UPDATE: I'VE MOVED HERE rosie-47.blogspot.com

Like many Arsenal fans, I have spent the past few weeks - and certainly the past couple of days - wondering exactly what is going on at the Grove. Certainly, the apparent lack of direction, lack of decisiveness and lack of investment in a squad in serious need of a boost have often made the events of this season a bitter pill to swallow. In some circles, the perception of Arsène as the man who 'knows' is quickly evaporating, replaced by the new image of the man who knew. As the fan-base starts to turn against Arsène, people are quick to lose patience, quick to point fingers and accuse, and quick to deride a man who must surely have done enough, once his tenure comes to an end, to earn his own statue alongside Herbert Chapman's at the door to our stadium. Where once all trusted Wenger, now many are quick to profess that they know better. Arsenal fans, caught in some sort of social media civil war, are being consumed by the knee-jerk culture which pervades the modern game. Sadly, one thing which many have seemed unwilling to do in this difficult time is to try to afford the manager a little empathy, and particularly to try and understand how deeply the events of the summer must have affected a man who was once universally revered by Arsenal fans – and the situation that they leave Le Prof in now.

More and more this season I find myself wondering ‘what if’? What if Fabregas and, to a lesser extent, Nasri, had stayed? What if we had just two specialist full-backs available for selection? What difference might Arteta's presence have had in the loss to United, for instance? Of course, these are pointless musings now. But to my mind the only criticism that can be levelled at Wenger at the moment is that he has failed to adapt to these misfortunes. The lack of a reaction to the injuries is easy to explain: it simply isn’t possible to dip into the January transfer market and pluck out two fullbacks capable of improving on what cover we already have. The lack of signings to address more inherent squad weaknesses is a more complex issue to understand – but what we are talking about here is not just a case of replacing a couple of players; the departure of Fabregas seemed at the time to signal the end of the line for Arsène’s vision for the club, and his comments duly backed the sentiment up as the words “the hard thing is the feeling that something is ending” notoriously appeared all over the world wide web.

For me, much of what has been said over the past few weeks can be put down to a juxtaposition of the long-term and short-term strategies of the club. People are deriding Wenger for his failure to adapt to what happened, but as he himself put it shortly after that defeat at Old Trafford, “we just want to focus on short term at the moment, we are not in a position to make long-term plans”. Short-term fixes will never solve long-term problems, but that is exactly the approach many are calling for.

 Arsène's vision for this team was a long-term one, one whose wheels were set in motion many years ago. It was a vision which, enacted alongside our expensive move to a new stadium, was designed to allow us to continue to operate at the highest level, to challenge for honours both domestically and in Europe, and at the very least to keep us eating at the continent's top table. But the greatest genius of this vision was that it would see us out at the other side of a financial tough spot with a squad capable of doing an awful lot more than just keeping in touch, and with a bank balance capable of luring the biggest names in the game to the club (not to mention the fantastic new stadium). Despite the lack of silverware, you'd have to say that we were pretty much on target.

From the horse's mouth:

"We are building a stadium, so I will get young players in early so I do not find myself exposed on the transfer market without the money to compete with the others. I build a team, and we compensate by creating a style of play, by creating a culture at the club because the boy comes in at 16 or 17 and when they go out they have a supplement of soul, of love for the club, because they have been educated together. The people you meet at college from 16 to 20, often those are the relationships in life that keep going. That, I think, will give us strength that other clubs will not have."

The summer of 2011 may have put paid to that vision for Arsenal, but if I may indulge my imagination a little longer I feel it pertinent to consider what state our squad may have been in this season if everything had gone as planned; indeed, the key phrase in Wenger's quote is 'keep going', for that is what they were supposed to do. Wenger's vision hinged on the club's ability to keep the players he cherished so much (it is no coincidence that many of his players/ ex-players consider him a 'father figure'), and perhaps this was where le prof's foresight failed him. This project was undertaken by a board and a manager who were fully aware of the barren spell with which it might coincide, but a player's time at the top level is by definition a short one, and it doesn't take much to understand the frustration someone like Fabregas will have felt watching his former team-mates from La Masia conquering all before them whilst his time at a struggling Arsenal went largely unrewarded.

Now imagine for a second how strong our team may have been this season if Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy et al were still around, and if we had not been so besieged by injuries. A (settled) back four of Sagna, Koscielny, Vermaelen and Clichy - with support provided by the likes of Djourou, Miquel, Gibbs and Jenkinson; a midfield of Song, Fabregas and Wilshere - backed up by Ramsey, Nasri, Diaby (!), Coquelin, Frimpong et cetera. The flanks would have been well packed, and if Chamakh had lived up to his early promise then we would have had (some) support for Robin up top. And all that's without mentioning the likes of Arteta, Mertesacker, Santos and Benayoun who arrived in the summer, or the likes of Flamini who much earlier deemed that the grass must surely be greener. It isn't hard to see what a huge shame it is for all of us that Arsène's plan never came to its full realisation, at least not in its original form. Again, these may now be pointless musings – but I feel it is important to comprehend the gravity of the changes that took place at the start of this season so that we can know exactly what it is that leaves us reeling even now.

As I have previously mentioned, what let Arsène's project down above all was his failure to account for the setbacks that were inevitably to be encountered, and in the departure of Fabregas a crueller blow could not have been landed. But what continues to let Arsenal down is his failure thus far to react to the events which have unravelled before him, to adapt to the new situation. The most important thing to stress in all this, though, is that the first iteration of Arsène's project only came to an end a few months ago. If it seems like he does not know what he is doing anymore, it is quite simply because he has not yet decided: he hasn't had sufficient time to adapt, to make up his mind what direction he wants to take this team in. Add to that the fact that we are certainly witnessing something of a hangover from the project: sentimentality seems to be the only reason for the continued presence of certain squad members, for instance.

The fact is that a decision still needs to be made, and it is of paramount importance for fans to realise this. Much of the recent mutineering has taken place because people think that a decision has been made: the decision to seemingly try and muddle through as if nothing ever happened. That, without a doubt, is false. It may not be ideal, but what we are experiencing now is the transition between the end of Arsène’s original project and the moment the club decides what new approach to adopt.

Of course, it may be that no new strategy is adopted at all – perhaps the old one will simply be revised. Yes, we have seen the significant departures of players who Arsène had planned to build his team around; in a few years Fabregas and Nasri would have been in their footballing prime, leading the team and lending their experience to the likes of Wilshere and Ramsey (more here   on how Arsenal's 'waves' of investment in talent were designed to provide this smooth progression). But in Song, Ramsey and Wilshere perhaps we already have a midfield trio which is capable of seeing Wenger's dream come to fruition. Perhaps the plan has just been set back a few years, or one 'wave' of investment - and so be it. Perhaps the coming months will even see Arsène loosen the purse strings and replace the cogs which are currently missing in the system, although that seems less likely than him playing the waiting game with Wilshere and Ramsey. Who knows what approach the club will now take, but I am certain that a decision will be made – and not in the heat of the moment, but after careful and painstaking consideration.

In the meantime perhaps the most problematic thing for Arsène is that the departure of players whose commitment to the long term cause could not match his own seems to have engendered the same shortcoming throughout a fan-base now characterised by its myopia. But I for one shall be giving the club the time it needs to pick itself up again. At a time like this the club needs our support and I have no intention of giving it anything other than that. It takes more than a few months to adapt to such monumental shifts in a project which had been several years in the making. If Arsène and the board have not yet adapted so soon after the goalposts were moved, then I intend to give them the time to do so. At the moment those at the club are having to try and make the best of a bad situation, and gooners everywhere should get behind them and try to do the same.

 
Follow me on Twitter, @rosie_47