Sometimes football can feel like a slog. Like some kind of grind. Something you just have to endure.

Sometimes it feels like it goes on forever.

“This game feels like it’s been going on for four hours” The Management said to me on around 84 minutes. Arsenal had huffed and puffed their way through a 1-0 score line at that point – which was to be the eventual result – and I have to admit that I felt the same as her as I sat there watching the final minutes unfold on my phone in Portugal (cheeky weekend away to say the parents).

It really was a grind though. Arteta named the expected line up that I thought he might, giving Eze the right eight role, naming the expected back five, giving Rice and Zubi those alternating double pivot and attacking roles in midfield, whilst showing his clear favour for Leandro Trossard, starting again in a season of which some of us wondered how much game time he would get. But he started, he scored and dare I say it, he’s in form and playing well at the moment. Well, in terms of end product that is, because I...