Arsenal have carried a very heavy piece of baggage into this season. The knowledge that they lost their nerve last spring.
I’m sorry, but you can’t dress up what happened to their last Premier League campaign any other way. They were in the box seat heading into the home stretch of the season and they didn’t perform.
That little seed in their heads will be there until they win that competition. But I like the Arsenal squad I see — and although it doesn’t always follow that they will get better year on year, they’re a group of young men who should do exactly that.