Arsenal: This is becoming more than a little mess

Arsenal’s season is getting progressively worse, and while we need to practice patience as fans, the mess is more than a small thing.

Over the last few seasons, never let it be said that the life of an Arsenal fan is an uneventful one and this week has certainly been no exception.

Firstly, we have had to deal with the fact that the club has zero money for incoming transfers this January and any potential transfers would be on a loan basis only. The collective response from everyone has been where has the money gone?

We are one of the richest clubs in world football and have been debt free for more than three years. On an average matchday, our gate income is upwards of £100m, our retail intake is £26m and our match tickets are the most expensive in the Premier league.

On the outside of things everything is in place for Arsenal to be in a position where we can invest in the squad and be in a place where we can compete again. But the way business has been conducted at the club over the last few seasons has been nothing short of a farce.

Outgoing transfers and players contracts have been handled by people who clearly have no idea of market value. Over the last four years we have given away nearly £250m worth of talent for less than £15m.

We have two fringe players in Carl Jenkinson and Mohammed Elneny who earn a combined weekly wage of £100k and on top of that, we have a player who earns £350k and just seems to play whenever he wants and always has one too many niggling injuries.

Despite breaking our transfer record twice in 18 months, too much money has been thrown about here and there on average players with wages higher than they deserve and when you have a billionaire owner who hasn’t invested any of his £7 billion worth into the club, these things are going to pile up.

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At his press conference, Unai Emery looked like a man who had been promised so much more when he joined last summer. This is a situation you feel will drag on. Maybe as Arsenal fans we are being too impatient and expecting miracles to happen too soon.

We will have a clearer picture in the summer transfer window, with better players available and with the new multi-million pound sponsorship deal with Adidas. It should free up more money to spend. That’s if the board are willing to match the fans ambitions and loosen the purse strings.

However, Unai Emery isn’t free of culpability by any stretch. His tactics away from home are becoming increasingly erratic and, to put it politely, the players don’t seem to know what they need to be doing.

Saturday’s game against West Ham was, in my opinion, the worst of the season. The players lacked any fight and direction and they looked like they needed a confidence boost. Not what you need in a London Derby.

The Mesut Ozil situation needs to be resolved ASAP, because without him in the team, we just lack any kind of creativity. He was back in training after his injury on Monday, the same time as Hector Bellerin, but despite Bellerin being fit enough for the bench, Emery deemed that the game was too soon for Ozil.

We are now six points behind Chelsea and the top four and level on points with Manchester United in 6th who a month ago were 12 points behind us. A defeat against Chelsea next Saturday in what is now a must win game could prove critical to our top four chances even in January.