How Arsenal could implode to finish 7th while Spurs, Chelsea win trophies and Glasner matches Arteta
It is time to manifest a feasible set of results which culminate in Arsenal failing to qualify for the Champions League while watching rivals win trophies.
To borrow a paragraph from Winners and Losers:
‘The very real and very funny prospect of Arsenal failing to qualify for the Champions League while Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle, Chelsea and one of Manchester United or Spurs all win a trophy and reach the European Promised Land is on, and it starts with Nottingham Forest beating Crystal Palace on Monday night.’
Forest failing to hold up their end of the bargain at Selhurst Park was regrettable but the dream is still on and requires worryingly little mental gymnastics to pull off.
To clarify said dream: Arsenal fail to qualify for the Champions League while five of their closest rivals all win trophies. It’s not Martin Luther King, granted, but it’s something.
And it’s not bias specifically against Arsenal either. Our bias is only ever in favour of the funniest possible scenario. And managers flirting with the sack; that’s always good.
The best place to start would be a look at where things currently stand:
And immediately it seems difficult to engineer a way of dropping Arsenal out of that top five. But crucially a six or even seven-point gap to Aston Villa is not insurmountable within three games. And here is the best way to get there, with a few necessary European obstacles along the way.
May 7 – Paris Saint-Germain (1) v Arsenal (0), Champions League semi-final second leg
There are a few points where our alternate timeline goes all Bandersnatch, branching out in a Choose Your Own Adventure web of convoluted results which ultimately reach the same destination: an Arsenal implosion.
The obvious option with their Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain is an inability to overcome that first-leg deficit at the Parc des Princes. That in itself presents different avenues: the glorious failure of a high-scoring draw; a heart-breaking penalty shoot-out defeat after doing the hard part; losing and never even coming close in an anti-climactic exit.
But it might be best to look beyond that and take a more holistic approach. Arsenal beating PSG before losing the final in crushing fashion is fundamentally funnier, granting the more chronically online elements of the fanbase an opportunity to crow and gloat before placing them back into their comfort zone of shouting into microphones on YouTube and demanding human sacrifices be made live on an altar at the Emirates.
Result – Paris Saint-Germain 0 Arsenal 3 (Merino hat-trick)
May 8 – Europa League and Conference League semi-finals
A distant subplot in this story involves England’s three other European semi-finalists. It seems destined that at least one and very likely two derided managers of bitter rivals will match the famous Arteta trophy haul, opening up the wonderful prospect of the Spaniard furiously ending each press conference by pointing out he has also won two Community Shields at Arsenal.
Not delivering the Conference League would genuinely feel like a sackable offence for Enzo Maresca, so ludicrously oversized are Chelsea in a laughably small tertiary pond. But they can make customarily hard work of the return leg at Stamford Bridge if they really want.
And Manchester United and Spurs can definitely be trusted to capitalise on their accomplished semi-final first legs without absurdly soiling themselves while unloading increasingly ridiculous firearms at their own feet.
Results
Chelsea 0 Djurgarden 2
Bodo/Glimt 1 Spurs 0
Manchester United 0 Athletic Bilbao 2
May 10 and 11 – Premier League fixtures
Back to the Premier League, which has suddenly become an uncomfortably live situation again for Arsenal. The Gunners have not really had to think about it for months, with Liverpool having wrapped up the title long ago and Champions League qualification being seemingly assured.
Three wins and five draws in their last 10 league games, coupled with the teams below them finally establishing some consistent levels of vague competence, means Arsenal can no longer entirely disregard their domestic obligations.
Further bad news is that Liverpool went through their entire collection of cigars, have worn out their slippers and are no longer particularly enthused by the prospect of a day at the beach after phoning it in against Chelsea. The Trent Alexander-Arnold farewell tour begins with Arsenal visiting Anfield and the supporters will definitely be eager to cheer him on his way to Madrid by marking the latest guard of honour with a win.
Mo Salah can set up two Alexander-Arnold goals to equal Thierry Henry’s seasonal assists record, too.
That would conclude a weekend in which Manchester City collect their guaranteed three points at St Mary’s, Aston Villa continue their fine form by beating Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest thrash Leicester and Newcastle and Chelsea play out a farcical mutually beneficial draw on Tyneside in what shall come to be known The Disgrace of Quayside.
Results
Southampton 0 Manchester City 5 (Haaland x5)
Bournemouth 0 Aston Villa 2 (Watkins x2)
Newcastle 1 (Isak pen) Chelsea 1 (Palmer pen)
Nottingham Forest 3 (Wood x2, Elanga) Leicester 1 (Vardy)
Liverpool 2 (Alexander-Arnold x2) Arsenal 0
Premier League table
2) Arsenal – 67 points, +31 goal difference
3) Manchester City – 67 points, +29 goal difference
4) Newcastle – 64 points, +21 goal difference
5) Chelsea – 64 points, +21 goal difference
6) Nottingham Forest – 64 points, +15 goal difference
7) Aston Villa – 63 points, +8 goal difference
May 16, 18 and 20 – Premier League fixtures
The panic would, by this point, be very real indeed. Four points separate Arsenal in second from Aston Villa in seventh, and it doesn’t require a particularly vivid imagination to see things spiralling from there for the Gunners.
Chelsea incredibly wisely colluded with the fixture computer in the summer to land themselves a plum game against Manchester United in mid-May. It would have been a disastrous move a couple of decades ago but the Blues instead host a side focusing fully on the Europa League final five days later.
Ruben Amorim copies Steve McClaren again, naming the youngest side in Premier League history before insisting they and he have brought immense shame on Manchester United in an unnecessarily frank post-match interview.
Spurs are similarly unarsed about their game at Aston Villa, rescheduled for the Friday evening, although Ange Postecoglou spends the build-up raging at those fans who want to lose because it would adversely affect Arsenal.
Forest cruise to a win over West Ham and Manchester City battle to a victory against Bournemouth on the Tuesday evening, before which Arsenal lose a fourth game of the season to Newcastle without scoring.
An unspectacular list of results sets up a biblical final day.
Results
Chelsea 4 (Palmer x2, Jackson x2) Manchester United 1 (Obi)
Aston Villa 3 (Malen, Tielemans, Watkins) Spurs 0
West Ham 1 (Bowen) Nottingham Forest 3 (Wood, Gibbs-White, Hudson-Odoi)
Arsenal 0 Newcastle 2 (Isak x2)
Manchester City 2 (De Bruyne x2) Bournemouth 0
Premier League table
2) Manchester City – 70 points, +31 goal difference
3) Arsenal – 67 points, +29 goal difference
4) Chelsea – 67 points, +24 goal difference
5) Newcastle – 67 points, +23 goal difference
6) Nottingham Forest – 67 points, +17 goal difference
7) Aston Villa – 66 points, +11 goal difference
May 17 – Manchester City v Crystal Palace, FA Cup final
The curious arrangement of Premier League fixtures that weekend is down to the FA Cup final, the importance of which has been preserved by maintaining its own day in the football calendar.
It could be argued that said importance was ever so slightly diminished by the actual kick-off time only being announced two weeks out from the game itself, in part because of a mild panic they might lose TV viewership to Eurovision if the game went to extra-time and penalties.
As for the game itself, we are presented again with two perfectly cromulent routes and a decision which comes down to personal preference. A Manchester City win would be nice, increasing the number of trophy-winning clubs In and Around Arsenal.
But Crystal Palace winning at Wembley and Oliver Glasner matching Arteta’s trophy haul at Arsenal would be exceptional work in the world of schadenfreude.
Result – Manchester City 1 (De Bruyne) Crystal Palace 2 (Mateta x2)
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May 21 – Manchester United v Spurs, Europa League final
And again, a crossroads with no especially appealing direction. The natural Arsenal instinct is to choose whichever option inflicts the most pain on Spurs and thus allows for the easiest, quickest way to laugh at them and that absolutely applies here.
But the likely all-English final means that a Spurs defeat also represents a Manchester United victory, and Amorim one-upping Arteta’s mid-season-appointment glory of grossly underperforming in the Premier League but winning a trophy. And only nerds would still value a closed-doors FA Cup in 2020 as better than lifting the Europa in 2025.
Neither course is particularly palatable but Spurs winning the Europa League and creeping in through the Champions League back door – while still sacking Postecoglou – would be unbearable for the other half of north London.
Result – Manchester United 5 (Vicario og x5) Spurs 6 (Onana og x6)
May 25 – Premier League fixtures
And so it comes down to this. Four points separate Manchester City in second from Aston Villa in seventh, but the fixtures mean Guardiola’s side are mathematically guaranteed to finish in the top five.
There is only goal difference between Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, with Villa a point behind.
Manchester City sort Fulham out. Aston Villa further compound the misery of a broken Manchester United. Newcastle can have some fun with some complete random fulfilling the Somen Tchoyi role of weird final-day hat-trick scorer.
It leaves two games of interest: Nottingham Forest v Chelsea and Southampton v Arsenal. Forest and Chelsea ultimately cannot both make it and as embarrassing as it would be for the Gunners to watch Chris Wood tear up the Champions League, Chelsea being happy is always worse.
Arsenal formalise the biggest bottling in the history of sport by losing at St Mary’s, simultaneously pulling Southampton clear of the Derby points record.
Results
Fulham 0 Manchester City 1 (De Bruyne)
Manchester United 0 Aston Villa 3 (Watkins hat-trick)
Newcastle 3 (Schar hat-trick) Everton 2 (Moyes x2)
Nottingham Forest 0 Chelsea 0
Southampton 1 (Odegaard og) Arsenal 0
Premier League table
2) Manchester City – 73 points, +32 goal difference
3) Newcastle – 70 points, +24 goal difference
4) Aston Villa – 69 points, +13 goal difference
5) Chelsea – 68 points, +24 goal difference
6) Nottingham Forest – 68 points, +17 goal difference
7) Arsenal – 67 points, +28 goal difference
May 28 – Chelsea v Real Betis, Europa Conference League final
Again, the bare minimum for Chelsea in their Conference League jaunt could only ever have been winning the sodding thing, ever since Mauricio Pochettino gift-wrapped them the first Boehly trophy by qualifying in 2023/24.
It must be done, although it will take a monumental effort to vanquish the genuinely foreboding might of post-Manchester United Antony. Only a fellow Old Trafford escapee can counteract that.
Result – Chelsea 1 (Sancho) Real Betis 0
May 31 – Arsenal v Barcelona/Inter, Champions League final
As aforementioned, the Arsenal glee and celebration after conquering PSG would all be rendered worth it by one final dagger to the heart in Munich.
It would be great to witness Lamine Yamal toy with Arsenal before he retires, or the 2006 Champions League final to be repeated with William Saliba opening the scoring, David Raya being sent off and forcing Thomas Partey to be substituted early in his final game, and Barcelona eventually staging a late comeback.
Then there’s the idea of falling to Inter and their weird collection of reappropriated Premier League failures, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan obviously scoring the final’s only goal.
Barcelona and Inter played out an excellent semi-final so we simply refuse to choose which gets the honour of capping this hilarious Arsenal collapse.
Result – Don’t know, but Arsenal lose