The Greek tragedy that is Arsène Wenger's Arsenal!

Cast your minds back to Wednesday 8th May 2002. It is half past seven in the evening. The venue is Old Trafford, Manchester. 67,000 fans are jam-packed into the Theatre of Dreams, not to mention the hundreds of millions of worldwide viewers watching Arsenal play for the right to snatch the Premiership crown at the backyard of their worst enemy for the past decade, a mere four days after claiming FA Cup glory in Cardiff against local rivals Chelsea.

That night, after our famous 1-0 win, a triumphant Arsène Wenger predicted a "power shift" from the north to the capital, namely from Old Trafford to the marble halls of Highbury.

Fast-forward exactly two years, or two years and a week for the pedantic amongst us; Saturday 15th May 2004, and Arsenal have just beaten already relegated Leicester City to ensure having gone an entire league campaign with a zero under the "Lost" column. That glorious league campaign, along with another FA Cup having been added to the trophy cabinet a year before, had been enough to suggest that Wenger's prophecy was coming to vision.

A final fast-forward into the annals of the Premiership years takes us to 24th October 2004, back again at Old Trafford, with the "invincible" Champions looking to go half a century of matches unbeaten.

A crucial turning point in Wenger's reign. A turn for the worse for Arsenal Football Club. Since that bruising 2-0 defeat in a gloomy, rain-soaked Old Trafford, it has just not been the same for Arsène Wenger's Arsenal.

I was worried that I would bore the readers stiff with this history lesson. But I realised that the most fitting way to highlight our current weakness, or shambles, more appropriately, would be to pinpoint just how strong we were fairly recently. Wenger had had every right to believe that Arsenal were on the verge of a dominance akin of United's in the 1990s and Liverpool's in the 1980s.

After all, in Campbell and Vieira, we had a strong, towering, imposing presence in defence and midfield; a dominant spine, combining brilliantly to replace one Tony Adams' heroics, solidity and most importantly, strong leadership. Add flair, creativity and dynamism to these basic ingredients, and you have two of the most prolific goalscoring wingers in the modern game in the forms of Robért Píres and Freddie Ljungberg.

To put the icing on the cake, we had Wenger's very own discovery from his Monaco days, the world's best striker, Thierry Henry, supported brilliantly by the non-flying Dutch master, Dennis Bergkamp.

When that great team began to get dismantled for a variety of different reasons, despite our sadness and disappointment, we, as fans did not worry about the future, confident that Wenger knew exactly when a player was past his peak.

Indeed, Wenger seems to have been justified in letting every one of those Arsenal legends go at the right time. The snag is, he has not been able to replace them with the sufficient strength, character, and quality that he had promised and that had been expected to continue the pursuit for top honours.

The current Arsenal team are a mere shadow of what a world-class side they once used to be, an absolute embarrassment to the category of "title challengers". To his credit, Wenger has definitely got them playing the football that he had always preached in favour of. However, that is as far as one can go in praising the Wenger of today, as he has forgotten about the main ingredients of a successful side; the basic principles that ultimately win you football matches, and, in the long run, trophies- strength, heart, the ability to hang on in there when the going gets tough and nick a scruffy win when playing poorly.

What shocks me most is the fact is that everyone seems to know Arsenal's weaknesses. Everyone except Wenger that is. With the Board having repeatedly insisted that there are sufficient funds in the Club's coffers, so much so that we can in fact spend up to £30 million on one player (indeed the annual financial report published recently seems to support that view), Wenger's arrogance and stubbornness into attempting (and failing) to achieve success his own way and on his own terms is a ghastly crime in itself.

My best friend (enviously an avid Chelsea supporter), said to me the other night that Wenger's stubborn refusal to properly address the team's weaknesses with true quality and experience is similar to an army going to war with shotguns, ignoring the artillery available to them, and subsequently suffering a crushing humiliation! That would be treason, and Wenger's treasonous way has transposed itself into becoming the "Arsenal way."

However, we have waited and waited, and waited again. Four years of failure and counting has been the end result of the "Arsenal way." In many ways, the manager is the victim of his own success. He got us used to the glory, and now he must deliver it consistently. In lay terms, Wenger must cut the crap, and fast.

After yet another embarrassing defeat at the weekend, Wenger came out with the same vague ideas and spin that he has been poisoning our ears with for the last three years. "Lacking sharpness, belief in the side's quality, we will win" and so on. What hurt me and embarrassed me most was Wenger's candid admission that "we could not cope with Stoke"!

Could not cope with Stoke? And yet we have great ability and we will emerge victorious. Wake up Arsène, we are not that daft, and neither are United, Chelsea and Liverpool that's for sure.

We have hit a new low, and it may yet get worse with Manchester United looming in the horizon. The move to the Emirates Stadium was intended to give us the financial power and status that we had so long deserved, but has instead restricted our manager to taking more care of the academy than the first team, and has got the prudent businessman out of him rather than the coach (Wenger has an Economics Masters)!

I had never witnessed a spineless Arsenal in my lifetime until three years ago, and now I know what it means to be slipping slowly into mediocrity. Ironically, we may even end up losing the few glimmers of hope in our team when yet another season of failure ensues, all for the very reason that Wenger had brought them in in the first place: to develop a world-class side of the future with minimum resources.

To be quite frank, enough is enough. "Arsène knows" is a folkloric thing of the past, and, if there is one thing that Le Boss should be duly informed of, is that we cannot keep planning for the future if we have not got a present.