OK first I want to offer a few more thoughts on our forwards debacle.

Over the weekend, I actually found myself feeling a bit embarrassed when discussing football with friends who are fans of other clubs. Or if that word is too strong, almost apologist. We can debate the reasons for where we find ourselves, but 2 things are true from the perspective of the wider footballing world. Firstly, noone thinks we will win the league now. Secondly, the feeling is that we have brought this upon ourselves as a football club. We might wonder why we are still (relative to our title aspirations) regarded as a bit small time. Not serious about success. Well our lack of a top class striker - even before the season started - sums it up. Even as we were improving and becoming a team in the conversation for honours, Arteta is regarded as having built a team whose principal aim is not to lose, rather than built to take the game to the opposition. It's really difficult to think of a title winning team that do not have a striker who can be relied upon to score 20 goals a season - or if not in numbers - be a true game changer. I commented above that we do not compare in terms of striker talent with any of the teams in the top half of the EPL, and maybe even lower than this. I recall that Pep's Citeh were regarded as having no recognised striker at one stage, but his supporting forward cast was deeper and better than ours - particularly without Saka.

I even wonder whether the 'anti' Arsenal sentiment that we have seen more generally has as much to do with an inherent lack of respect for a team still seen as also rans rather than anything else. It's difficult for fans to 'respect' a team that aspires to silverware but seems timid when it comes to trying to make this happen via player acqusitions.

Even our supposed prime targets seem a bit underwhelming in this context. Like I've said elsewhere, I am generally supportive of pursuing a coherent and planned strategy to raise the level rather than a reactive and scattergun approach. If the realistic plan had been to take the risk of not signing a credible forward in the Summer, or even January, to land an Isaak this Summer (with the huge fee that would command) that would be one thing. But was this a risk worth taking for Cesko - himself a bit of a punt - not top top level...or Nico Williams - bang average Gs and As even in his best seasons in Spain? We are a massive club - currently the 7th richest in the world and 3rd in the EPL. Do our transfer ambitions reflect this?

IMHO aside from what I will kindly describe as over caution in building a self-sustainable model (that I suppose offers a measure of mitigation in some ways), what we are seeing at Arsenal is a degree of incompetence/negligence in our transfer business. I think that last Summer the club placed an over reliance on Arteta's ability to (as NQ says) make more of his resources than most, and took unjustified risks in thinking that our existing players would retain form and fitness. A lack of ability to flex and get business done when the (inevitable) circumstances demanded it will cost us a golden opportunity to win the league, and makes our CL title aspirations seem like a bit of a pipe dream. This is not what champions do, and I think we are seeing a problem at our club at executive level illustrated by Edu's departure - the apparent lack of a plan to replace our sporting director does not bode well, and if January was Jason Ayto's audition, he has truly fluffed his lines.

Where I depart from NQ's thoughts (that may be valid - I'm not dismissing them) is in seeing our problems as down to the owners. First, it is illogical to me that the Kroenkes - winners of 6 US sporting championships and reportedly increasing their weath by £2.5 billon over the past 12 months - would deliberately withhold funds from an Arsenal project clearly (before this season at least) going in the right direction and in with a good shout of winning the league. It makes little business sense - given the income and profile that Arsenal winning the league would achieve. Secondly, Arsenal's net spend under Arteta - even if this is circa £500M - is significant and sees us third in the league over this period. This is inconsistent with funds being denied to Areta. IMO we do not spend £105M on Declan Rice if the owners' ambitions are top 4 only.

I think it's more likely that (with some justification prior to this season), the owners have trusted the club to make the acquisitions it feels are needed. I think there is a fairly fundamental issue at club management level more than in finances level, and I do wonder again what the real reason for Edu's departure was...