WHY WE'RE GOING TO WIN BIG THIS SEASON a.k.a. Thank God we got the FA Cup out of the way

This week, there’s been a strange sort of tranquility in the air. An uneasy, yet not unpleasant, stillness.

Sure enough, Chelsea might have just been skittled out of the Champions League in another not-at-all hilarious display of bad sportsmanship; the love rat formerly known as the England national team captain might also have indulged in real-life Grand Theft Auto on his way out of the stadium (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1258630/John-Terry-breathalysed-security-guard-injured-car-accident-Chelseas-defeat-Inter-Milan.html); Liverpool too might be making a good fist of getting themselves knocked out of the Eur’opeless League against Lille, but there’s still a sense of… emptiness.

It is, of course, because the Gunners don’t have a midweek match. Not only is this a satisfying and envious position to be in, it's also an unusual one. With only eight more domestic matches this season, it should by all accounts be the period in which Arsenal are playing four games in ten days; it should by all accounts be the period in which we face that tricky away match at Everton on the Sunday, before travelling to Bolton in an FA Cup replay on the Wednesday, coming back to play a high-flying Aston Villa at home on the Saturday, and then on Tuesday tackling that most deceptive of ‘advantages’ – the game in hand, probably away at Stoke or something. Four games in ten days, at this stage of the campaign, is usually as predictable as Arsene Wenger getting linked with another obscure European teenager (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/mar/16/arsene-wenger-christian-eriksen-arsenal-ajax).

It should by all accounts – and this is the crucial bit – be the week-and-a-half in which our season collapses in on itself like a dying star. Think back to the 2006/07 campaign, in which defeats to PSV, Chelsea and Blackburn in just eight days effectively ended our hopes of winning three different competitions.

It’s the FA Cup that really screws you over though. Its replay system remains the single biggest annoyance to the modern-day manager, whether they’re competing on all four fronts, chasing the title, aiming for Europe, challenging for promotion or battling to avoid relegation, no manager wants an FA Cup replay, except the two or three clubs in such mid-table lethargy they probably won’t win it anyway. It adds an extra game that usually pushes a league game to a later date. And with the chance of a replay at every stage up to the semi-final, teams are often paying for their run in the cup through fixture congestion long after they’ve been eliminated from the competition itself.

And it’s not just teams who have a cup run themselves that suffer. If Tottenham beat Fulham in their FA Cup Replay (and they should, given that Fulham are this season’s prime examples of fixture congestion caused by the FA Cup and Europa League), then Arsenal’s match with Tottenham will be moved to a later date, potentially creating a four-in-ten scenario. Thanks a lot, Spurs.

Throw into the mix the FA Cup’s ability to churn out one of those embarrassing, unshakeable scorelines that can seep into the team’s performance in other competitions (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/fa_cup/7224064.stm) and it’s a tournament that I can do without. If the FA look, as they so often do, for a way of cutting down the number of matches to prevent the national team feeling fatigued at a major Summer tournament, cup replays should be first on the chopping block. Arsene Wenger has an oft-mentioned love affair with the FA Cup, but that was a long time ago and the demands of both the Premiership and Europe have since multiplied tenfold. One of the best things to happen to Arsenal this season was to quietly and unremarkably get themselves knocked out of the FA Cup – no big headlines, no big backlash.

It means that we’re in for a few of these eerily quiet weekday evenings before the end of the season. More chances to plan, reflect, heal and improve. And if it means I get to watch Chelsea lose their games in hand, well, I guess I can live without Arsenal just a little bit longer.