Arsenal vs Bournemouth: Tis the season for hope, right?

Arsenal are taking a blind step forward, but given the meanin’ for the season, isn’t it fair to say we should all have just a little bit of hope?

It’s hard to be hopeful sometimes, especially if you’re an Arsenal fan. We’ve now seen Unai Emery run out of the club due to poor spirit from the players. We saw no new manager boost for Freddie Ljungberg, who carried on the same problems.

Now we’re supposed to have hope in Mikel Arteta being different than the rest. That maybe we can see that new jolt from a fresh manager that so many other club’s find except for us. To be fair, Unai Emery managed it. He went 22 unbeaten, though it was always a shaky streak.

There’s certainly a lot of hesitation behind this festive period of far too many fixtures. But given the meanin’ of the season, let’s be hopeful little buggers, shall we?

With the upcoming match on Boxing Day, we have a lot to look forward to. For starters, obviously, we have a new perspective in charge of the club, someone who carries the approval of literally everyone out there.

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Even Mauricio Pochettino.

Arteta is a student of the Wenger regime, he’s learned under Pep and there’s every reason to believe he is the right guy to take the club forward, even taking into account his lack of professional managerial experience.

Beyond that, we are coming off just our second away clean sheet in around two years of poor defense. That’s nothing to shirk at. It was a big deal, despite the failed attack at the other end of the pitch. And the defense is only going to get better from here on out.

Beyond even that, we have the January transfer window coming up, and while it’s always dicey to get too hopeful that anything big will happen in the winter, with a new manager in charge it’s reasonable to think there will be some movement going in both directions. Potentially some dead weight leaving and some new hope coming.

This is where long-term optimism meets present day hopes. If Arteta does things right, we can be back to competing a lot quicker than you’d think. Clear out a few bad eggs and bring in a few good ones.

There’s a lot here, see? And it’s not just because it’s Christmas time and I feel like being extra chipper.