Sky Sports have already started advertising for pre-season and next season, and this cannot come soon enough for all Arsenal fans. It is stupidly hard to remain positive after a week that has seen us humbled and humiliated twice at home to teams we are supposed to be competing with. Silvestre has come out and declared that tomorrow is the start of ‘our title push’ for next season, and this statement, along with the player who has said it, just serves to illustrate how far we have fallen as a club.

Cesc and Van Persie have come out and apologized to the fans on behalf of the Silvestres and the Adebayors for the team’s futile and empty performances in recent weeks, and at least they realise that Arsenal are, or used to be, a very big club. Big clubs don’t sign an untried young Frenchman, a Welshman from the Championship and a defender deemed not good enough for our title rivals in the summer. Big clubs buy young talent and add them to an experienced side. I have been a devout ‘Arsene Knows Best’ believer forever really, but now, maybe enough is enough. Our patience is wearing thin. I wrote an article for ‘The Gooner’ fanzine itself just after Christmas entitled ‘Patience is a Virtue’ and that was written in seemingly blind optimism and hope that this squad of brittle misfits were capable of winning honours. Clearly blind optimism is exactly what it was.

I agree completely with the editor, when he says we have six top class players in Nasri, Cesc, Gallas, Eduardo, Arshavin and Van Persie. But, even if we look at those players, Nasri is still ludicrously inexperienced, Eduardo, Van Persie and Gallas are ludicrously injury prone, and doubts strongly linger over the latter pair’s Arsenal futures. Cesc has played a ludicrous amount of games for a 22 year old and it has clearly caught up with him this season, so hopefully a summer break without an international tournament will help him.

Some of the abuse Almunia got after the second leg of against Manchester United was, in my opinion, just stupid. He was the hero at Old Trafford, and has been fantastically consistent over the entirety of this season, and I believe he is a goalkeeper we can win trophies with. He is more consistent then Lehmann ever was, and we went a whole season unbeaten with him. We must also remember that he has been playing behind our worst back four for years. Clichy’s form has been poor, Toure is a shadow of his former self and Sagna has been suffering majorly from a case of the dreaded second season syndrome. Gallas has been sensational when he’s been fit, and perhaps more importantly mentally stable, but one quality defender is not enough.

On that note, I urge Arsene to first address the back four when he gets the money for the summer. Cue the return of Senderos from Milan! As for the midfield, as I have said previously no more flair players are required, just a big, tackling brute to play alongside Cesc. If only Flamini would come back with dear old Philippe…