Wengerball

Having started supporting the Arsenal shortly after Arsène Wenger's arrival at Highbury, this writer has known no other brand of football. While the focus as always has been on pretty football triangles on the pitch, the barren run of trophyless seasons have slightly dampened the enthusiasm of the average Arsenal fan.

Wengerball attempts to chart yet another season in the Arsenal red and white, one that hopefully culminates in much anticipated glory in England's highest footballing echelon.

This week, multi-million dollar transfers go on while the streets descend into anarchy, and wantaway duo Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri are both shanghaied into European duty.

Hollow promises

Just last Saturday week, Arsène Wenger admitted that the transfer season had not gone to plan so far, but promised fans that they could hope to see a signing of "super quality" arrive this very week.

"We want to add not quality, but super quality," said Wenger. "We hope to give you some good news soon. Next week, something might happen."

Four days in, it still looks highly unlikely.

Sure, we finally clinched the big money signing of the highly rated Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from Southampton for the cool sum of £15 million. But we've been chasing the lad ever since he started showing promise a few seasons ago and even the most optimistic of fans would admit that it will take some grooming before he is ready for the big time.

Where does that leave us?

Denilson has left on loan, Nicklas Bendtner is almost certainly on his way out after failing to link up with the first team while Nasri and Fabregas are still scary question marks as the season kicks off.

That's not to mention our shaky defence which becomes even more shaky given how injury prone Thomas Vermaelen and Kieran Gibbs are.

The previous weeks saw Arsenal being tenuously linked to one or several of Gary Cahill, Phil Jagielka, Christopher Samba, Per Mertesacker but nothing materialised. Such is the Arsenal way of late, driving fans batty with pent-up anticipation.

Speaking of which, Gaël Clichy's departure for Manchester City means the left-back slot is up for grabs.

While Gibbs has shown promise when he isn't injured, backup left-back Armand Traore has not exactly impressed, having spent last season sitting on the Juventus bench.

Walking alone

Anyone who's read my articles before knows I'm something of a Wengerite. The trophy winning Arsenal sides in the early Wenger-helmed seasons were partly hand me downs from George Graham (especially the much vaunted back four) and my all time favourite player was famously signed by Bruce Rioch right before he left (no prizes for guessing who). However, much of the success that came afterwards was down to Wenger's innovative approach to football and some astute signings.

What the early success and the exciting brand of football has done is instil a false sense of security into some of the fans, yours truly included. The early consensus was that as long as our football was still of the highest quality, a few trophyless seasons would be of no concern.

It took yet another barren season last time out for the rumblings of discontent to start coming to the surface. Had the Professor made a fatal error of judgement of late? Were important parts of the team being allowed to leave, and not replaced quick enough? Were the kids we had in the team improving fast enough?

I can remember being pretty apathetic about the whole situation last season, as our league campaign and everything else started crumbling to bits around us. The shock Carling Cup loss dealt a huge blow to the team, one from which it never seemed to recover and while losing three goalkeepers at the same time is pretty much shocking luck, it could be argued that the defence was plenty shaky even with them fit.

Champions League football, the bare minimum, was achieved once again but the situation is actually much worse than that. Not only have the past six seasons since we moved to the Emirates been unproductive ones, but our league position has not been one to crow about either. You will often hear an Arsenal fan talking about how we have not dropped out of the top 4 places since Arsène Wenger took over the reins, but the grim fact is that we have only finished 3rd or 4th in our time at the Emirates.

The last time we finished runners-up was also the last time we won a trophy, the FA Cup in 2004/05. Since then, we have been only third or fourth best in England, a far cry from the days in which Arsenal and Manchester United were waging a two team dogfight at the top of the pile.

In fact, our past few seasons of mediocrity is fast resembling that of Liverpool under Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier and Rafael Benitez (minus the European triumph of course). If we're not careful, we might slide even further just like the Anfield side.

If last season was a last chance saloon with regards to winning some silverware, then it's pretty much do-or-die this season. If the Arsenal fail to impress once again, then Arsène Wenger's tenure will surely come under serious doubt.

I for one hope that it will not come to that, but there is much work to be done if the season is to be saved, even before it has started.

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