Manchester United Hang 8 on Arsenal: Gunners Have Only Themselves to Blame

If reincarnation was a reality, Arsene Wenger must have lived his past life as an old, obstinate, ornery cowboy on the fringes of the rapidly disappearing American frontier.

Undeterred by the constant telegrams from the railroad instructing him to move off his property lest he see his house (he built with his own hands) demolished by engineers laying track for the new line, Wenger would have resisted its advancement to the bitter end.

Because to Wenger's mind, the Old West represented something pure and remarkable about society.  The rampant change lurking on the horizon just didn't appeal to him. Not one bit.

Back to the present tense, there sat the iconic Frenchman at the post-match presser in the bowels of Old Trafford.

His Arsenal squad had just suffered an 8-2 humiliation at the hands of a Manchester United side that were bigger, better, faster, and stronger in every department.

Wenger, visibly shaken from the experience, appeared broken. It was a sharp relief from the triumphant posture he'd shown more than six months ago, when he basked in the glow of his side's phenomenal 2-1 victory over Barcelona in the Champions League Round of 16 first leg.

"It was a victory for our philosophy of play," Wenger had said at the time.

But like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that iconic tribute to the end of the American West as we knew it, idealized it, and obsessed over it—where Paul Newman and Robert Redford see their time as glorified bank robbers being snuffed out by the wheels of progress—that Barcelona match now appears to have been nothing more than a momentary stopgap amidst an unstoppable tide of change.

The Wenger we saw in the press conference today was not extolling the intrinsic beauty of his philosophy of play. Rather, he seemed painfully aware that the side he has constructed, at present, has no chance of hanging with the Premier League big boys.

A sea-tide of change, begun by Roman Abramovich's infusion of fuel-tinged billions into his Chelsea plaything, has now overtaken the Premier League.

The favorites to end up in the top four this season—United, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Liverpool—have all spent extravagantly in seasons past. Wenger has not.

And it shows. One look at £30m United man Dimitar Berbatov, signed from Tottenham in 2008, lounging on the Old Trafford bench, was enough to prove the point.

Each of those four sides has what the French label un embarras de choix (too much talent, too few positions on the pitch—a dilemma any coach would want).

Kenny Dalglish can bring on £35m Andy Carroll for spot duty in a 3-1 route (against Bolton on Saturday).

Roberto Mancini lets £22.5m bad-boy Mario Balotelli continue to make progress on that impressive scowl he seems intent on freezing into his face, and (to some estimates, anyway) £47m Carlos Tevez peers through that iconic beady gaze from the tribune.

Chelsea worry little that £50m Fernando Torres has not yet found his prodigious goal-scoring form. Other former buys like Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba, not to mention new-boy Romeu Lukaku, can help out.

In comparison, Arsenal's bench for the United match seemed to be wiping the snot from their noses. Oguzhan Ozyakup was never going to make Sir Alex Ferguson swallow his chewing gum in a fit of fear-driven hiccup.

True, there were eight senior players missing. First-choice defenders, Thomas Vermaelen and Bacary Sagna were injured.

While I deem Emmanuel Frimpong's yellow cards against Liverpool a bit harsh, Alex Song and Gervinho both fully deserved their three-game suspensions from the Newcastle match.

For two men in their mid-twenties—seasoned veterans at this stage in their career, unlike the 19-year-old Frimpong—that is absolutely unacceptable.

Arsene Wenger should have yanked them by their cool-looking hairdos during preseason, and showed them how vital the first three Premier League games would be if Arsenal were to start their campaign well.

To not be able to play in high-magnitude games against Liverpool and Manchester United is irresponsible, and a disservice to your fellow teammates.

Yet had Wenger ponied up in the transfer market this offseason, he might have had the type of game-changers at his disposal his rivals are quickly collecting like spazzed-out, spend-happy collectors at a fine art festival.

We know he had the money to go out and buy. Yet once again, the unflinchingly frugal Frenchman refused to join the fad and buy big. It is not in his philosophy, so he will not do it.

So, while the traveling Arsenal fans watched in utter horror, an unstoppable freight train smashed through Wenger's fragile Arsenal side.

This squad, composed of a 20-year-old making his PL debut (Francis Coquelin), a 19-year-old right back who played in the English Championship last season (Carl Jenkinson), a left back best known for being tossed about like a rag doll by Didier Drogba in November, 2009 (Armand Traore), a 30-year-old midfielder whose best days as a player ended in a cruel, injury-induced twist of fate (Tomas Rosicky).

The list seems endless. That squad out there for Arsenal were not game-changers. They were not winners. They did not belong in a game of this magnitude, and it showed.

I have been a staunch defender of Wenger, but the glaring lack of depth in this squad is unforgivable.

The railroad has come. Wenger's philosophy seems (after so many years of teetering on the edge of destruction) finally to have been blasted into smithereens.

There are just over three days left in the transfer market. Like a college student rushing to study for a big exam at the last minute, a lack of preparation in this matter could come back to bite Wenger.

His colleague, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, got his "studying" done early this offseason, snapping up Phil Jones, Ashley Young, and David de Gea (each of whom started Sunday, including the excellent Young) at the outset of the summer.

Whomever Wenger brings in now will be in a race against the clock to integrate into a squad that plays a particular (and increasingly predictable) style of football.

You wouldn't have expected this sort of shoddy unpreparedness from a man nicknamed Le Professeur.