It is so easy to feel really down after another defeat, but what eases the pain a bit is the knowledge that this was not unexpected. Except maybe for a few eternal optimists.

A defeat which mirrors the home game against Chelsea - same problems, same result. The same as against Man Utd. Action replays home and away. It is a predictable pattern now. A fast start to a game in which you get caught on the counter and concede an early goal. Then everyone piles forward to equalize, and then concedes the second. You come out and half-time all gung-ho and concede another. Game over!

Every big team that can withstand the early Arsenal pressure now has a blueprint to defeat them. Catch them on the counter, home AND away. And if the Euro defeat to Man Utd is what is playing on their minds, they don’t seem to have learnt anything from it.

I have heard every excuse from inexperience to lacking big game mentality to plain bad luck.

While Arsenal don't have a divine right to win every game, they also don’t have the divine right to lose in the exact same way ALL the time.

Either the players are too thick to see the pattern, or the manager has a team that he cannot communicate a gameplan to. It may be too foolish to suggest that Arsene Wenger does not see the pattern, so it has to be the players he has assembled so painstakingly and meticulously.

It even spans seasons, this stupidity, like many have pointed out. An FA Cup loss leading the season straight into the gutter. Every season, the same story. The FA Cup loss due to fielding an inexperienced team, keep your first-teamers on the bench. Then, when the game is lost bring them on, just to experience defeat first hand. The momentum vanishes and the season goes belly up.

And then the manager is left explaining how there is no connection because it is a simplistic assumption to make. How the FA Cup is not the main target. The same story again. We are out of the Champions League and then a big push to finish fourth - and we ALWAYS do finish fourth. We get the Champions League money and the board is happy, manager's job done.

Cue empty rhetoric by one and all during the off-season. The board, the manager, the website all start building up the now 'more-mature' team. They are now more experienced, players returning from injuries are like new signings, hence no more signings are made.

Season starts with everyone writing off Arsenal's chances, Arsenal proves everyone wrong mid-season, only to prove them right at the end of the season.

Qualifying games in the Champions League mean we begin playing before everyone else in Europe, but that is a small price to pay for the money earned by coming fourth. We have qualified ten years in a row, the manager points out. Phew, what an achievement.

Playing qualifying games means more matches, more revenue, more fleecing of the average Arsenal fan.

This is not all bad as it is going towards paying for the stadium debt, we are informed. We should be thankful we get to see our team play amazing football against the lesser lights of the Premier League. We are not true fans if we don’t get caught up in the hysteria that is whipped up until mid-season. We are not supporting the team enough. The true Arsenal fan asks you to go and support Chelsea and Manchester United because you are a glory hunter wanting instant success.

When the mid-season slide begins everyone is now rushing to control the hysteria of the 'unrealistic' fans. Coming third is not so bad after all.

The host of pathetic 'expectation-managing' articles made on the official Arsenal website before yesterday's match is testament to this annual mid-season reality check.

From the official website
Euro trauma affected us against Man United
Goalkeeper is the toughest position
Top-three finish harder than winning a cup
Critics were too hard on Arshavin

The very same website that is last to report potential signings or new signings, injury status or any boardroom decisions affecting the club.

That is way it is done here, it is not hard to see that even the arsenal.com webmaster has been taught how to play the Arsenal way.

I think the manager's ONLY remit is to ensure that this team finishes in the top four, nothing more, nothing less. Trophies are for unrealistic fans and can take a back seat while we pay off the stadium debt. Players will be paid more than they can expect to get in any other team, so that they stay while this exercise is awaiting completion.

The manager gets complete control and is not sackable as the new fella might ask for money and expose the lack of it. The board does not want that, always saying we have 'enough' money to spend, if the manager wants it. The manager is still in a job because he does NOT want the money. Ambition is for the rich clubs, not a club in debt. Trophies mean nothing at the moment.