Leicester City deservedly won at Manchester City yesterday, taking all 3 points and comfortably winning 3-1. A surprising result perhaps, but one that puts Leicester City firmly in the driving seat.

The result puts them an amazing 8 points clear of Arsenal, who sit in 4th place behind Leicester City, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur. A win against Bournemouth (which is by no means a given) would put us 5 points behind the league leaders, joint on 48 points with Manchester City.

But where will Arsenal finish this season?

Our form of late (essentially in 2016) has been a shambles with draws against Southampton, Stoke and Liverpool alongside a defeat to Chelsea – which has given us 3 points from a possible 12. Dropping 9 points at this stage of the season is just indicative of a team which has basically bottled it.

Arsenal are in a slump and need to snap out of it as soon as possible. Losing further ground to a side which is full of confidence, goals and ability is something we can’t really contemplate if we actually want to compete for the Premier League title, as opposed to just finishing 4th like we usually do.

Do you think we can get our act together and mount a real challenge with only 14 games remaining? Or have we dropped to many points to challenge the teams above us?

Vote in the poll below and leave your thoughts in the comments section!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, Arsenal sent out an e-mail to Gold Season Ticket Members basically charging them an additional surcharge of between £17 and £30 (depending on which seat the member is in) for the Barcelona game. The charge will be added to next seasons season ticket.

Unsurprisingly, the fans are outraged and rightly so. Arsenal have by far the most expensive tickets in the league and the charges are unjustified. Look, I’m not naive and it’s obvious football clubs need to make money to pay for overheads, players wages, transfer fees, maintenance, etc. but the problem is Arsenal can’t really justify their prices.

Arsenal are charging top money but aren’t a top club. If we were winning trophies like Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Manchester United and even Chelsea, then the prices “could” be justified. But in the last 10 seasons we’ve won 2 FA Cups!

Don’t get me wrong, the prices fans currently pay are obscene and it would be a slightly lesser blow if we won big titles like the Premier League or even progressed well in the Champions League. But we’ve consistently not challenged for the title and usually finished 4th in the league, and we’re usually out of Europe at the first knockout stage.

The irony (is it irony?) is that this extra charge for the Barcelona game will most likely end up with a humiliating defeat, compounding the anger for this extra charge. Messi, Suarez and Neymar are in unbelievable form and if we get battered at The Emirates then expect a hostile response from the fans.

Arsenal have “graciously” offered fans the option to opt out of this surcharge, on the condition that they give up their Barcelona ticket. Who in the right mind would do that? Arsenal have the fans by the short and curlies and they know it!

With Arsenal’s season going down the pan and with the team dropping points at an alarming rate, this really is a PR disaster for the club.

So Arsenal drop points in the “title race” yet again.

I put title race in quotations because it’s no longer a title race for us.

Since the new year we’ve completely stalled. We started 2016 with a stuttering victory at home against Newcastle which ended 1-0 – and it was a game we could have lost without Petr Cech’s heroics.

Our results in the Premier League in 2016 are as follows:

Newcastle (H) 1-0
Liverpool (A) 3-3
Stoke City (A) 0-0
Chelsea (H) 0-1
Southampton (H) 0-0

From a possible 15 points, we’ve managed to pick up 8. We’ve dropped 7 points.

And from our last 4 Premier League games, we’ve won 3 points from a possible 12.

Our form is atrocious and apart from the Liverpool game (in patches), our performances have been well below par.

Arsene Wenger has failed to get his players mentally prepared for a vital part of the season, and at this rate 4th place in the Premier League is going to be a struggle.

For those of you who aren’t football boot geeks like I am, you probably won’t know much about football boots or even notice what the players are wearing most of the time.

Mesut Özil used to be sponsored by Nike and at Real Madrid, wore the Nike Mercurials (I’ve even got a photograph of a signed pair I saw at the Real Madrid stadium tour a few years ago) but in the year he joined Arsenal, he joined Adidas and this season has been wearing the Adidas Ace 15 Primeknit. All you really need to know is that they cost in excess of £250 and are one of the premium models Adidas make (along with the Messi and X range).

Anyway, Adidas have released a brand new boot called the Ace 16+ Pure Control and Mesut Özil is the man who is pioneering the range as it were (along with other Adidas footballers no doubt) and the boot features “laceless technology” – basically meaning the boot has no laces to you and me.

Since the days of the Nike Tiempo Pro and the Adidas Predator range (proper football boots) which were more substantial and classic in my opinion, we are moving closer and closer to a sock-type football boot. Football boots are getting thinner and thinner and whereas most football boots were made of leather, they are now made of a fabric called Primeknit (Ace or X range by Adidas) or Flyknit (Magista Obra and Mercurial Superfly by Nike).

And that is a worry. The obsession with a lighter boot means footballers are more likely to get injured, simply because the material is very thin. Most modern (premium) boots are made from a sock-like material and that’s not great if you’re an attacking player who is likely to be the subject of tough tackles from defenders. I have a pair of Nike Mercurial Superfly’s and let me tell you, when someone comes in late and stands on your foot with their studs, it bloody hurts!

Don’t get me wrong, modern boots have their advantages but now Özil doesn’t have the laces area he is more likely to get injured, either from a late challenge or even worse, rolling over his ankle. With old boots you had something tough and that could support the foot / ankle, whereas these days you don’t have that.

Could I be paranoid? Let’s hope so!