Take That!

New season; thank goodness!

I know I should be leading with my delight that we've got off to a winning start, but there is of course a huge dollop of Got Out Of Jail involved. Leaving the result aside for the moment, I'd firstly like to visit where the club is at this moment.

The question that many, including myself, are asking, is why Ivan Gazidis' Catalyst For Change has led to, essentially, No Change Whatsoever. Minded of that, I sat watching the match with the old Take That hit, 'Everything Changes', running round my brain. 'Everything changes but you', they sang,... and that's precisely where we are - again!

Let's look at what's happened in the close season. Sign a prolific centre-forward? Tick. Sign a beast of a defender? Tick? Bring in a (psychotic) new coach in Jens Lehmann? Tick.

And then?...

Chelsea (didn't we laugh on Saturday afternoon?!?) have brought in three players at a cost of £130m - so stop whining, Conte and Chelsea fans everywhere - that's more money than 17 other Premier League clubs have spent. And they will now have to go in again. Manchester City have spent a fortune - did you see the meme going around a few weeks ago showing that they've spent more money on defence this year than 47 actual countries? And United - with Mourinho spouting his usual nonsense following the Neymar transfer about him being value for money, have of course spent a ridiculous amount as well. Spurs look like they may find themselves suffering from the same constraints as we did in the middle of a stadium move; good! Everton are on a spree designed to help them close the gap to the top. And Liverpool have spent a bit, but look like losing Coutinho, which will likely set them back considerably.

And Arsenal?... we sit and wait. For so much, which ought to have been put to bed weeks ago, to happen. For the likes of Gibbs, Debuchy, Jenkinson, Perez, Akpom, maybe Chambers, the currently long-term injured Joel Campbell and perhaps Wilshere (sobs uncontrollably) to be moved on. For mutual decisions to be made by the club and The Ox, Ozil and - critically - Alexis Sanchez. And for, on the back of that, another player or two to come in. A proper defensive midfielder is still required; Matic would have been perfect.

So the failure to qualify for the Champions League has in fact not been the Catalyst For Change that we were promised. The manager's vacillations continue, and we start the season under-cooked once more, and with no idea what's going on with some of our most important players. Totally unsatisfactory.

With Sanchez, I'm afraid that we've heard it all before. M Wenger made similar noises regarding van Persie, Fabregas, Nasri and even Adebayor. So I still reckon there's a good chance he'll go, for all the quotes from the manager about him staying. I hope I'm wrong, and I admire his stance for making the guy stick to his contract. And I frankly like the comments about players running down their contracts and playing for either a new one or a new club; except that unless others are going to get involved, then he's fighting a one-man, one-club crusade and we'll be letting players go for free whilst paying extortionate transfer fees for their replacements - unsustainable. Whilst Bosman was right to make that stand all those years ago, the power has simply gone too far the other way now.

As for the match... what did it tell us? What I saw is that nothing has really changed. We played some lovely stuff at times, went behind (of course) kept pushing as we generally do, and scored 4 lovely goals.

But at the other end the same old failings remain un-addressed. Zonal Marking? Please, please either get it coached properly or get rid of it, M Wenger; it's an absolute shambles. It doesn't matter who the personnel are - old or new - last year's problems have resurfaced in an identical manner. Utterly embarrassing.

And despite the change in formation - we're now apparently 11 for 12 since the switch to three centre-backs - our central midfield is still being sliced open on a regular basis. And if Leicester - clearly dangerous with the speedy Vardy in their ranks - can do it - what will better sides do? Somebody better than Coquelin and Elneny to sit, please, M Wenger. Xhaka plus Ramsey is too offensive (in the attacking sense of the word!) in my opinion. Jean-Michael Seri, anyone? I'd go back for Kondogbia, or even Steven N'zonzi, who I really like.

So much remains to be done. Catalyst For Change, or - as we've seen on social media - Catalyst For F*ck *ll?!?

Just going back to the other clubs we need to look out for, I think we saw from Spurs, United and City what we're going to see all season and for a long time to come; that for all the money now reaching the 'lesser' clubs, they're dredging around for the scraps after the big clubs have fed and the gap is going to continue to widen. Just how bad are West Ham, by the way?

Seeing Liverpool drop points late on was amusing, but the action at Stamford Bridge was absolutely tremendous. We can only hope that Chelsea have a similar season to the one they had the season before last. That will be a source of pleasure to many, unlikely as it is to actually happen.

Acid Tests for Arsenal come in visits to Liverpool and Chelsea in the next few weeks. We'll know more where we stand after the Transfer Window closes (please stay, Alexis) and after those two matches.

Early season optimism leads me to say Come On You Reds. But we still await the Change we were promised. Come on, Arsene; deliver!