Are there more problems behind the scenes at the club that we don’t know about? Is this the last chance saloon for Wenger?

I was horrified to see that Arsenal TV has "ceased broadcasting" due to the collapse of Setanta. I don’t think that is wholly the reason. With the arrival of ESPN and them taking over pretty much all of Setanta’s programmes, why didn’t they snap it up? It’s different if it was being updated but when I spoke to Virgin Media, they told me that as far as they were aware there were no plans for the channel to come back on anytime soon.

I thought it was silly having both a digital tv channel and an online channel to start with. Plus, when the channel was on there wasn’t much airtime, 4.30pm till midnight and nothing on Sunday. I’ve worked in Digital TV before and that’s no way to pull in the viewers. Even Chelsea and Manure TV is on longer than that. I for one will miss it as I religiously watched the fans’ forum with Tom Watt.

On a rain-sodden Saturday night we suffered our first defeat in pre-season. I’m not worried as it’s better to lose friendlies. We have a big game against Everton this Saturday and it's imperative we get three points. This year I don’t care how we win. Before, if we won a game I could be a bit critical of the performance but now, as we are in desperate need of a trophy, I’ll take a deflected goal or a last minute strike when we’ve had our backs to the wall. Just like the old days.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been watching ‘The Premiership Years’ on Sky, the days when we were feared and winning trophies and breaking records for fun. One of the seasons that stood out for me, apart from ‘The Invincibles’, was the 98/99 season where we lost out by one point on the final day. Ok we finished empty handed but only lost four games and had the best defensive record in Europe. At times when it wasn’t going well we had a mix of young players and leaders and we got a reaction when we did lose a game.

I remember when we got robbed by Ryan Giggs, we played Wimbledon after and we spanked them. I don’t see any indication of that attitude in this team. So it’s evident that Wenger has to bring that kind of attitude in if we are to be great again. We’ve shown glimpses of it in the past - at Bolton two years back when we were 2-0 down with 20 minutes left - so we can do it, just not on a regular basis.

In 1998/99 I think we had something like five or six red cards and Petit was sent off three times alone. Yes it was poor discipline but at least they showed us that the were ready to put their foot in. If that team played our current team then the latter would get a hiding in more ways than one.

In short before Aug 31st we need the following:

An experienced centre-back built like an ox with pace, a holding midfielder of the same quality and a striker who can not only put himself about but score for fun as well. Wenger has the dough so spend now and if it doesn’t work out spend again in January. (Writer’s opinion on the available financial resources, not mine! – Ed)