Former Gunners poppin' up to boost Arsenal's season...

The Bird Catcher eyes his quarry.

Ok, so I'll be honest. It's a bit of a stretch to say that any former Gunners are helping us directly. After all, aside from Man City, the gap between us and other rivals has stretched to a yawning wide chasm. Still, it's usually if not always heart-warming to see our former players pop up to make a tidy contribution or two. None of them did us any favours in our own title-chase, but each of has offered some savory schadenfreude of various for us to enjoy. For each of them, there may even have been some of the good ol' "North London is Red" motivation...

Another new manager bounce? Come on...

Surely there is some clause somewhere that limits the number of "new manager bounces" a side should have to face in any one season. After having to face Sean Dyche's "new look" Marmite management against Everton just a few weeks ago, it now looks we'll have to do something similar against Palace on Sunday after they axed our own legend Patrick Vieira. Rumour has it that they did it with all of the tact, good timing, and grace of a year 10 dumping his first girlfriend—Vieira apparently got the call at 7am as he was on his way to training. I'm not going to anything like suggest that this might just be emblematic of how Steve Parish runs his club nor will I suggest you look up the term apophasis.

Sporting just crowned Arsenal as Prem champions. Full stop.

We should have been ready for Sporting to send Nayim on. We should have seen it coming. We didn't. Okay, so it wasn't Nayim but Pereira Gonçalves who scored what will surely go down as one of the greatest goals of Europa League history, chipping Aaron Ramsdale from 45 yards to level this second leg. From there, Sporting (it has to be said) outplayed us for most of the rest of the match and through stoppage time. Even though we had some dramatic late chances through Magalhães and Trossard, we really have to admit that it was our visitors who made the most of their chances and won this match. 

Sorry, Kevin. Ødegaard is now the best midfielder in the Prem.

Okay, okay, so to be clear, I should have gone with "currently" instead of "now". "Now" suggests a permanent status, a sense that Ødegaard has surpassed De Bruyne once and for all and has assumed the mantle of Best Midfielder in the Prem (although it is true that he and not De Bruyne took home Football London's Premier League Player of the Year award, something for which De Bruyne isn't even good enough to be eligible for...or something. I can't be bothered to look these things up. De Bruyne is far away from even meeting the minimum qualifications, and that alone tells you all you need to know about who's best. On a more-serious note, let's be clear: I'm not here to somehow prove that Ødegaard is actually better than De Bruyne. However, the fact that a reasonable comparison can be made that Ødegaard at age 23 is about as good as one can get without yet matching De Bruyne at age 31.

German club offer Arsenal a MASSIVE boost in the Prem!

It's not often that we can count on a German club to offer us any help in any competition, least of all the Prem, but RB Leipzig fall on the proverbial grenade on Tuesday night by letting Man City walk all over them to the tune of a 7-0 thrashing (which is worse than a 3-0, mind). The Citizens advance to the Champions League quarterfinals courtesy of a 7-1 aggregate scoreline. At first, you might wonder, "what's this got to do with us? I mean, sure, we'll have to play Man City, and maybe the fixture congestion will get to them?" Oh, my small-minded friend, how I wish you had the vision and foresight that I have. It's a burden, even a curse, I tell you, but one that I bear without complaint or criticism. No need to thank me.