By Daniel Finton
The 2019-2020 Premier league campaign could well be finished. Liverpool will be declared champions and it could be only a matter of weeks until that painful sight officially hijacks all social media outlets, leading to an inevitable and unprecedented halt of use from all sensible fans of the beautiful game.
Arsenal and the supporters of the club still find themselves 9th, grasping at straws and desperately hoping for last season's standings to determine who will take part in European competitions next campaign. Given the financially absurd and somewhat comical conundrum Manchester City find themselves in, there is a chance that whoever is deemed 5th may earn a dumpster-discovered Champions league golden ticket of sorts for next season. While the chances are slim, straws are still being grasped and totally disingenuous rallying cries of confidence are being shouted out from the Arsenal faithful at the moment.
Now the question is, do we actually have a chance of clinching a spot in the Champions league? We’re 8-points off of 4th place Chelsea and only five off of 5th placed Manchester United. If the season were to continue, it's not out of the question. If is to be determined null and void, we'd find it difficult to convince the authorities that they should indeed use last season's standings.
We notably have a game in hand on both Chelsea and United, which could give us fighting power in the negotiations. That game was actually supposed to be the subject of our content on this site over the last few days, an encounter against “financially conundrum med” Manchester City. That match, like an abundance of football, and me yesterday on my 21st birthday, was ruined by Corona.
To be frank, it is a bit of good news that we dodged the inevitable onslaught that was set to occur after their humiliating derby loss to now, far inferior rivals, United.
Let's say the season is to go ahead, despite the possibility of Arsenal qualifying for Champions league football still being attainable from a mathematical standpoint, from a logical one it is highly unlikely. With the ten matches remaining some of those fixtures include a very tricky run: away to Wolves, at home to Leicester, away to Tottenham, and at home to Liverpool. From the four matches mentioned, I expect three losses and one comprehensive, manager-tenure-ending victory. In truth, even if Mikel Arteta sees his side lose only three of our final ten matches of the season that still may not cut the mustard.
All in all, only time will tell whether or not qualification for the handsome, far more desirable, older brother like figure of European football is actually attainable. All we can do from our potential end is win as many matches as possible and hope that UEFA’s lawyers are better than Manchester City’s.
Until then, COYG and also, COYUL (Come on you UEFA lawyers).
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