The time is nigh

So lots has happened over the last 3 weeks, and it must be said it's mostly been shit; 3  defeats and 7 points lost from point scoring positions, which would see us in 4th place.

Much has been said about the 3 games and the fallout of the Chamberlain-Arshavin substitution rages on (no idea why, it's 1 substitution?). But the biggest effect seems to have been the unity of The Arsenal. By that I mean the manager, the players & the fans. To say there has been a fallout between all 3 wouldn't be far from the truth.

The fans showed their obvious disquiet towards the manager with some frankly idiotic and mindless chants, whilst although the booing wasn't directed at him, Arshavin must feel like an absolute mug right now, as the booing continued when he replaced The Ox. I have no issue actually with booing the substitution of Chamberlain, but what shouldn't have happened is the booing once Arshavin had stepped onto the pitch. How moronic do you have to be? The bloke's at his lowest point since joining the club, yet we contrive to make him feel even shitter. All the nonsense afterwards from fans, especially on Twitter, of blaming the Russian for the goal need to take their Vermaelen-tinted goggles off. TV was at largely at fault for the first and should have stopped Wellbeck once he had evaded Arshavin, That's not to say I'm him blaming him solely for the goals, as Song was culpable for the second too, but we fans do love a scapegoat don't we.... Senderos, Eboue, Denilson and now Arshavin.

One 'pleasing' aspect of the fallout has been that the players appear to have had some frank 'conversations' in the changing room post match, which can only be a good thing. Former players have spoken about how such talks from previous campaigns ('91 can't remember the game and '98 post Blackburn) can have a positive influence on the remainder of the season, helping to get everyone reading from the same page, and focused on the job in hand.

The other positive is that we're only 5 points behind Chelsea. Yes we realistically need to get a few of our players back from injuries, but with  Sagna and Wilshere back, I genuinely can't see us playing as poorly as we have been of late. Lets not forget before Sagna and Santos got injured we had won 10 out of 11. That's not bad is it? With Sagna due back in 2 weeks (or so) and Wilshere, Gibbs  et al. not long after we've got every chance of hauling ourselves up the table. We've also got to remember we've got to play the Spuds and Chelsea at home yet, both of which we can win.

So what about Arsene then? I think it's fair to say that he's not covered himself in glory since the summer. Before the Fulham game he said that it wasn't worth losing games because we don't sign a left back. We haven't signed a left back and we've lost 3 on the trot. Add this to his comments about selling Cesc and Na$ri  in the summer and the picture doesn't look too rosy for him, long term.

I say long term as there is no chance of him leaving mid-season. There's no point even having the debate as it simply will not happen. Not that I want him to leave, but I do wish he would take his head out of the sand.
His stubbornness in always getting 'value for money' when buying players has allowed this squad to become very average.

There are 8 or 9 players on our books, at the club or out on loan, who shouldn't be and must be sold in the summer (at the latest). There's no need to name names as they're all pretty obvious, and hopefully Ivan Gazidis does "trim the fat" from the wage bill. We can't keep relying on injury prone players to be fit and pay them £60K+ contracts for nothing in return, it just doesn't make sense.

Hopefully, once the board lock-out ends before the season is out, we'll see a new board formed which can drive the club on to further success and insist on intelligent investment in the team. By intelligent I mean not scrimping on 1 or 2 million if it bags us a top quality player (i.e. Xabi Alonso in 2006) and demonstrates to our best players that we do want to build a title challenging squad.

All this is by the by though, right now our current squad, the manager and the fans need to pull together put aside our differences and drive the team on to the minimum of 4th place. We've still got the champions league and the FA Cup as opportunities, though not realistic, of silverware to aim for.

This is when we all need to stand up, be counted, and put the the Chavs and Spuds firmly in their place.