Arsenal is not a soccer club, I read once in World Soccer magazine back in 1978, it is an institution.

Like all institutions, the interplay with ideas and material forces give rise to them. Without these, they become defunct, meaningless, irrelevant. In politics, they lose their legitimacy. In historical terms, empires rise and fall because they lose creativity, flexibility to adapt; their ideas stagnate, and they lose dominance over their material forces within the given system of their time. In a capitalist world, money is an essential resource.

History is complete with examples of 'old money' being replaced by 'new money' and football is no exception. If David Dein had the vision to invite a foreign buyer whom he trusts to add something to Arsenal; the board of Hill-Wood, Fizsman et al should have listened. Instead, Arsenal's 'old money' cast their Machiavellian sword on the enemy at the height of his influence to preserve their position, their power. So be it between the Lions and the Foxes, short-term vision won out – for the time being.

What of the glory? In the post-Hillsborough era of all-seater stadiums, moving to a new stadium was a good and essential idea to increase revenue; albeit Dein favoured moving to Wembley. A club's glory rests somewhere within its fan base (and, no Spurs fans, I'm not visiting the "go back to the south of the river" debate). Arguably clubs should also be more active within these communities than just visiting children's hospitals and making subsequent charitable donations.

However, when your key competition: Chelsea, Manchester Utd, Liverpool; all have foreign owners and greater material resources, having one of English soccer's finest academies is not going to help you compete in the short to medium-term. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Inter, Bayern Munich and AC Milan compete with us on the European stage.

This does not mean that I am pessimistic about our forthcoming season. Wenger is a one-man ideas and talent-spotting machine but Dein wanted to further enable his material forces. The current board is arguably smug, complacent, self-serving.

Fortunately, Wenger knows that the time to sell Henry was right (if not overdue). Ljungberg can swipe Le Boss about broken promises but, alas, the red-striped midfielder's goal-scoring (and fitness) during the past two seasons no longer justified his salary. Thank you both, however, for some of the headiest times of my life.

Sometimes, you need to clear out the old guard – especially when they have started to live in their past glory. Henry and Ljungberg exemplify this. Ideas and ambition can crystallize and you stop looking at improving yourself. You need to remain liquid and I believe the current core of the team has the burning ambition, skill, experience, to inspire a great squad of skilled athletes to achieve impossible dreams.

Eduardo da Silva's goal-scoring record would indicate he will not be as profligate as Henry. In 2001, when Owen was scoring out of every three to four attempts, Henry was scoring one in six. Sure he improved, he delighted us all but he displayed an arrogance that must have been killed team-spirit during the past two seasons when better effort himself would have lifted us the European Champions League against Barcelona.

Already I'm looking forward to good interplay between Dudu, Adebayor, Rosicky, Van Persie – who I really expect to come back on form, and Walcott (who I find wasted on the right wing), Denilson and Cesc and it only continues to fuel my optimism.

My French friends here in Montréal tell me Sagna is impressive – but not yet a worthy successor to Sagnol. I can tell you too, having followed much of the FIFA U-20 here in Canada; Argentina's di Maria is a very class player – his semi-final goal against Chile, whose keeper broke the record earlier in that match for not conceding a goal in the tournament, was an exquisite strike that curled around the near post. I hope it is true that we have signed him and he may be playing at the Emirates after a season in Portugal. I cannot say that I particularly noted Pedro Silva.

For what it's worth, other players worth looking at were: Mexico's Villaluz; Austria's Okotie; Chile's Vidangossy and Freddy Adu who was a driven one-man force, the reason the US beat Brazil 2-1, and resembled a strange mix of Henry, Cyrille Regis and someone else I couldn't quite place who makes Alexandre Pato seem like a lesser Michael Owen. Dos Santos was the other exquisite player of the tournament. Vela? He played well, some good crosses and vision but seemed to require people to feed him. Time will tell.

Gilles Grimandi, however, seems to have done his job well in Canada. So, in changing the guard, when will the board sound the Last Post so a new owner can blast the Reveille? If they fail to do so, if Arsène Wenger stays at the club after next season it will say two things; either that his youth policy has won what he wants and inspires him to stay; or there is more class than the whole board put together.

Whichever way, Wenger will need the material forces to put his ideas into action otherwise Arsenal risk becoming a failed institution. Reinventing and adapting yourself after that, in today's world, won't be so easy. Now is the time to relinquish the last vestiges of power for the sake of the glory.