Joe Fitzpatrick 
Aldous Huxley penned "The doors of perception" in 1954 wherein he explores the use of mind altering substances including his very first experiences with Mescaline and the potential for drugs to be used as a consciousness raising device in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. Huxley was inspired by the English poet William Blake's "The marriage of heaven and hell" in which Blake muses "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
Huxley was widely known and respected as a leading intellectual and author so it should come as little surprise to any of you that thousands of people around the world quickly took to his ideas on drugs and how they could be applied to spirituality, art and religion then used them to varying degrees of success as the starting point for various counterculture movements of the 1960's. Jim Morrison named his band "The Doors" such was the influence that Huxley's "The Doors Of Perception" had upon his creative genius.
If football is like a religion to many of us, just as music was a religion to the late, great visionary Jim Morrison, perhaps we should take a leaf out of old Jimbo's book and look at ways to alter our perspective on the true nature of our reality?
Some of us are natural optimists while some of us are naturally pessimistic and that is mostly due to our genetics and resulting brain chemistry. We are all Arsenal fans who love the club dearly but our perception of reality seems to differ much beyond the classical parameters of the glass half full or glass half empty syndrome. It is my opinion that the most cost effective way for Arsenal FC. of bringing all of the negative doom mongers into line is to chemically alter their natural disposition with the careful scientific application of mind bending substances. How else can we convince all of these negative Nancies that our current defence and goalkeepers are good enough to win the Premier League? How else can we convince them that all of our players are truly committed to the cause and actually want to wear the beloved red and white shirt? How can we convince them that our manager is a tactical genius and doesn't need to spend any serious money on improving his playing squad?
The truth is fellow Gooners, is that we can't. We can't convince them without slipping mescaline into their beer because of pesky little inconvenient things called facts.
The facts are that Gazidis has said that we have money to spend on new players but we have only spent around £5million when you consider that we reportedly sold Clichy for £7million, signed Gervinho for £11million and bought Jenkinson for £1million. That is a paltry spend for the most well supported team in our nation’s capital, with our revenue streams, even when you take into consideration the stadium debt.
The facts are that the two areas that most rational Arsenal fans agreed needed strengthening were the defensive and goalkeeping positions. We have failed to sign a goalkeeper and we have actually weakened our defence by selling our most experienced left back.
The facts are that we are holding on to players who clearly don't want to play for us anymore because we as a club have refused to match their ambition by investing in the playing squad.
I write this on the 25th of July and many other clubs completed the bulk of their transfer business weeks ago. We have signed one decent looking player and a terribly inexperienced defender, anyone else who signs for us even next week will not have had the benefit of a full pre-season and be fully assimilated into the squad in time for the start of the campaign ahead.
I really don't want to be so negative but, apart from the potential of Wilshere, Ramsey and Walcott coupled with our much beloved Sagna, TV5 and RVP10 I can't get excited about any of our squad's other players yet, as in my opinion they lack experience, talent, heart, commitment, leadership and loyalty to varying degrees.
That is all just my perception of course but, I would still say that if anybody out there still thinks that our current squad can realistically challenge for the league title or Champions League trophy this season without at least three more additions... they must be on some sort of drugs.
