The Marble Hall Diaries

Before I get into things properly, can I just say one of my favourite things to come out of the Everton result is someone naming their new puppy Max. It is extremely cute: Anyways, hello one and all and welcome back to a brand new week, which means you lucky lot get to hear from me again in another blog post.  Lots to cover this week, including matches in our top two priority competitions (in my opinion) - the Champions League and the Premier League.  Leverkusen (A) This was a really interesting game, and by interesting I mean completely boring and soul sucking but the outcome was interesting. It happened in the midst of almost all the other British clubs faltering in Europe (that Kinsky performance will live long in the memory), and I saw many pundits and commenters lumping our result in with some of the others which I don't think our comparable. How can you put a battled 1-1 draw away to a team with one of the best home records in Europe in the same bracket as getting thumpe...

 Happy Monday all.  Now, other than the fact that I have opened this week's blog in the style of an all-staff email from that manager at work we all hate (you know who I mean), I'd like to start by summing things up with a Harry Potter quote. Watching Arsenal these days feels a bit like Ron's prophecy reading in the third film: " You're gonna suffer, but you're gonna be happy about it ". You see, my experience as an Arsenal fan these days is a strange one - I'm over the moon at how results are panning out across all four competitions and our defence is proving to be more robust than a Nokia 3310 wrapped in bubble wrap.  However, I can't help but feel like every second spent watching our games at the moment is tantamount to a form of torture that should be considered a war crime. The nerves, the anxiety, the fact my heart beats so fast over 90+ minutes that I question whether I'm in need of medical attention or if I'm about to start floating...

Hello again, only the one game to talk about this time, which is an unusual experience as an Arsenal fan these days, but it'll be the last for some time as it's two games a week from here on in until the international break (I think, don't quote me on it).  I'm not saying I found it challenging to wait a week between our games, but I've completed seven puzzles, painted 3 walls of the house and built the entire landmass of Africa out of Lego just to get through it. Turns out I have an unhealthy addiction to this class A drug - see what I did there 😉 - and 6 days feels like forever to have to wait to have my heart rate raised to 1000bpm by 11 men who struggle to stumble over the line.  The big question going into this game against Chelsea at home was this - what is the truth? Are we good or are Sp*rs terrible? (The latter is definitely true, but could both be true?) Have this team turned a corner since the half-bottle job at Wolves or was it just a one-off for the NL...

Just a quiet and uneventful first week for the blog then!  Before I get into things, thank you to all of you who have read and given your feedback on the first post, it means the world to me as you validate my delusional belief that people actually care about what I have to say regarding Arsenal.  But enough of that warm human stuff - let's get back to the unhinged madness that is a week in the life of an Arsenal fan.  I mentioned in the last post that the upcoming week would be pivotal to our season. Never did I expect it to go quite like this.  Wolves (A) Firstly, we come to the game against Wolves at Molineux. Now, looking at this four days later and post-NLD (haha), to say I have somewhat calmed down is an understatement. Let me first revisit my perfectly rational instant reactionary messages to my various Arsenal group chats (a.k.a. echo chambers of mutual suffering):  "Embarrassing and, I'm sorry but complete bottlers the lot of them" "Playing like th...

This is a defining moment in our season. A defining week in our season. It's not the first one, and it certainly won't be the last... - But first - welcome to the brand new Arsenal obsessed blog - The Marble Hall Diaries. Here you will find a selection of only the finest musings, opinions, thoughts and occasional (though hopefully very rare) meltdowns regarding by far the greatest team the world has ever seen (totally a fact, 60,000+ people say so every week) - Arsenal F.C.  Off the bat I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to read through this post, and any others you may hopefully encounter in the future. It truly means a lot to know you would choose to spend some of that precious commodity we call time to read what I have to say. You don't have to, yet you've chosen to, and I don't take that for granted.  I don't know how this is going to go or where it might end up (hopefully not in a courtroom or evidence file of some description), but for now t...