"It's not the despair, I can take the despair, it's the hope I can't stand" or words to that effect uttered in the film Clockwise. (A previous Gooner blog has already made this point.) I tend to say it was the expectation that I found the most difficult when watching Arsenal over the last ten years.

I expected them to always beat any team in front of them. Why wouldn't I, with players like Bergkamp, Henry, Vieira, Pires and Seaman coupled with emerging talents like Clichy, Toure, back up like Edu and huge defenders like Adams, Keown and Campbell? These players ensured that the expectation would not be misplaced. However that expectation would put more pressure on me as a supporter, my mouth was dry hours before the game and normally lasted until the very last minute, I never moved from my spot. "Surely we will win this game" was the thought always in the back of my mind. Even winning the title at Old Trafford still never stopped my nerves at the 2002 Cup Final, you expected that Arsenal would always win.

Now I just hope they won't lose, mainly after watching the performances against Stoke and Man City because any side that can play as badly as they did in those games is capable of losing to anyone. However the beauty of hope over expectation is you are feeling a bit like the underdog, and now I enjoy games more. We are not expected to win football's top honours anymore so anything we do achieve is a bonus and not expected.

We have all, as ‘bloggers’, told all who will read our words what is wrong with the current team and 99% of us all agree with the prognosis - bar probably those earning a bit of ‘pin money’ on Arsenal TV. None of us want a big money takeover or a change of manager. Despite our disjointed and secretive board we allow their hubris and vagaries to go virtually unchallenged. We have one of the highest wage bills of any club in the UK yet we have several players wanting more money - it is bizarre and leaves so many unanswered questions.

The only possible solution to all these nagging questions is to move on. Why are we not as good as we were a few years ago? It is pretty obvious, because the players are not as good as those in the team a few years ago. My new mantra is “that was then and this is now". We must forget what talent we had - that is gone for whatever reason and we are now a team dropping out of the top four. To win the title you must have in your side four or five world class players. These cost money, you can develop one or you can buy one young but you cannot get five top players from a youth set up. That happens about once every 30 years.

Man Utd continue to spend big sums every year, £30 million at a time, but if you do that for three or four years you end up with three or four world class players to add to the talent you already have as a top team - and that talent wins the major honours. The doom mongers who keep saying United's debts will eventually find them out are seemingly wrong, the Mancs are outrunning their debts and have a team that is driven on by a paternal style manager. At the moment they look unstoppable.

The sooner we all get a reality check, we can move on. We can support our team without listening to the propaganda about winning titles and this team challenging for top honours. Let’s stop hurting the team we all love and accept we are led by a board that is suffering from severe fatigue as they try to come to terms with their huge new income and equally huge new debts.

It is time we, the supporters, took a lead and made it clear to the board that we are not mugs. We know that the "bang bang you're dead" football (a phrase coined by the Highbury Spy in 1998 when we hit West Ham with a three goal burst) we used to play is gone, those blistering ten minute spells when we would score two or three goals and render the opposition into a state of paralysis are now history.

We are now an Aston Villa, perhaps an Everton with a bit of polish, but more importantly we are now incapable of raising the revenues needed to purchase the world's top players which means we are entering another period of wilderness. It’s a period where average players will be talked up, narrow defeats will be due to exceptional bad luck and more frightening, we will lose our best players (hold on that is already happening).

Accept this is our future and maybe we can nick the odd cup and come back stronger when our new CEO gets a grip on our geriatric board or when the Highbury development finally reaches its conclusion. Of course if the board really wanted to help this process they could always come clean with its supporter groups and tell them what the plans are for the future of the club we all love in varying different ways. Then perhaps we can all move on... together.

That would be real progress.