We should have made a Cesc replacement ready way before we sanctioned his sale. Mata looked all but a done deal, reports suggests we had agreed a deal with Valencia and Cesc had even spoken to him telling him where and where to live. Valencia waited for us to table the agreed fee but we weren’t forth coming because we were waiting

Our 4th defeat of the season came at the hands of our lowly neighbours. Didn’t watch the game because I had to attend to some pressing issues.  I’m not one to shy away from re-watching missed games win or lose but due to the severity of the loss I would make an exception.

We have played 7 games this season, lost 4 games, drawn 1 and won a poultry 2 games and both wins coming at home.

While the settings has been there to a lacklustre start to the season, its difficult to understand how we fell from 2nd in the log at some point last season to a lowly 15th position we are currently sitting on.

This isn’t the time to start pointing accusing fingers at somebody but truth be told the blame should be put firmly on the board. Yes, Wenger should also have some of the blame but the bigger share should be placed on the board.

The writings ought to have been on the wall before the summer started. We all knew Cesc was going to leave at some point, while Nasri had a year left in his contract. I agree with the logic of trying to squeeze as much cash from Barcelona and City but it shouldn’t be to our detriment instead it should have been the other way round.

We should have made a Cesc replacement ready way before we sanctioned his sale. Mata looked all but a done deal, reports suggests we had agreed a deal with Valencia and Cesc had even spoken to him telling him where and where to live. Valencia waited for us to table the agreed fee but we weren’t forth coming because we were waiting on Barcelona and City to table the right offer for Cesc and Nasri.

Was that the right decision to have been made in that situation? That should be an emphatic NO!

I see a lot of clubs go for their targets long before sanctioning sales of their departing players which should be the path we ought to have followed.

Before 2010/2011 season concluded, Wenger authoritatively told us we were going to see new arrivals before the start of pre-season yet we only saw Gervinho who came after weeks of negotiations.

We have a board whose sole aim is making large profits, whilst this isn’t a bad idea ‘what needs to be done needs to be done’. There is no 2 ways about it.

We went into the new season with the departures of Cesc and Clichy, qualified relatively easily into the Champions league group stage, drew away to Newcastle, lost at home to Liverpool, soon after Nasri left then we lost scandalously to Man United at Old Trafford which set the path way to the said “crisis” we are in at the moment.

Before the transfer window was slammed shut we made gigantic offers for Hazard, Goetze, M’villa and Martin which were knocked back by their clubs reason being there wasn’t sufficient time to purchase replacements.

We were very fortunate to strike deals for 5 new players, which I have no qualms with knowing they are a bunch of internationals with loads of experience under their belt.

Arteta and Mertesacker are the pick of the bunch and have added something which we lack but still we lack that little bit of creativity, a player who can pick holes in opposition defences and churn out key passes in tight matches like we experienced on Sunday against Spurs.

According to statistics we dominated possession against Spurs but lacked that extra bit of brilliance to kill the game off.

The pace of our passing is slow, the transition from defence to attack looks very laboured, RVP, Gervinho and Theo are often left isolated……. All these should have been corrected had we made that special signing, a signing that mattered the most.

Injuries hasn’t helped our course either, Diaby has been out since last season, Jack hasn’t played a single game this term, Vermaelen was ruled out for weeks after the Udinese game. These are players that would have beefed up our squad with leadership, drive and skill.

Another big problem is our defending, it hasn’t been up to scratch. Individually our defenders can rank amongst the best in the league, its our collective defending that needs a lot of work which is proving very hard to correct.

How do we come out of this mess? That’s the question doing the rounds around. Confidence in the camp is rock bottom, injuries to key players makes it a lot tougher to come out from this insane position.

Wenger has a lot on his plate and I’ve no doubt in my mind that he is capable of changing our luck after all he has been here for 15 years + he has won 3 league titles and kept us in the champions league for years.

I believe in Arsenal and I believe in our manager and the squad, time for them to stand up and be counted instead of wallow on what might have been.

C’mon you Reds!!!