If I were Myles Palmer I could pen something about Michael Jackson or how much I enjoyed watching some of the Glastonbury Festival on the box. However, the reason I have written very little since the conclusion of the season is that, frankly, there wasn’t much going on. Vermaelen has signed and Cesc has been at the Confederations Cup. I caught about 5 minutes of the whole of the European Under-21 championships, the beginning of the second half of the final which held my interest for as long as it took the Germans to go 2-0 up.

What I really wanted for this summer is for the Arsenal squad to be settled by the time of the first pre-season friendly against Barnet. It’s under a fortnight away, but the signs aren’t encouraging. The suspicion is that Arsène Wenger is trying to do some wheeler dealing involving player trading and the amount of cash involved has not been agreed. So Fiorentina might sell Felipe Melo in exchange for Eboue plus £16 million, but Wenger simply doesn’t have that kind of money.

Going by the last set of club released accounts, Wenger probably doesn’t have a hell of a lot more than the money he spent on Thomas Vermelaen. So he has to sell before he can buy. Ivan Gazidis is open-minded about a rights issue according to the recent interview he gave in the Guardian, but if that was approved, it would be unlikely to happen in time for it to help the manager this summer. And there is no guarantee that funds raised would be used for player acquisition, although clearing some of the club’s debt can never be a bad thing and would mean more money filtering through to the manager on a gradual basis.

One of the main problems the club have is the legacy of the deals struck with Nike and Emirates to fund the building of the new stadium. The Nike deal was front loaded, so all the money other clubs are enjoying for their kit deals is being received year on year. Arsenal got all of theirs when they were raising the money to start building back in something like 2004. Emirates pays a little each year, but much of this money was paid at the beginning of the deal too. Added to which, the deals weren’t particularly well-negotiated in terms of what the club could expect from such contracts. But they were desperate at the time and failed to bargain hard.

Gazidis is a bright cookie, but he’s fighting the odds. Initially, he’s working on economies within and there is a hell of a lot of money spent in the accounts under the umbrella of ‘operating costs’ – some £50 million – that needs explaining. By all accounts the players are ferried around in conditions akin to the Sheik of Dubai. Seven star treatment. Let them suffer a bit and build some character instead of being pampered say I. Incidentally, on that front, has anyone heard diddly squat about a members’ day this pre-season? All gone a bit quiet. Okay, it’s acknowledged that in comparison with those of the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal’s are completely hopeless due to Wenger’s insistence that the players have no contact with the great unwashed of the Arsenal membership, but even so, the club sell membership on the basis that the kids can attend a training session at the stadium and get at least pitchside to watch their heroes. So sort it Arsenal.

Frankly there are a lot of things wrong with the club at the moment, but some of them are entirely avoidable with a smidgen of imagination and others are also solvable to people being paid decent salaries to run the club. I do believe Gazidis is the best man for the job, but he is probably battling the institutional arrogance that has run unchecked amongst the indigenous staff as long as the club has been able to sell out matches without struggle. One only needs face to face encounters with certain members of the box office staff to understand what I am talking about, although in fairness, there are some good people there too.

The bottom line is that the hard times aren’t over, and the manager is still being asked to deliver success on a shoestring after the property slump denied him the Highbury Square windfall he was anticipating. The club have – to their credit – at least not made any stupid statements about Wenger having unlimited resources lately, although putting the message ‘Now is our time’ on the season ticket renewal brochures and including Adebayor and Walcott in the image above it is seriously stretching it.

Let’s face facts here. Arsenal need to buy two further quality players to seriously contend in the Premier League next season. A no-nonsense stopper in the Sol Campbell mould and a central midfield partner for Cesc who will do more of the dirty work and knows how to play the position. Song and Denilson may show signs of promise, but they aren’t ready yet. They can look half decent surrounded by poorly performing players due to the contrast, but they are not week-in, week-out title challenging players. Remember Pascal Cygan played 18 times in the Invincibles season, so squad players have a contribution to make, they just shouldn’t be relied upon as staple ingredients of a successful side.

So it’s wait and see what the board can come up with to assist the manager in the market, as the player trading option doesn’t really seem to be making much headway. If we start the next season with just Vermaelen and the current bunch… I might just find watching tumbleweed more enjoyable.