Adrian Wagenaar
The fact that we will be seeded in the qualification round of the Champions League may prevent a serious early season setback but we have been severely punished as a team in the last few months for our managers failure to drive a hard and resilient backbone into the team.
Next season will, in my opinion, leave us competing for the two domestic cups and fourth spot. The top three will be Man U, City and Chelsea in what order I am not sure but City and Chelsea will spend big and the Mancs will spend but will have Ferguson to drive them on in his inimitable paternal style.
Fourth place will be contested by Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal and perhaps one other. Our last big chance to win a major honour was this season and we blew it! City got better as the season went on, their performance in the final against Stoke was tactically spot on. They matched Stoke's aggression and should have won by more but what impressed me was the way they closed out the game and took the single goal victory.
Huge signings will be brought into the Eastlands and Chelsea will try hard to match them, leaving Fergie with an even greater challenge that he will certainly relish and he will already be planning to counter these twin threats.
All Wenger's trust and belief in his philosophy and some of our underperforming players coupled with the neglect in the defensive areas, the failure to combat our physical weaknesses and lack of a real leader on the pitch will come back and bite him hard. Unless he has the mother of all close seasons, spending wisely and appointing bravely, next season could be his watershed!
Now the very scary bit, because Wenger runs everything at the E******s and the board have admitted that they have no plan B, should AW fail so badly that he decides that it is time to go - we are in serious trouble. Make no mistake the board are never going to sack Wenger but AW could leave for other reasons - judging by his look and demeanour recently, I genuinely worry about his state of health.
Wenger leaving would mean that the current board would have to make a footballing decision - would any fan trust the result of a board meeting one Monday afternoon with our esteemed chairman deciding who the “right sort of person" is to manage our team? I thought not.
The facts are that our club, with a turnover of over £300 million, has no plan, contingency or otherwise to cover for the loss of the person who actually runs the club.
In any other business this would be viewed as an extreme weakness and banks and financial institutions connected to the business would demand that this anomaly was rectified and an active deputy appointed immediately. A proper footballing No 2 should be recruited this summer and the candidate should be someone who can tell Arsene when his philosophy is not working. If Gazidis is any kind of CEO he will make this his top priority and the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust should start probing the board about its preferred direction should we find ourselves without AW’s services.
I have followed Arsenal since 1960 and I have a "sixth sense" when it comes to the state of my team and I smell the last days of poor George Swindon and Terry Neill's reign, mixed in with those awful mid-seventies years. Action must be taken and quickly - we need new staff, three major, plus a few minor signings and the biggest ugliest centre back on the planet.
Also a much needed are a new coach who will install some proper discipline and last but not least a captain who wants to play for Arsenal and would need to be shot before he would hand the armband over to any other human being!
Get going Mr Gazidis. The clock is ticking and it is later than you think!
