Arsenal is no longer the club we all fell for. Don’t misunderstand me. I still do and always will support the club I have grown up with. Through thick and thin and all that. And despite the doubles and the Invincible season, we have had some “thin” in the last two decades. Not as bad as some granted (i.e. the Spuds from up the road), but nevertheless we have had some shocking football to endure at times, mostly under George Graham. But even during our worst spells of the modern era, Arsenal was always a class apart from the rest.

There is an “Arsenal way” of doing things. It’s clear that the club and a percentage of the fans, have lost this “way” and we are staring at a sterile carbon copy of other modern super clubs, as Mr Wenger now calls us.

Why do we need to follow a modern pattern of the Chelsea’s and Manchesters Utd and City? To compete? We didn’t need a billionaire owner four years back when we basically took the p*** out of the rest of the league every Saturday afternoon. And it’s not as though Wenger broke the bank to assemble the Invincibles is it? I do not believe you need £100m to compete in this league, which let’s be honest, for the most part, is crap. Especially so far this season… Chelsea can’t buy a home win at the moment…. Utd look a shadow of the team which won it last year… Liverpool are scrapping their way through games and will eventually get caught out for what they are. Second rate.

So where does that leave us? We missed out on the title by four points last year. If you think about it though, it was only a win away. If we had been able to hold on at Old Trafford we would have been crowned champs. We should have progressed this season… so why haven’t we? We know the answers…

Wenger refuses to admit that he knows too. All we had to do was keep the basis of the squad together and add a little strength in depth, without spending £100m. What happened? We lost Flamini, Gilberto, Hleb, and he loaned out Senderos. Nasri is doing a good job at filling Hleb’s boots but who has replaced Flam and Gil? The lack of cover in vital areas has lead to inconsistency on a grand scale. This has lead to frustration in the stands. This lead to Eboue’s treatment on Saturday. Which brings me back to my original point.

Booing a player is not the “Arsenal way”. Wenger now needs some damage control, so we can get back to talking about football, and nothing else for a while. Back to the “Arsenal way”…