Summary

  • Arsenal must win to have any chance of the top four

  • Even then, they need Liverpool and Man City to slip up

  • Gunners have not missed Champions League for 20 years

  • Barkley on the bench for Everton

  1. Postpublished at 14:39 British Summer Time 21 May 2017

    For those home fans who bother to turn up, attention will be turned to Anfield and Vicarage Road.

    Arsenal need Liverpool to slip up at home to Middlesbrough or Watford to beat Manchester City.

    If neither of those things happen, the eternal stay or go saga for which Arsene Wenger is incapable of addressing will continue with the Gunners in the Europa League.

  2. Postpublished at 14:36 British Summer Time 21 May 2017

    But a return to the wig-headed, Brit-popping, new Labour, Harry Pottery, Channel 5 days of the mid-1990s is very much on the cards for the Gunners today.

    Even beating Everton at the Emirates on this final day of the season probably won't be enough for a place in Europe's elite club competition.

  3. Postpublished at 14:33 British Summer Time 21 May 2017

    Yep, when Arsenal last missed out on Champions League football, Bill Clinton was president of the USA, the UK still had sovereignty of Hong Kong, the first episode of South Park hadn't yet been broadcast and third Oasis album Be Here Now had yet to disappoint.

    Liam and Noel GallagherImage source, PA

    That's not to say I don't like Be Here Now, but, you know, compared with Definitely Maybe and What's The Story....

  4. Postpublished at 14:30 British Summer Time 21 May 2017

    Rodney and Trigger

    "Twenty years. It's a long time, Dave."

    "Yeah. Well, it's two decades."

    "Well I wouldn't go that far, but it's a long time."