Happy bank holiday Monday, kids. Hope all is well with you, and you have something nice planned? I’m still in the cold North, so it’ll be a day of chilling and probably doing a bit of boozing too, before the reality bump back down to earth tomorrow by doing some work remotely.

The Arsenal players have no such luxury, as they face Sporting Lisbon tomorrow and are likely to head to Portugal today ahead of that Champions League game. And suddenly, whereas a week ago we were looking at this tie, as well as Southampton, as one in which we’ll be potentially in two semi-finals if we beat opposition that we are favourites to overcome, we’re all getting a little nervous about this. After all, Sporting beat us over two legs last time we played them in the knockout stages. That goal they scored to lob Ramsdale at The Emirates, then going on to win on penalties, still haunts me. And when you learn that Sporting have replaced Gyokeres with a guy named Luis Suarez, one starts to wonder if the Footballing Gods’ sense of humour and desire to chuckle at Arsenal fans frequently is actually just cruel. We...