William Gallas has swallowed a happy pill, maybe that armband he has been wearing was swathed in drugs that have seeped into his skin. In yesterday’s Sunday People, the previously heard mantra of Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now has been replaced by Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. Proving he’s actually a kitten rather than the Grizzly Bear With A Sore Head that most think of him, William commented on Arsene’s and the team’s future,

I don’t know what Wenger will do or if he will continue after this season. That will depend a lot on how things go but he is a man of commitment and he appears to be very integrated into everything that is happening at Arsenal on all levels. I don’t regret leaving Chelsea – I know that at Arsenal we have good things ahead of us. We have one of the best young squads in Europe and if they can take the next step we can be great once again

Whatever the drugs are, they should be made freely available for the supporters.

It seems the World and his wife are dismissing Arsenal’s chances this coming season. Dennis Rohmmedahl kicked it all off in the fallout from the Ajax match ruminating that  

I think it will be really difficult for them this season. They have a few young players. . . still to compete at the high level. In Europe it will be even more difficult; they stand more chance in the Premiership. I think there will be bigger and stronger teams who will win the physical and technical [battles], and who will beat them

It appears that Dennis believes Ajax intimidated Arsenal, winning the physical battle. I must have been in The Twilight Zone when that happened because as I saw it, for large portions of the game, Ajax were played off the park, Arsenal gave as good as they got and more importantly, scored the only goal of the game.

As The Daily Telegraph put it, this is a man who spent ‘three largely undistinguished years in the Premiership’ and had enough time on the sidelines to be a decent judge of the top flight or so you would have thought. It seems however that he has lost his sense of reason or is it just a case of he lost on Saturday and just hates doing so, forgetting that dignity in defeat is as important as that in victory.

Not that Rohmmedahl is alone in that view. The weekend’s pre-season previews have all dismissed Arsenal’s chances of silverware this season, indeed most pundits believe that we are the only vunerable side in the top four, candidates for Tottenham (and bizarrely Newcastle) to overhaul and smash the Premiership cartel at the top. What makes some of the commentary wander into the twilight zone is that whilst Arsenal have rebuilt from within on the whole, a paltry £17m spent which most sides have equalled or beaten in one signing, of the players who have departed this Summer, only one could, hand on heart, have been classed as anything like a first team regular. You can see their point to some degree because that one was the Club’s record goalscorer but they have fallen into the hackneyed trap of dismissing players who are not considered Europe’s elite. The one advantage that Arsenal have, and it is a big advantage, is that we have a reasonably settled squad.  Bringing in a new Right Back barely disrupts a side, particularly if that player looks more positionally solid in the position than the current incumbents, whilst it seems largely forgotten that last season’s top scorer was not Thierry Henry. That is not to say that the opinions are invalid or even incorrect. When the fixtures first came out, I thought that we could finish second but would not win the title. It is still true, even with Henry’s departure, the best we should think about is second as supporters. The players won’t believe that because they want to win but to expect more this season is perhaps unrealistic on our part.

Those who seek to replace us have spent big money and brought in a number of players but it will take time for them to gel as a team. That may happen quickly but if Arsenal are being held hostage to history with the ‘You never win anything with kids‘ adage then the same is true about bringing in players in quantity in that teams with more than two new faces rarely function at their best immediately. Squad wise, it becomes even more important. One injury to an established player from previous seasons could see some take the field with anything up to five new players which upsets the balance of the eleven on the pitch.

Everyone is quick to dismiss Arsenal’s squad and to some degree you can understand this. Yet to do so is to ignore Wenger’s ability to bring in an unknown and turn them into a world-beater. A rare moment of sanity in the News of the World covered that point exactly. Yeah, I had to lie down as well. News of the World? Sanity? I still feel faint.

It is equally important that a top four spot is not taken for granted. Some believe that we have a divine right to the title. We have no divine right to anything. A title is earned; performances over thirty eight games show that which you have merited. It is now time for the players to earn their corn.

’til Tomorrow.