Feed me the tears, feed me all the tears!!! If you know anything about my history with supporting Arsenal, I am the first one to call out the club for their incompetence on and off the field. When we started the season with 3 straight losses to Brentford, Chelsea, and Man City, I was on the verge of my annual mental breakdown from supporting this club. After solidifying our summer transfer window, Arsenal have gone on an unexpected run to pole position for the coveted 4th spot in the league, right now ahead of Man United, Spurs, West Ham and Wolves. This climb up the table to a Champions League spot and hopping over our rivals has every other club rattled and it is fucking hilarious.
For context, Arsenal has been doing this thing this season where they are winning soccer matches instead of disappointing draws or frustrating losses. And weirdly after these matches that Arsenal are winning, they are doing this thing where they celebrate with each other to express happiness after the matches. Let me show you the absurd acts that Arsenal have been committing after matches they win:
After the full-time whistle against Villa at Villa Park, Arsenal held on for the 1-0 victory to keep our stranglehold on the final Champions League Spot. Our egregious celebrations after the full-time whistle consisted of hugging, smiles, and cheers between the Arsenal fans and players.
With all that being said, former Villa player Gabby Agbonlahor had the audacity to complain about the Arsenal celebrations:
Current Villa player and long time overrated player Ashley Young also gave his much needed comments on the matter as well:
You just gotta laugh at this point at the celebration police. God forbid that this young Arsenal team has been playing well and have set up well and truly for a run at the Champions League spot after 5 seasons of comfortably missing the mark. I’ll be serious for one moment and just laugh at how ridiculous that Premier League lifers Agbonlahor and Ashley Young have gotten so rattled by full time celebrations from a team that is gunning for a Champions League spot. To make things even funnier, not long ago, Gabby Agbonlahor went on about how Steven Gerrard celebrated after his first match as Villa manager:
The absolute irony kills me but it is not just Aston Villa losers that are victims of these heinous acts. Arsenal in the span of a few weeks nabbed 6 points off Wolves in two hard-fought matches at the Molineux and Emirates stadium. After our 1-0 winning against Wolves on February 10th win 10 men, Wolves Captain Conor Coady saw us celebrating a win and was prompted to say “they celebrated quite hard, didn’t they? It probably shows how big the game was to them. It was big to us as well. Listen, we spoke about it all week. We prepared well, we made sure we were ready.” Ruben Neves said after the same match “We saw the way they celebrated the win and that shows the level we are, I didn’t see Arsenal celebrating like this in the past 10 years – it was like they won the league.”
What was really cool for Wolves was that 2 weeks later, they would have another crack at us at the Emirates to make things right, to avenge our unwarranted celebrations. Unfortunately for them, they lost 2-1 from an extra-time own goal that was helped by Lacazette.
If I were Wolves, I wouldn’t have let that happen. I would have held on to the lead and won the game instead of losing it on the last kick of the game. If I were Wolves, I would have focused on avenging their loss at the Molineux and winning at the Emirates instead of focusing on us celebrating on your own pitch. Just lots of things I would have done if I were Wolves but that is just me.
After taking care of Villa and Wolves for this season, Arsenal still has an upcoming clash with Spurs that will more than likely decide the Top 4 race. Mikel Arteta after our Liverpool loss midweek, expressed frustrations about our early start time against Villa (we ended up winning) and our April clashes that have games April 4,9, 16, 20 and 23 with 3 of them being against Chelesa, Spurs and United. Antonio Conte was asked about it and gave his answer “In general, I think my answer is enough. If someone wants to think about fair or unfair. We postponed the game, Tottenham-Arsenal if you remember. I don’t forget this. And it’s not right to speak about fair or unfair.”
I wrote about this issue a couple months ago and how easily triggered the rest of the league was when we wanted to postpone our game due to COVID, injuries, and AFCON. For some reason, it was acceptable when the rest of the league needed postponements but when Arsenal wanted one that was more than necessary, everyone came out of hiding to express disapprovals on the subject matter. Regardless, we have a heavy April fixture lineup that we have to get ready for but in the meantime, we will sit back and enjoy easily triggered the rest of the world is at Arsenal’s rise to the top of the Premier League.
Featured image credits: Tenor
Image Credits: Stuart Macfarlane, NBC Sports
Twitter video credits: talkSPORT, ESPN UK, NBC