Today is the 5th of March, 2018 and Arsenal are in crisis. Following a 2-1 defeat to little old Brighton and Hove Albion (albeit they're two places; north London is only one), many are calling for Arsene Wenger's head. But surely we could not have seen this coming?
Rewind to the 5th of March, 2016. Arsenal have just lost 2-1 to little old Swansea City and Paul Merson is going on a rampage.
"I can imagine when you get in the dressing room after the game, you've just lost the last two games. After the Swansea game, they all go in the dressing room and they go like that [heads bowed] and Arsene goes 'Unlucky. Unlucky. They only had two shots and they scored two'," he says.
Winners, when they get you on the floor, they get you on the floor and they make you suffer. Swansea were there to get beat 5-0 the other night. All they wanted to do was beat Norwich on Saturday. If they'd been beat 5-0 by Arsenal they would have been 'this is our game'.
You don't see Calzaghe and Froch when they were boxing Jeff, you didn't see them get on top and then let the other boxer in for a couple of rounds. They went 'Bang, see you later.' Off again, who's the next fighter.
If you take out the references to players who are no longer at the club you could literally copy and paste this rant into today's news. In fact that's what we've done. It's incredible how little has changed in the intervening period.
