The England squad was announced today and overall, the reception to it has been positive from fans and experts alike. The Manchester United duo of Carrick and Cleverley have been rightly left out, as well as the Toronto-bound Jermaine Defoe.

For Southampton, it’s a triumph as they have 3 players going in Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana and Luke Shaw.

Now I don’t profess to know a huge amount of Luke Shaw, and I’ve only seen him play a handful of games this season. But from what I’ve heard and read, he is supposed to be the next big thing (when it comes to left backs anyway) and Manchester United have been after him all season.

And however well he’s done this season (and congratulations to the lad by the way) I can’t see how he’s a better choice that Kieran Gibbs in that position. You already have Leighton Baines as Ashley Cole’s successor but for me, Gibbs is next in line.

Gibbs has played at the top level, for a top team, for the last 3 seasons. He has Champions League experience (surely an important trait for an International player) and has competed at the top of the Premier League. And possibly more importantly, if Arsenal do lift the FA Cup next weekend he will have experience of winning a major trophy in a major knockout competition.

You all know how I feel when Nacho Monreal is playing for us and that’s partly down to how poor defensively the Spaniard is, but also down to the fact Kieran Gibbs is fantastic defensively. He has fantastic pace, can deliver a good cross and is more than willing to support attacks.

With Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jack Wilshere making the squad, it would have made sense to take Kieran and if you’re talking about the number of appearances the young English lads have made this season – you could even argue that Gibbs is more worthy of a place on the plane than The Ox and Jack.

With Arsenal having secured 4th place and Champions League football for yet another season, Arsene confirmed that he would be signing a new deal which will seem him here for the next few seasons.

Over the last few months, there has been speculation to whether Arsene would stay but Arsenal fans have to wonder no more.

Arsene has had his critics this season, but if we end the campaign with Champions League football and the FA Cup, it will be regarded as a success amongst most Arsenal fans.

The fact we lead the Premier League for the most number of weeks than any other team (including the cash rich sides such as Manchester City and Chelsea) is a feat in itself, and remember we have had terrible injuries to key players such as Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott and Mesut Özil for big parts of the season. You just wonder how we would have done if we had Ramsey and Theo in particular.

We can end the season on 79 points, which is only 7 less than the number of points Manchester City and Liverpool can possibly achieve come the end of the season.

Many fans (including myself) have called for change but the facts speak for themselves.

The two regrets from this season are the injuries to big players, but also the performances against the big sides. Mathematically, we’d still be well in the race (if not leading it) if we managed to get draws against Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Everton and Manchester United away this season. If we played a tight game instead of playing extremely naive football, we’d be in there.

But who will (eventually) succeed Arsene Wenger as Arsenal manager? Obviously it won’t be this season or next, but who will be the man to take over the reigns after Arsene?

It’s a difficult question to answer as we don’t know when Arsene is thinking of retiring or moving on, but it is a question we will have to ask ourselves sooner or later.

Great result against Norwich today, Jose:

And below is a snapshot from an article from The Telegraph published at the start of the season:

I came across this tweet tonight and it got me thinking about Jose Mourinho:

Jose Mourinho – 2 trophies won out of a possible 14 available in the last 4 years. £272,440,000 spent in that time. #specialistinfailure

— Olayinka's godfather (@i_am_afiz) April 30, 2014

Mourinho is a man who divides opinion, you either love him or hate him. He is a hypocrite, outspoken and is an expert at playing the press.

And that is exactly how he likes it.

Every step he takes has been carefully planned, and Liverpool is the perfect example. He started the mind games a week earlier, declaring to the world that he was going to play his reserves in the Premier League game at Anfield. He dismissed the Premier League, saying his priority was Europe. What happens next? A Mourinho masterclass where they go to the home of the league leaders and sweep them aside 2-0.

But tonight, Athletico Madrid were ruthless and ended any hopes of Chelsea and Mourinho lifting the Champions League come May.

And when I saw the Tweet from Olayinka’s godfather (I have no idea what the username means) it made a very good point. He won the Champions League with FC Porto and Inter Milan, and he is renowned for being a “winner”. But what has he won over the last 4 seasons?

This season, barring a massive collapse by Manchester City and Liverpool, he will end up trophy-less. And last season, with an expensive and extremely talented Real Madrid side, he did the same as he did with Chelsea this season – he reached the semi-finals of the Champions League and won nothing domestically.

The season before, he won La Liga in what is/was essentially a two team league. And the season before, he won the Copa del Rey.

So that’s two major trophies in the last 4 seasons. If Arsenal manage to win the FA Cup this May, then Arsene Wenger who was labelled “a specialist in failure” will have won one major honour – only one less than the great Jose Mourinho.

And maybe more importantly, Arsene Wenger hasn’t spent anywhere near the £280 million the “special one” over the last 4 seasons.

So ask yourself this, who is the real “specialist in failure?”.

After the defeat to Everton, Arsenal were in a bad way. We had been embarrassed at Goodison Park and more importantly given the advantage to the Merseyside club in the race for fourth place.

Two weeks on and how things have changed. We are in the final of the FA Cup, and with Everton’s defeat to Southampton on Saturday, a win against Newcastle would give us a massive 4 point gap with only 2 games to play. So barring a massive disaster, we should secure 4th place.

Tonight we are at home to Newcastle United, the week after we’re up against West Brom (again at home) and then we have Norwich on the last day of the season. Then of course, we have Hull City Tigers in the FA Cup final.

So Arsenal are 4 victories away from immortality.

4 wins guarantees Champions League football next season, ensuring we’re still competing with Europe’s elite and can attract the very best players, and we will have won a major trophy for the first time since 2005.

With all the doom and gloom after our first Premier League fixture against Aston Villa, that would not be a bad season after all.

After the result at Anfield yesterday, it looks like Liverpool may have blown their chance to win the Premier League. Manchester City are favourites now to win it and Chelsea will be right in there.

Liverpool fans have been cheering and bigging up their team for most of the season and have overall probably had more enjoyable seasons. But if they don’t win the league and we win the FA Cup, we would have had a more successful season than them.