Sorry if this has been shared before. The emotions at play - brilliant! Saliba was me.
Video Credits: @ premierleague
Iraola - the real one. Probably the team that played the best football this year. Thank you and wish you all the best in your next endeavor.
We could either go into the game as champions if Bournemouth have something to say tonight, or we will have the chance to win the game and do it ourselves. Either way, it's ironic that we are, in a way, where it all started on a serious level.
There was something different about the team on that first day itself. Away games had been our weakness since the late Wenger years, then Emery, and in the initial Arteta years too. Hence, this performance felt different. An assurance at the back we hadn't seen for a long time. Saliba's arrival made that huge difference. Zinchenko inverting and Jesus setting a high bar for pressing along with Odegaard bringing Saka and Martinelli into more goal scoring positions.
Here we are today, different from what we were doing in 22/23 but that was the base we built and pivoted off of. It felt correct to look back as we are going back to the same place.
Let's do this, COYG!
I remember those Ivan Gazidis' words all too well - the reasons behind moving to the Emirates. The years of substandard transfer ins and outs the move entailed.
We are here now. 2 Semi-Finals in a row! A 2nd leg SF at home where we are 1 step away from a UCL Final after 20 years. For the first time in our Emirates era!
Let's keep our verdicts and opinions on various aspects aside, and back the team 200% for this game and for the remainder of the season. For a moment in Madrid, we felt we had a chance to go 2-1 up but it was taken away (correctly or incorrectly doesn't matter). But we did very well for an away leg of a SF. This is the biggest of stages and let's be the 12th man this team might just need to get over the line on Tuesday and in the remaining 2 weeks.
Come on you Gunners!