For me it wasn’t just a case of going unbeaten that made them stand out. Unlike other season’s winners, they never even had a bad run of form: two draws on the spin was as bad as it ever got before they took the foot off the gas with the title secured.

Everyone remembers how close the non-penalty in the final minute at Old Trafford came to ending our run. And how our own spot-kick in the 1-1 draw with Portsmouth was probably a dive.

But they forget how we were never once losing in a single game at any stage during the final 20 minutes.

Think about that fact for a moment. It is unbelievable.

They say it is a mark of champions to be able to turn a loss into a win in stoppage time.

Maybe. But what of the teams who are so good they never even find themselves in that position?

The second thing I’d like to say is well done to Arsenal for finishing third. Taking that fact alone and ignoring a few things I’ll talk about later in this post, finishing behind only City and United and ahead of Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool is an achievement. You can’t argue that.

And the third thing I’d like to mention is that when they write the history books of the Wenger era post Invincibility, keen observers would do well note the role of Spurs and specifically the sheer utter ineptitude of Spurs. Six years ago they really, really should have denied us Champions League football. This season they didn’t just blow a ten point lead to us but they also managed to go into the final day behind us despite the fact we’d taken three points from a possible 12 in our previous four games. And of course they blew it for a second time after our draw with Norwich last weekend.

How might history have been different had our nearest neighbours possessed even the vaguest bit of competence? We’ll never know, though one begins to wonder if this is all part of some grand plan on their part to keep Wenger in place and us in a perpetual comfort zone where we get third every season but don’t actually inflict on them the agony of ever seeing us collect a trophy. Just a thought.

What is interesting about this season is that in both the race for first and third, while there can be no quibbling with the points totals accrued (United got 89, Spurs 69), ultimately both positions were probably decided more by the collapse of the side in the lead than them being powerless in the face of the kind of run we went on in 98 or 2002 and that United have themselves managed a fair few times. As I said, we got third despite woeful form in April and May and City won the title in spite of a run of one win in five around March and April.

But what of us? Well Arsene Wenger appears more secure in his job than at any time over the last few years, in spite of the fact that we’ve never been looked further mathematically or to the naked eye from competing for the title. In that sense, he remains a miracle worker.

The hope and the best case scenario is that we reap all the benefits that Champions League football next year brings without it being allowed to cloud the fact that right now we are not where we want to be and that significant change is needed. When I called for the manager to go in February it was based on both a series of poor results and the expectation that the necessary change (part of which is about signing players early and in sufficient quantity) would fail to materialise.

On balance I remain dubious that it will, though I suppose the appointment of Steve Bould as assistant coach offers hope of change. Not because Pat Rice was some kind of yes man, but simply because on the face of it this amounts to the most significant change in coaching staff in Arsene’s time at the club. I’d be thrilled to see the slaughter of a few of Wenger’s sacred cows and would gladly admit to being wrong.

Another part of the needed change is one of attitude I think. We seem to be the only side in the land who think the FA Cup beneath them. We’ve managed just one semi-final in seven years. That is poor and is, I would venture, more an issue of attitude than anything to do with our opponents having greater resources.

So we wait with baited breath. I don’t count the signing of Podolski as a sign of good intent because history is littered with one very early signing followed by a period of completely nothingness (see last summer for example).

AND so after a dramatic 90 minutes at the Emirates we stare into the supposed abyss that is failure to qualify for next year’s Champions League.

Why then is there a little part of me that just wonders if just maybe that Norwich equaliser could be a blessing in disguise? A part of me that wonders that if Spurs and Newcastle do yet screw it up, it will only allow the bleeding obvious to be swept under the carpet for yet another year on the premise that we’ve cleared some utterly artificial bar.

Of course I want Arsenal to do well and of course I want to see us playing Champions League football. But I also want those running the club to get the kind of jolt that will make them realise significant change is required. Let’s be frank here, things are stale with us, we’re going nowhere very fast. It is mundane watching Arsenal and while maybe an acceptance of the mundane is a fact of life, surely that is not meant to apply to going to watch Arsenal, which should offer an escape from such humdrum.

I think it goes beyond any debate about the intricacies of our current predicament. Yes, we appear to defend appallingly for a defence (mostly) made up of individually talented defenders. Yes, we are unbelievably over reliant on RVP. Yes, we have asked too much of Ramsey to play a full season and yes, our transfer business at the start of the year was a shambles.

But you know the funny thing is that when you look at the team out there yesterday, there is no one for the rational fan to actively dislike in the way one did when faced by the sight of a lazy Bendtner, Denilson or Eboue. Some of our fans frankly are just angry people and always have to get on someone’s back and yesterday Ramsey was the easy target but you couldn’t accuse the guy of not trying, it just wasn’t coming off for him.

Most of us realised that even if Man United continued winning titles year after year after year, our good run was probably not going to last as long. And you know what, that is fine. That is not my complaint. My complaint is that we are at the stage where it is hard to see exactly where we are heading and that at a certain point you say that we’re going to shake things up.

And you know what, while some of you agree with me and some don’t, it does seem that most of the disagreement is over when, rather than if.

But that’s quite enough big picture stuff. What of the actual game? Nice goal from Yossi – a decent squad signing all in all. Dreadful from Szczesny for their equaliser – he really hadn’t settled. I thought Gibbs was poor for the second. I don’t know why he’s gone at it with his right foot when the left looked infinitely better positioned to block.

And we were frankly very poor in that first half. And it was to our credit that we recovered because Norwich looked like they were going to be tough to breakdown. Just before the equaliser you could see them beginning to tire. We also benefited from having two strikers on the pitch and while it was welcome to see Chamakh on the pitch with 20 minutes to go, you think back to all the occasions where he has been more a final throw of the dice with 10 minutes left and realise that our striking situation has been fairly dysfunctional all season.

Then we took the lead but if I tell you that even the brother of Goodplaya, who usually gets infuriated when I announce one of our leads as vulnerable, that even he thought we were going to concede, that should tell you how predictable it was. The problem to my mind appeared to be a lack of ball keepers on the pitch: no Arteta, no Wilshere, no Cesc and no Nasri and we just couldn’t hold onto it when we needed to.

Even then we could have won it and perhaps should have won it. I’ve heard (though not seen replays) of earlier dubious decisions but watching the RVP penalty not given at the end was quite unbelievable. A blatant push and denial of a goal and really I don’t see how the referee or linesman had any excuse for missing it. As far as Gervinho being offside goes, I readily accept the point, though given the cross deflected, what makes that incident any different to the Louis Saha goal for Everton allowed at the Emirates last year when the fact a through ball had deflected off Koscielny appeared to make him onside in the minds of the officials? The incidents were frankly one and the same and so like in many other parts of football’s rule back, clarity is needed.

AND so we are none the wiser as to where the big one (third place) is heading.

Our point at Stoke leaves it in our hands, though two wins from six hardly augurs well for the final two games. Not that this was a bad point. Stoke were well up for it and would have loved to beat us but by and large we matched them physically and deserved a point without doing enough to win all three.

The performances were frankly as you’d expect: Rosicky looked good, Gervinho his post African Nations you know what, Ramsey knackered… and the rest much as you’d imagine it.

Notably, Abou Diaby managed a full substitutes appearance, lasting the remaining 17 minutes after replacing Ramsey after 73.

What I find odd is that when you look at our squad, there appears remarkably little to say about the season they’ve enjoyed. This is not so much a comment as to whether they have been good or bad, more just that their seasons have been unremarkable.

Robin Van Persie’s season has been notable. Notable for being excellent. Tomas Rosicky has enjoyed a very good last ten games or so (the French commentators on my stream were rightly loving his assist for the goal). And obviously you can talk about the new signings as by definition they’ve obviously brought something different (even if Yossi Benayoun in an Arsenal shirt has been exactly as you imagined Yossi Benayoun in an Arsenal shirt would).

Take the bulk of existing players – Szczesny, Fabianski, Almunia, Djourou, Sagna, Gibbs, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Song, Ramsey, Walcott and Diaby and really none can be said to have greatly altered their existing reputations (though this is clearly a subjective point that some of you will no doubt disagree with me on).

And then there was Henry. Now that was a bit different.

The fate of RVP and Rosicky in the summer will be of some interest. RVP obviously because he is, by a long, long, long way, our best forward. The guy will be 29 by the start of next season and frankly, I’m not sure I’d stay if I were him. I wonder if our best hope of keeping him is the thing that is so often overlooked when these things are speculated on, namely family life and the fact that his young family know only life in London.

As for Rosicky, I continue to wonder if Arsene will view him as some kind of answer, one less signing needed. You’d hope not.

And so it is Norwich at home next Saturday lunchtime and after it the funeral procession otherwise known as the lap of appreciation of our support. It will be the sixth in the Emirates stadium and if you’ve never been to one, I’d whack it fairly high up on your “100 things not to do before you die” list.

There are just two games on Saturday involving Premier League teams. The race for a Champions League place at the Emirates and the supposedly lesser prize of an FA Cup on offer at Wembley. Where would you rather be?

The first half was notable for the second game in a week where we’ve attacked the “wrong” end in the first half. Very annoying for those of us who think we have a god given right to see Arsenal attack us after the break.

It was notable too for a Theo Walcott free-kick that was subtle, well aimed, well weighted and found Robin Van Persie a yard or two out. He poked it with his left rather than his right and hit the post. The poverty of the miss was as surprising as the quality of the delivery.

And we had another kicking the ball away long after the whistle had gone that went unpunished. Quite rightly too in my view – only when has been clearly time wasting previously should such an offence elicit a yellow and yesterday’s decision went only to reinforce my view that the RVP sending-off against Barca last season was one of the worst decisions I’d ever seen because it simply didn’t have to be made in any way whatsoever.

There was a well directed Koscielny header that hit the bar, a delightful piece of RVP control that Cech spread himself well for and a fair few Chelsea openings, seemingly predominantly down our right.

In fact were you to show the highlights of the game to a Martian he’d probably be fairly impressed. I’d like to venture to suggest that perhaps the reason why the match is hardly being held up as one of the greats is because just maybe this fight for the Champions League place tussle doesn’t quite elicit the same excitement on the terraces as it does in the boardroom.

I’m not in any way trying to sniff at qualifying for the Champions League, but it does beg the question that if it such a great achievement, then why when we achieve it each year does the end of season lap of honour feel like someone has died.

The subs seemed a little odd. Granted the Theo one was enforced, but all that tinkering left us with Alex Song on a rare off day, Aaron Ramsey looking (perhaps understandably given his youth and the number of games he has played) looking listless again, Andre Santos making what I believe to be his debut in midfield, Gervinho in his post African Nations Cup glory and Abou Diaby if you’ll please.

And so as the season edges towards a conclusion we wait with baited breath to see who will get the Champions League spots. The joker in the pack is Chelsea winning the Champions League and us therefore having to finish third. The tension, frankly, is bearable.

PUT THIS one down in the “sobering” column.

If the manner in which we went two goals down was sloppy (though give Wigan some credit for the way they exploited us when Arteta was out of action), our second half failure to either equalise or look like equalising was arguably more concerning.

We’d begun brightly enough and the Emirates was in fine fettle, “up for the cup” if you like, that cup being third place, superior in value we’re told to the football cup contested nine miles away from the Emirates at the weekend. Talking of events at Wembley, clearly in a game between Chelsea and Tottenham where there has to be a winner, you may as well have one side getting tonked and to that extent, what happened to Spurs was funny.

But there is another point. And that is that it used to be us in FA Cup semis. Granted, you’d lose some and it would hurt like hell, but better to have hoped and hurt than never to have hoped at all. And for us I make it one FA Cup semi-final in seven years, compared to seven in the first nine years under Arsene Wenger. That is a fairly sobering statistic.

But back to last night and the dizzy optimism (don’t you know that had it not been for that run at the start we’d have been, err, third, by now) was soon punctuated by an injury to Arteta, a Wigan break and a Wigan goal. Or at least I thought it was, except the away end (which pre-game I’d mentally applauded Wigan for selling out) didn’t celebrate. And then I cottoned on. Wigan didn’t have so much an away end as an away half-block and even then it was one of the smaller non-corner blocks and even it wasn’t completely sold out.

In short, their entire away support could have just about crammed inside a tube carriage. This is not a criticism of them, more an observation of the economic times we live in. Equally relevant I suppose is that Arsenal HAD managed to sell the seats normally occupied by the visiting fans.

We came back well, playing nice stuff that Tomas Rosicky was at the heart of. He is undoubtedly playing well, too well almost because while most of us probably see an on form Tomas Rosicky as a handy thing to have, you wander if the manager will view it as a summer dip into the transfer market avoided. One hopes not.

It was Rosicky who set up our goal and Vermaelen who powered home the header. It was classic him and gave us hope.

But you know Wigan were smart and clever. They used the ball well, they took crafty short goal-kicks and yes, they wasted time well to take the sting out of the game. I don’t think most people in the ground begrudged them doing it (Wigan got a healthy round of applause at the end of the game from the home fans), but there is a realistic expectation that the referee will do what he can within his powers to curb the time-wasting.

Fat chance with Andre Marriner.

He found three minutes of first half stoppage time, despite three goals, two substitutions, a significant injury and a load of time-wasting. Why always so little in the first half? You get the idea they just make it up, particularly so when the same ref gives five minutes of injury time at the end of the second half after no goals, four subs, one injury and what seemed to us the same amount of time wasting.

If, in fact, he was factoring in time wasting in those five minutes, then why didn’t he once rebuke a single Wigan player for it? Explain that one.

It is also worth pointing out that five minutes into the second half I confidently predicted that El Habsi would time waste all game and that Marriner would eventually show him a yellow card after 87 minutes, which would be of no great use to us. I was wrong. It came on 90 minutes.

So predictable.

And one final point on this: when a player wastes time at a throw, the crowd complains and the referee looks down at his watch, what in the blue hell is going on? You see this happen week in, week out and unless referees are actually able to stop their watch just by looking at it (I’m guessing they can’t) then this is a complete absurdity.

Anyway, maybe I’m dwelling on other things because there really wasn’t a lot good to say about last night. You looked at our attacking players and while Rosicky had a good first half and Benayoun two very reasonable headers, not one of them could be considered to have had a good game and I think that tells you everything you need to know.

The substitution situation was frankly unsatisfactory too. Arsene was in a bit of a tricky situation because frankly Ramsey was calling out to be substituted but seeing as the Welshman himself was a sub, hauling him off was tricky. We ended up introducing an out of form Gervinho for Benayoun in a straight swap, with Oxlade-Chamberlain left on the bench for what was frankly far too long, not that he looked like he was going to do a great deal when he came on either to be fair.

On top of all that, the second striker at the club was not even deemed worthy of an introduction, while the third striker wasn’t even on the bench. I know people go on about having our full-backs out injured for so long, but surely the fact we’ve had RVP fit for so long is the real story given the paucity of alternative options.

And there you have it. We were rubbish. Wigan were very good and of course they beat United last week too.

Another twist in the great third place saga. Who wants it? Anyone?

WE highly likely would have won this game anyway, but the early red card for Wolves on top of a penalty for us near enough guaranteed the win.

I’ve long argued that such a punishment is absurdly excessive and the recent news that FIFA are planning to rescind the rule is welcome. That they are going to keep it for offences outside the area makes no sense to me because it fails to recognise that the award of a free-kick or penalty is completely different to that of a red card.

By this I mean that a free-kick or penalty is positional compensation whereas the whole point of a red card should be to punish deliberately unacceptable behaviour on the pitch.

Keeping the red card for a foul outside the area does not provide sufficient positional compensation (FIFA are themselves admitting as much by giving an additional sanction other than a simple free-kick) and nor does it provide appropriate punishment as players will still be sent-off for what are either accidental fouls or at the very least honest attempts to win the ball.

The solution, is I believe, simple: allow referees to award penalties for fouls committed outside the area. Yes, this requires discretion, but referees have to use discretion the whole time.

Apologies for that little rant: it is just one of those things that has irritated me for a while and seeing as it reared its head in an Arsenal game tonight, it seemed an apt time to mention it.

It is also true that there is not a huge deal else to say about tonight’s game. We were very, very comfortable and even when Wolves threatened you never doubted we’d win. The other two goals were nicely taken (from what I could see on my poor stream). What I liked about Theo was the purposefulness of his touches before he took the shot, something we don’t always see from him. One man who didn’t enjoy the best of times was Aaron Ramsey, who with Jack Wilshere coming back and possible new signings in the summer, will do well to be a first choice starter come August.

And so our apparently inextricable march towards third continues. We play twice, at home, before Spurs play a game meaning we could open up an 11 point gap. It’s been a weird old year.

The reason? Well since you ask, it has all been about a new signing in the Goodplaya household, a very young playa if you like.

If analogies can be drawn between the birth of a child and a manager’s approach to football transfer then this one was far more Wenger than Redknapp. None of that done and dusted in one day Harry style business for us. Nope, this was one of which Arsene would have been proud.

And so it came to pass that I was absent from the Emirates to watch us against City. As someone who sat through their last two boring as hell visits to us, I feel somewhat aggrieved to have missed the sight of them getting their comeuppance. I’ve only caught snippets of the action and for the third year in a row it sounds like City were frankly pretty wretched.

That is to take nothing away from us, it is just a hobby horse of mine at how poor they are when they come to the Emirates.

And it was a good post QPR response from us – the kind of response that had we been able to find in recent years would have landed us a league title or two.

Finally, my apologies to any of you experiencing technical issues regarding your choice of browser. I’m looking into it.

WE’RE CONFIDENT RIGHT NOW…
I’ve seen us toil a fair few times against Villa at the Emirates, including at this relatively late stage of the season. But on Saturday we always looked like we believed we’d win. It was symptomatic of a team high on confidence after a fine run.

THE GOALS…
Well the first one was hardly Shay Given’s finest hour, while the second was beautifully chipped in by Song, yet another fine ball from a player who when he started out at the club looked the world’s least likely maker of deft passes that would carve open the opposition. He’s clearly worked hard at that part of his game and credit to him for that. Theo converted the chance with just two touches! One to take it down and towards goal and the second to slip it past Given. Nice.

THE THIRD…
Was an absolute howitzer. Saying that a goalkeeper should never be beaten on “that side” has always seemed to me one of those things that people say without ever justifying it. Rarely, yes. But never? I don’t see why not if the strike is sufficiently accurate and disguised. Arteta was good by the way, very snappy, closing them the whole time.

IN THE SECOND HALF…
We didn’t exactly set the world on fire but we were doing enough of the simple things right that you figured we’d probably be alright in the end and indeed we were.

TO BE THREE POINTS CLEAR IN THIRD AND EIGHT CLEAR OF FIFTH…
Is frankly quite remarkable. We’ve obviously done very well since I called for Wenger to be sacked (!) but equally that Liverpool have taken four out of 21 points, Spurs 7 and Chelsea 10 from 27 is a very rare example of three fairly highly placed teams collapsing all at once.

IN TERMS OF WHERE WE’LL FINISH…
To not get fourth would now be a disaster and were we to fail to this run would count for very little and all the old hostilities would emerge. That said, I think third is a long way from being done and dusted and Spurs’ poor run is probably just about coming to an end I’d say. From now on in their fixtures certainly become a lot kinder.

IT IS WORTH NOTING…
That this rare run of fine spring form has come when there has been relatively little pressure on. Yes, we all want a Champions League place, but no, chasing one is not the same as going for the title at this stage of the season. And I do think that while third at this stage appears a decent achievement, it is worth noting that at no point this season were we ever even in the hunt for the title. Far better, for me, to tail away late on than to never even be involved.

I MAKE THAT POINT…
Because instinctively we draw our conclusions on what we have seen most recently.

AND THEN THERE IS THE INJURIES ARGUMENT…
Yes, we’ve struggled with a freak set of injuries at full-back and to a lesser extent in central defence. Without them I agree we’d have been a better side. And we have missed Jack Wilshere too. But, we’ve been hugely lucky that RVP and Szczesny have played every single Premier League game because we don’t have remotely decent replacements for either. You can similar things about Alex Song too.

THE ATMOSPHERE ON SATURDAY…
Was good. Very pro-Arsenal, though it was notable that the one pro-Wenger chant I heard hardly wrapped itself round the Emirates’ bowl.

THE WORRY…
Is that this fine run of form will invoke complacency in the summer, irrespective of who the manager is. For example, nobody can argue that Tomas Rosicky is in anything other than fine form and fully justifying his place in the team. But would you put him in as your first choice, nailed on starting, attacking midfielder for next season? I would not and I suspect most others wouldn’t either.

That quarter eye was enough to see us score from a corner, enough to see Everton denied a perfectly good goal and enough to see us denied what should have been a penalty.

In slo-mo the error in flagging offside looked obvious, but in real time it was one of those scissor incidents, where the defender is running out at high pace and the striker in at high pace, meaning that within just a very few freeze frames they have gone from well offside to well onside. Either way, it was one to remember for those among our supporters convinced everything is a conspiracy against us.

And so suddenly we’re ahead of Spurs in the league and five points above fifth. At this rate we’ll hit 72 points, only six less than the double winners of 98 managed, which seems odd. It is our finest run of spring form for many a year, a little like the 91-92 season for those of you who remember that far back.

Next up Villa on Saturday, which I’ll be at the Grove for.