While we are not going to pay wages that we simply cannot afford, it might be time to revaluate our wage structure and increase the top end of the staff while making cuts elsewhere. It is a difficult balancing act as one of our biggest attractions is the fact that we are basically the Manchester City of youth football. We play youngsters more than most and with that are able to attract the best 16-18

Good afternoon and welcome to the new Arsenal in crisis blog for today. Have no fear, there will be plenty more Arsenal in crisis stories to follow shortly around the blogosphere so you will never be far away from your crisis fix.

Paul Hayward of the Guardian stuck wonderfully to his guns and ignored the fact that we had beaten Bolton 3-0 and instead stuck to the script of beating Arsene Wenger and Arsenal as often and as hard as possible. I don’t actually know what the point was of the article but hey. Who needs a point in online journalism in 2011.

After years of very kindly helping Arsenal to sell our top players, it seems as if the media have turned their attentions to Robin van Persie whose contract expires in 2013. The media have already shown amazing creativity by linking him to Manchester City, perhaps the plan will be to send Carlos Tevez to Stoke on loan to make room for Robin.

On a more serious note, it is an obvious concern that we have a few players coming up to the latter stages of their contracts and the wound made from Samir Nasri is still pretty fresh and sore. van Persie has watched his mate Cesc Fabregas walk out on the club and has also seen Samir Nasri receive a fat pay rise for pretty much six months work. Robin van Persie deserves to be wages far higher than Samir Nasri because he is the more influential player and also has more experience.

We know that football does not work this way. Manchester City and Chelsea before them have totally obscured the market. Manchester City can throw money around without a care in the world while a self sustaining club like Arsenal just cannot match that. The trouble is, most football players will not take that into consideration when the direct debits are flying out.

While we are not going to pay wages that we simply cannot afford, it might be time to revaluate our wage structure and increase the top end of the staff while making cuts elsewhere. It is a difficult balancing act as one of our biggest attractions is the fact that we are basically the Manchester City of youth football. We pay and play youngsters more than most and with that are able to attract the best 16-18 year olds in the world. Winning the fight to obtain the signature of a top 16 year old for £800k could well turn into a future £20m asset after the right development and coaching. That is footballing and financial sense that cannot be ignored but I would say the squad members group needs looking at but having said that, it is not great for morale if the gap between squad members is too high.

I am glad that I do not have to think about it beyond this quick jotting down. The fact that Darren Dein has now shuffled his way into van Persie’s path does not bode well but ultimately it is the players decision and I am going to hope that Robin’s love for this club after so much faith has been put in him while suffering from injuries will come back to… erm, what is the opposite to bite us on the Arsenal? Anyway, that.

My personal stance is this. I received far too many grey hair’s after the Nasri and Cesc sagas and now I am wiser after the experience. Why stress? Shrieking and pulling out our hair hasn’t managed to improve the team thus far, if it did then we would have been unbeaten for the last four years such is the nature of some of our fan base.

I know I will be contradicting myself nearer the time but right now I just want to enjoy the magic wand of a left foot and celebrate as he continues to hit the back of the net.

I have two choices, here they are.

1) Watch van Persie become more and more frustrated as the time goes on, Our best players spend more and more time on the treatment table and van Persie’s agent starts to flaunt our striker around to other big clubs. During this time, I spend every day weeping to myself how we will lose our skipper (again) and that we will never find another player of that quality ever, ever again. We get relegated and life as we know it is basically over.

Or

2) The team start to win games 3-0 with van Persie scoring a braces. His new team mates start to gel and talk about their improvements to the media. We find our rhythm again and the team shoot up the league. van Persie is happy at Arsenal after supporting them from an early age. He signs a new contract and thanks Arsene Wenger and the club for all the faith and hard work that has been put in to developing him as one of the best strikers in world football.

Seeing as I am powerless to prevent or make any of these choices happen, which one do I decide to believe until proven otherwise?

I would rather keep my sanity and try and enjoy supporting my team but I guess if you want to be on the other side of the ‘spectrum’ then being miserable is your preference. Knock yourself out but I don’t really want to go down that road right now.

On another topic, Per Mertesacker has been speaking to the official website about the improved defensive performance against Bolton.

Mertesacker said:

“We had a little bit more time [during the week] because of the Carling Cup match,” he told Arsenal Player.

“I want to do a good job, especially in the defence. That is my role. If the coach praises me then that is a great thing but I have to go on and keep on working. My performances can improve.”

The first paragraph is telling. Our players are still gelling together, still learning to work together and the lack of understanding was pretty evident against Blackburn. The week together obviously helped and hopefully that can only continue. There is nothing like a little bit of quality time, the more they train the better the understanding will be and then the better our defending will become. I expect to see a much stronger unit both on the ground and in the air in due course.

Without wanting to drag up old doom and gloom but I get smacked in the face now and again when I gaze at the wall and think about where this team would be right now if we snapped up the likes of Arteta and Mertesacker in July instead. I am doing that grey hair thing again aren’t I?

It is great to hear that Theo Walcott will not be out for a length of time, makes a change for us. I want to see the trio of Gervinho, Theo and RVP as often as possible now that we seem to have found our offensive game again. Six goals in our last two league games is pretty decent going. My top maths skills tells me that if we can continue to do that while stopping goals going in at the other end, should equate to us doing pretty well from now on. We shall see.

Before I go, I would like to point you in the direction of the first instalment in a three part series written by Hazzaboy called The ‘3 Ps’ – Part 1 (Pressing) a great in depth analysis about our pressing game or lack of it. If you have the time then I advise you to swoop in like a Goal.com transfer rumour.

Right, gotta go.

Back tomorrow.