Arsenal go into tonight’s game with West Ham knowing a win is absolutely pivotal to maintain their ever-evaporating hopes of landing a European finish at the end of the season.
The Gunners haven’t tasted victory in the Premier League in more than nine weeks, that a dicey 1-0 win over Bournemouth on October 6.
Arsenal are also looking to end a spell of three consecutive seasons outside of the Champions League.
The last time Arsenal played a Champions League match was on March 7, 2017 - a 5-1 home demolition by Bayern Munich, bringing a 10-2 aggregate defeat that was both Arsenal's biggest home loss since November 1998 and the worst aggregate defeat suffered by an English side in the Champions League.
Nevertheless, those at the club know exactly how important it is to get back into the elite. Under their current run of form, Arsenal will be lucky to gain a place even in the Europa League, a competition much derided by the fan bases of other clubs.
Arsenal have, of course, seen revenues tumble from European competition in recent years, the Europa League being a far less lucrative competition than the Champions League.
Fortunately, the Premier League hardly distinguishes between teams who finish fourth and teams who finish fifth, meaning that domestic broadcasting income has remained high for the club.
This is why between 2016/17 and 2017/18, the club only experienced a £35million drop in football income - the difference, ultimately, between reaching the Champions League first knock-out round and the Europa League semi-finals.
But the club only have to look up the table to see what would happen if they were absent from European competition altogether.
In 2016/17, Leicester City earned £233million in revenues after marching to the quarter finals of the Champions League - banking more than £70million in broadcasting income from the competition.
But after finishing 12th that season and missing out on European competition altogether the following year, revenues tumbled by £74.1million to £158.9million in 2017/18.
A £70million drop in revenues would be catastrophic for Arsenal - this would essentially be like losing the money invested in Nicolas Pepe, the man brought in last summer to help fire the club back into the top four.
With Stan Kroenke reluctant, or simply unwilling, to directly fund Arsenal's operations, it would be tough to see where the club would draw the income necessary to compete for Champions League football.
