I think what frustrates me more about Wenger’s comments about the current squad than anything else is his unequivocal belief that everything is in place except maybe a little bit of maturity.

One of the things we are told about Wenger is that when he signs players, he is very thorough when it comes to the players type of character, yet so many of the current lot are fundamentally flawed.

I truly believe that technically, our squad is as gifted if not more so than any other team in England. This means that the tools are there to develop them into top class players. Unfortunately, this is not all that it takes and in fact probably isn’t even the most important ingredient. What makes players great is two things:

1) A Winning Mentality – the likes of Adams and Keane don’t come around very often so I am not asking for a team of them, but all the players should be seriously hurt every time we lose or even draw. You get the impression that whilst a lot of our players are not happy in defeat, it is little more than an inconvenience. This in turn means for all the “desire and hunger” Wenger sees in them, they don’t fear failure enough to drive them the extra mile. If you ask any footballer do you want to win?, they are all going to say yes, but it’s the players that suffer most when you lose that are the winners.

2) Decision Making – the top players know what pass to make and at what time. They know when to take risks and when to play it safe. They know when a colleague needs a kick up the rear and when they need an arm round the shoulder. For all of the natural ability, the likes of Toure, Denilson, Adebayor, Eboue (I could go on) do not have these decision making qualities. The pundits like to call it football intelligence (as opposed to normal intelligence, which very few footballers have). Perhaps the only player that is a good decision maker is Cesc. The passes don’t always bear fruit but the idea is generally the right one.

These are both rarer qualities than technical ability and what separate the good from the great. They are also virtually impossible to teach a player. Which means persisting with this squad is a pretty much a pointless exercise. The squad needs to be overhauled and it needs doing soon.