In recent weeks the sporting pages and even the non-sporting pages have been dominated with the whole Rooney saga over whether or not the chav Manc forward wanted to leave OT.

He was linked heavily and unsurprisingly with none other than United’s fiercest rivals in Man Citeh. What could he have got a week for leaving 200k? 250k? More to the point what could he get for staying 200k? 250k?

He is staying at least for now so United’s followers can breath a slight sigh of relief.

Don’t get me wrong I couldn’t give a twenty five pound chicken nugget whether or not Wayne ‘chav king’ Rooney plays for United or Citeh.

But all this does for me is sum up the simple fact that the connection us fans have with the ‘heroes’ that play for our clubs week in week out has diminished so much over the past decade that it has had a stark effect on the atmosphere at many matches.

Think back to twenty years or so ago, we had players like David Seaman (Seaman’s chant was later re-released as a B-Side for Mad Jens), Tony Adams (Ooh ooh and there’s only one), Nigel Winterburn (repeat over), Ian Wright (olay olay olay olay Ian Wright Wright Wright, this was originally taken from a Pizza Hut ad don’t you know), Paul Merson (Magic hat), Anders Limpar (Swedish and super, re-released for Bobby Pires) etc etc etc. All of the players in those days seemed to have their own individual chant associated to them. Some more imaginative than others but they all had a chant.

How many times did you see Tony Adams turning to the Clock End before the game had even started with both fists aloft in response to the simple but spot on chant of ‘There’s only one Tony Adams’?

Let us edge closer to the present day and just ten years ago we had players of the likes of Dennis Bergkamp (Wonderland), Thierry Henry (repeat twenty times), Robert Pires (Bob was indeed super), Patrick Vieira (he came from Senegal apparently), Martin Keown (remember boom boom boom let me hear ya say Keown?), Emmanuel Petit (he was blonde and pretty quick!), Ray Parlour (ooh aah!) etc etc etc. Again all of the players seemed to have a chant and most of the chants would be heard loud and proud before kick off every game as the players warmed up.

This brings us on to today’s matchday experience at the E******s and who is there out of the current squad of players that gets more than a half hearted whisper from the padded seats we take up prior to kick off? Cesc maybe (we’ve got Cesc Fabregas, but for how long?), so how can you get that attached?

Who could have pictured Tony Adams wearing another team’s colours? How strange was it to see ‘Nutty’ Nigel in the claret and blue of West Ham? Seaman at Citeh? All of those players were Arsenal through and though and when they left the club they left because they retired or were not guaranteed a first team spot anymore and wanted to play as a first teamer somewhere else as they didn’t have many miles left on the clock.

Even when the invincible team started being broken up just a handful of years back it felt like a betrayal to see those players wearing another team’s strip. Vieira turning out at Highbury in a Juve shirt was like seeing an ex-girlfriend walking down the street hand in hand with her new boyfriend. How did we all feel when Henry started to look like he might leave for the Camp Nou? S**t is the answer!

Now we are only fast forwarding a few years from that time to the current day but how much has the landscape changed? Let’s face reality and the fact is today players do not have to be that good before they get flirty with another club. Flamini? Hleb? Adebayor??? Our longest serving player would probably be RVP at the moment and if he was fit for more than ten games a season he would be heavily linked with moves elsewhere, as it is he is quite happy to be sitting feet up for eleven months of the year in his Hampstead penthouse, with just the occasional massage at the club’s expense to worry about.

The point that I am trying to make here is that loyalty has gone out of the game faster than Leeds United. As fans we can no longer get attached to any one player as we know in reality come next summer they may well be long gone, even the players that go on about loyalty do not really have the club at heart, and why should they? If you were born in Cameroon or the Ivory Coast would you be dreaming of playing for Arsenal when you are five years old?

The level at which we can attach ourselves with these players has diminished to such an extent that I believe it has had a negative impact on the atmosphere at stadiums across the country, as all the chants that we are left with are about the club itself or how poor our local rivals are.

The atmosphere at our home ground has got so poor in recent seasons I feel it was a costly error the club made when re-naming the stands to the old fashioned ones of the ‘Clock End’ and ‘the North Bank’. I feel this was done in an attempt by the club to improve the matchday atmosphere within the ground. They forgot one simple fact when thinking up this master plan. So few people even consider singing at our ground these days that it is not audible to hear the ‘We’re the Clock End’ chant from the north bank stand as you only have around twenty people chanting it and the other eight thousand or so are scrambling around in the concourse for an £8 hot dog.

I for one certainly cannot see this trend going into reverse anytime soon. Because of this and the simple fact that the average fan at Arsenal games has changed so much over the last decade or so I cannot imagine my children ever getting goose pimples on the back of their necks when they attend an Arsenal game for the first time, but hey the chicken balti handcrafted pies are to die for so one makes up for the other I guess.