I have been completely taken aback at the amount of panic out there that I have encountered since the club’s season finished. Emails, online Arsenal chatrooms, talk in pubs. And most of it seems to stem from the fact that Arsene Wenger isn’t spending the club’s money with quite the same zest as Roman Abramovich at a luxury yacht show.

So let’s just try and get a bit of perspective here. Assuming Samir Nasri joins, over £20 million will have been spent on players without anything coming in. If Hleb and Adebayor do go, there will be finance available to buy better players. Yes, better players, for the same money if not cheaper.

Arsenal do not go singing from the rooftops that they have money to spend in an attempt to keep prices reasonable. That is the way they do business. Chelsea paid somewhere around £17.5 million for a right back recently. Do people believe he will be any better than Bacary Sagna who was picked up for less than half that fee last summer?

Wenger knows he needs a dominating central defender, but lately he’s been denying it. That isn’t for the benefit of Arsenal fans. It is so the club do not appear desperate when they make enquiries about the player the manager has his eye on. So Arsenal go into negotiations with the potential selling club thinking, they want our man, but they are not so desperate that they won’t walk away if we are silly with the asking price.

This is so bloody obvious, I’d tear my hair out if I had any left. Judge the manager on 1st September when the transfer window closes. Until then, stop getting yourself worked up and remember this. If Arsenal had beaten Man United at Old Trafford in April, they would have ended the season as Premiership champions. They were unfortunate enough to lose a game in which they outplayed the ‘best team in Europe’ (copyright Manchester United 2008).

And they would consequently have been champions in spite of everything else that went against them (injuries, referees, linesmen). Wenger might appear like a fool to people at times, but the man is a genius. No-one else could have done what he has at Arsenal since 1996. But that’s not enough for some supporters. The club will win trophies again and the financial picture will be one of rude health after the Highbury Square flats are sold even if there is a housing crash.

Arsenal are one of the five richest clubs in the world. And one of the reasons they are is because they are sensible enough not to act like it. Keep the faith.