed in the Emirates era, and should we beat Everton we would end the season only one point shy of our best points total of 90 which was, of course, achieved in the Invincibles campaign of 03\/04. In fact, we have already surpassed that team\u2019s number of wins (26) winning 27 of our 37 games which is the most wins we have ever achieved in a 38-game season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And speaking of the Invincibles, many of them, including Arsene, will be present on Sunday to celebrate the 20th<\/sup> anniversary of their immortality, a feat which has not been matched in English football to date. How glorious (and downright hilarious) would it be if West Ham could pull off a minor miracle at the Etihad and deliver us our first title in two decades in front of so many of our former heroes? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because, as fantastic as this season has been, it would be bitterly disappointing to fall short on the final day. But at least we have taken it down to the wire. This is a proper title challenge. Not that last season\u2019s wasn\u2019t, but regardless of how we will be feeling at 6pm on Sunday evening, we can at least take pride and solace from the fact that we have not taken City some of the way, or most of the way\u2026\u2026we have taken them all the way. But, ultimately, first place is what we all crave and if we are to achieve that, we simply must beat Everton and West Ham must avoid defeat in Manchester. The former is very likely, the latter, not so much. But stranger things have occurred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our final day record of late is very good. The last time we failed to win on the season\u2019s conclusion was 2011 and we will need to win to stand any chance. City have won the title on the final day four times in the last ten seasons, more than any other side. They haven\u2019t always made it easy for themselves; in 2012 they needed two goals in added time against QPR for their first title in 44 years at the expense of their city rivals which was highly amusing at the time. And two years ago, City came from 2-0 down in the last 15 minutes against Villa to win 3-2 as they won the title at Liverpool\u2019s expense. I\u2019m not sure my trousers would be able to cope with that level of drama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that we do need to beat Everton has probably been somewhat overlooked in the pre-match build up as many of us have been caught up in the desperate hope West Ham can do us a massive favour. A replica of the Premier League trophy will be on standby at the Emirates just to add to the drama. Also present will be the Premier League CEO Richard Masters presumably because he\u2019d be too embarrassed to hand the title over to a team with 115 financial breaches to their name. Or there is some undercover plan to rig the final day in our favour. Something like three West Ham penalties and a Rodri straight red card. Well, that would be nice. I suspect The Hammers will need all the help they can get and then some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if we don\u2019t win the title, have we bottled it? Of course not, but that\u2019s not how others will see it. This season we have spent 57 days on top which is less than both City and Liverpool. It is some way off the 247 days we spent top last season and yet we have come closer this time around. One of the key lessons Arteta learned from last season, I suspect, was it is not how you start but how you finish. Or more specifically, it is about maintaining a high level throughout. But you cannot play at 100 MPH for an entire 38-game season. You would burn out (unless your entire squad is entitled to asthma pumps which you can keep puffing on all season long to your heart\u2019s content) so you need to pick your moments for when to go full tilt and when to reign it in a tad. This season, in the first half of the season, Arteta instructed his players to save themselves for later in the season. This was reflected in the performances and some of the results pre-Dubai. We won only 12 of our first 20 games drawing four and losing four. The greatest damage was done in December where we suffered three defeats in five games to Villa, West Ham, and Fulham. Since then, we have won 15 of our last 17, dropping just five points this calendar year. It has been like the first half of last season when we dropped just seven points in the first 19 games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose the hope was that we would still be good enough to have taken enough points in the first half of the year to mean any blips in the second half could be compensated for. Even if we don\u2019t take the title, the fact that we have taken it to the final day suggests the squad has become more adept for this \u2018saving energy approach\u2019 going forward. It is worth remembering that we were still competing in the Champions League until a month ago and we have experienced four incredibly physically and mentally draining encounters against Porto and Bayern. But we have not run out of steam after the defeat in Bavaria as many would have expected of us. In the last month we have beaten Chelsea, Spurs and United. That doesn\u2019t sound like \u2018bottling it\u2019 to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of events on Sunday, we have enjoyed another season of progress and in many respects our strongest and most enjoyable campaign since 2004. We do need a minor miracle elsewhere, but we can only control what we ourselves do, and I expect us to do just that: 3-0 to The Arsenal and a 1-1 draw for our comrades from the capital that will send shockwaves across the football world as Arsenal snatch their first title in twenty years by the smallest of margins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BEL14VE!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, here we are. The final game of yet another season. It is frightening how quickly they go by, isn\u2019t it? Perhaps it is a symptom of the rising levels of fun we are having. The phrase, \u201ctime flies when you\u2019re having fun\u201d comes to mind. Overall, it\u2019s been another fantastic season, progress wise. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9630"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9633,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9630\/revisions\/9633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}