The barely believable events of the first four months of the season mean that Arsenal enter 2009 in fifth place, 10 points behind the leaders Liverpool. Far from ideal, but there again had the teams above us shown consistency then the situation would be a lot worse. Or to be precise – disastrous! So, all is not lost and Arsene Wenger now has 18 games to try and turn things around and restore some pride to the club.

So we all have to hope that a) he really does have the funds for new players the board keeps telling us he has, and b) Arsene actually chooses to use them to invest in some much needed players with quality and experience. As much as we all appreciate Le Boss for what he has done for the best part of his 12 years in the hot seat, our beloved club’s current crisis is all of his own making.

The failure to bolster the squad in the summer having let vital players leave, his persistence in using average and below-average players, the lack of tactics, the inept substitutions, the woeful defence, the lacklustre midfield, the Gallas captaincy fiasco – I am sorry to harp on about it but all these factors have all contributed to our current league position. Arsene made the decisions that have put us fifth in the table and he does at least deserve the opportunity to put things right.

This is his first major crisis at the club, but given the lack of quality across our current squad, things are clearly not going to resolve themselves without the manager doing something about it. And fast. So his work starts in earnest (if it hasn’t already) on January 1st. If he chooses to do nothing and buries his head in the sand (as he appears to be doing in the latest Evening Standard interview) there is no doubt in my mind that there will be more of the same with a real possibility we shan’t get a top four finish let alone win the Premiership, Champions League or the FA Cup.

Regular readers of the excellent Gooner magazine and its online companion will be aware that there is growing unrest among the supporters, with many questioning the wisdom of Wenger’s recent decisions. How many of you have noticed that games at the E******s are taking far longer to sell out? Let’s hope that this is as low as things get for us under Arsene’s reign because the glory of his past achievements will soon become a dim and distant memory should we fail to grab that top four finish at the end of the season. So, I for one am holding on to the belief that Arsene knows.