Arsenal vs West Brom: 5 Brutal Things We Learned

3. It Can Get Worse

I don’t say this as a wallowing kind of statement. I’m not sitting here bathing in salty tears thinking about how Arsenal has let me down and will continue to let me down. Instead, I say this moreso as a cautionary statement. I hope it will ground us in the reality of it. Kind of like I wish how someone would have grounded me about Danny Welbeck, because I was convinced he was suddenly going to be Cristiano Ronaldo.

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Right now Arsenal sits in fifth (as of writing) and by the end of the day they could be in sixth. Over the past decade or so, we have relied on our Gunners to climb out of whatever position they were in. It’s become so assumed that we don’t even think much of it.

And to a certain extent, I do think a lot of us take that for granted. Not that we can be blamed.

But rest assured that it can get worse. Arsenal damn well might miss out on the Champions League this year for the first time in two decades. That is certainly worse than “just another top four finish.”

However, we can also find a glimpse of optimism in that old saying that it has to get worse before it can get better.

At No. 2, something we should all have known for years.