I loved Wenger as much as anyone - still do - but he really has tucked us up with the sky high player wages and the communal wage structure that he pushed so hard for. IMO, it's far more problematic than the general decline in standards and culture (both of which can be fixed with new personnel), because it completely hamstrings our ability to change anything. It's saddled us with a collection of bang-average players, on astronomical CL wages, who are basically unsellable because no one else wants them or can afford them.

And the worst thing is the players know it! If they hadn't already worked it out before, then the disastrous attempts to oust Özil and Mustafi last summer would have proven it beyond doubt - not only did both moves utterly fail, but within a few weeks we'd had to recall both players to the side because we had no other choice! What a shocking message that sent out.

If this absolute shower of a season has proven anything it's that you can't really trust or work with players who know that they are untouchable, and unfortunately that's pretty much all of our senior players these days. Auba at least seemed to have enough professional pride left in him to at least play for his move away, but the rest of them are so obviously just milking their fat Arsenal contracts for everything they can it's painful. Not one of them, Auba included, is really committed to this club, IMO, and it shows every time we face any kind of adversity. No one ever steps up - far easier to just throw a strop and get yourself dropped while you continue to get paid.

Seriously, this season is done. We're not getting anything else out of our senior players now - they've already mentally checked-out and are now in full self-preservation mode, looking for moves. Whatever little bit of unity and pride we'd managed to restore when Arteta first took over has been completely wiped out by Covid-19. When most of your players only care about their salary and their contracts, and those contracts are then threatened, then that's it! You've lost them. There's nothing else commanding their loyalty or their professionalism.

The one good thing that might come out of this mess, if we can somehow limp through these last few games, is that it might accelerate a few departures. If club revenue all across Europe has nose-dived, then maybe the days of fat signing-on fees from free transfers are over (at least for the foreseeable), and that might make a few of our players question whether it's worth hanging around for another year, or whether they might be better off pushing for a move now, while they still have an extra year of youth to offer?