I won’t repeat what we all know; that has all been said only too eloquently in the online editorial written after the Eastlands debacle.

I’ll just say this: this week I have had 4 offers of the use of season tickets or validated silver membership cards to the Kiev game, 6 for the Wigan game and 4 for the Portsmouth game. And even I, who normally snaps us a ticket at the first opportunity, decided that £94 (plus the booking fee) was too much to watch the Liverpool game. Yes, when tickets for the Liverpool game went on sale to Red Members on Friday, all I could get were £94 tickets, the cheaper ones all having disappeared.

I was about to stop, but to paraphrase the great Myles Palmer, I’m in the groove. The words are flowing. I’ll carry on.

It’s tough out there in the real world Mr Wenger. The team’s loyal fans are beginning to question the value-for-money equation of the season tickets. Fewer of them than normal will get their traditional end of year bonuses; many more of them will be worried about their jobs, and whether they will have them come the time to renew their season tickets next year.

Right now, unless there is a change of direction, there is a serous risk of Arsenal finishing outside the top 4; the idea of us winning the CL this year is, I am sorry to say, ridiculous. If things carry on as they are, 5th spot will be beyond this team, so UEFA qualification will depend on winning the Carling Cup or the FA Cup.

The trouble with that vain hope or ambition is that Mr Wenger doesn’t believe the Carling Cup is a true measure of a team’s quality. And nor is the FA Cup, as apparently you only need to win 6 games to win the FA Cup. Right now, Mr Wenger I’d be over the moon at the idea of a Carling Cup final win. And I’d be over Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto in a trice if you could get this bunch of overpaid, precious, pampered children to win any 6 games, never mind the FA Cup; I’d do all that and more if you can do what George Graham’s long ball merchants did in 1993 and win both cups. I can still hear myself that balmy May night in the cesspit of what was the old Wembley shouting “Get in the f***ing box Linighan you useless donkey”. Thank goodness he followed my advice back then.

So Mr Wenger, you could do no worse than follow my advice now:

1. Do what the chairman of RBS did the other day! Apologise; for not strengthening the team when you should have done, for the shocking, abject performances your team has produced too often this season and for the appointment of Gallas as the worst captain our team has ever had.

2. Be honest with us: tell us you will buy some players in the January transfer window; I know you won’t want to say that they will include a goalkeeper, a couple of brick sh*thouse central defenders, a couple of ass-kicking midfielders, a winger who understands the concept of hitting the by-line and delivering a cross which a bulldog centre forward can head in (and yes we need one of those right now); but, as the season of good will approaches, give us some seasonal cheer, please tell us you will address the weaknesses in the team. Show us the cheque book still exists. Or, as we are now in the 21st century, just say we have mastered the art of making payments via on-line banking.

3. Or if you won’t do that, then please go. Go now, before it gets worse. Go now, before everything you have worked for is swept away. Go now, before you preside over any more defeats as inept and insipid as those against Man City and Villa which make the crowd who have hitherto worshipped you turn against you. I don’t want that to happen, but imagine the atmosphere when Wigan come calling if the team is defeated on Tuesday and next Sunday.

I started out the season believing, like you, that having come so close last season, the team could push on this season. I could accept Nasri replacing Hleb. I saw that as an improvement. I could accept Silvestre for Senderos. He was a winner and could cover two positions. I was prepared to accept that Adebayor was worth a modest pay rise, but sorry, he is not worth more in a week than I can earn in a year. However, I couldn’t understand the lack of strengthening in midfield. Even so, I hoped you would be proved right and me wrong.

But the evidence is that it is you who are wrong; you are very, very wrong.

As an economics graduate, you will, I am sure, have heard of John Maynard Keynes. Some of his most famous quotations seem remarkably apposite: I have included them here, together with my “translation” as they apply to the current situation:

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I thought this team was good enough not to need strengthening; I was wrong. I recognize now that we need to buy and buy fast. We will buy half a dozen players in January, all of them aged 26-30 and seasoned pros.

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
I recognise that this team’s undoubted potential is completely irrelevant if we fail to qualify for the CL next season and we have to sell them all. So I am going to buy several players in January

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong — especially if one is promptly found out.
I tried to do it with kids, but I was wrong. Don’t worry, the players I will buy in January will ensure 4th place and win us a domestic Cup.

But my favourite quote is far simpler, and one we could all agree with, without any translation: “I should have drunk more champagne.” It doesn’t all have to be vintage Dom Perignon.