Out Of The Champions League, Will We Be Back Next Year?

Arsenal and the Champions League has gone hand in hand for the past 19 years but there is now a real risk we could be exiting the competition for a while. Once more we bombed out in the knockout rounds after giving ourselves a tricky draw against Barcelona by failing to top our group - again.

The real worry for Arsenal now is that we won't achieve a top four spot this season and won't have the Champions League to boost our income next season. It's a concerning place to be in. We've relied on the Champions League money for years to service debt but without it we'll have to find that money elsewhere and that could mean it comes from transfers. Arsenal needs a healthy transfer budget to buy the players we need to push forward and not only stay in the top four but hopefully push on to win the title.

Leaving the Champions League, as we knew we would, last night means we have few midweek matches to enjoy and will now have to find something else to occupy our time with. We could continue to watch the Champions League, follow another sport, buy some new video games, enjoy a guilty pleasure like listening to Justin Bieber, playing the slots at fluffy-favourites.co.uk/ or take up knitting. Whatever we decide to do the knowledge that once again we are out of the Champions League will haunt us every Wednesday until we know we're back in it again.

If Arsenal don't finish in the top four this season it could be curtains for quite a few years. The fallout could be catastrophic. The manager may find himself out of a job, potential replacements may no longer see us as attractive an opportunity without the gloss of Europe's premier competition, our best players might want to abandon ship and our finances could suffer enough to stop us from making the required investment to get back in to the top four.

The league is becoming more even and realistically there are 10 clubs now who could all fight for a top four spot next season and if Arsenal finished outside of the top four we'd have to contend with Thursday night matches in the Europa League and that won't do us any favours at the weekends when we're fighting to get back to where we belong.

Arsenal have 9 games left to ensure they don't turn into the new Liverpool. At the moment we have a very slim lead over Manchester City and Manchester United but that could change in as little as a week. Arsenal literally cannot afford to drop a single point if they want to guarantee they'll be in the top four next season.

Interestingly, most predictions has the title winners finishing with around 77 points so if Arsenal managed to pick up maximum points they might even pull off the impossible. This really is a rollercoaster of a season and right now, every game is all or nothing.

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