Arsenal in sixth place in the league, defeats more likely that victories, defence all over the place, a manager seeming to have no idea how to get a grip and the only debate is whether the inability of the referees to see obvious fouls in the box is something that affects all clubs, or is it just Arsenal.

But at least the solution is obvious. It has to be to sack the man responsible. The boss. Wenger.

If that is your view, then you are with many others. Just as you would have been on 13 December 1997, the day from which that scenario above was taken.

Arsenal had just lost 1-3 at home to Blackburn Rovers, Tony Adams had played the worst match of his life, Arsenal were lying sixth in the table, and to make matters worse we had just seen some of the most awful refereeing in the history of awful refereeing.

At one stage Dennis Bergkamp was heaved down in the penalty area by Gary Croft in a manner truly befitting of the wrestling ring and the referee just waved play on. Later Jeff Kenna cheerfully handballed, also in the area, and the smirk on his face showed he knew he’d get away with anything. As he did. 1-3 and it could have been worse.

The next match was against Wimbledon (remember them?) and there was talk of Arsenal being smashed again. After all, at the end of the George Graham era Wimbledon had done the double over Arsenal. They could do it again.

In fact they didn’t – but Arsenal only got let off because the match was postponed.

And yet somehow Arsenal did recover, climbed up the table, and not only won the league but also the FA Cup that season. All talk of sacking the manager was abandoned and Arsene Wenger was hailed as a hero.

Of course I am not saying that we will win the Double this season. But also, unlike many, I am not saying that the manager should be sacked just because the journalists on radio, TV and in the press think this is a good story to run for a couple of weeks until something else pops along.

Indeed there are all sorts of reason why Wenger should not go. One is that in the summer no one else could have done better in the transfer market. There simply wasn’t another top defender around in the summer who could have been bought, and who would have come to Arsenal knowing that with everyone fit, he’d have been struggling to get in the team,

And remember the obvious, such a player not only has to want to come to England (with its notorious taxation and journalistic intrusion into private lives) he’d also have to have had a manager willing to sell him, knowing that he in turn would find it impossible to replace the player.

So we could have bought second best – but for what? And at what cost?

The practical reasons then are that any and every manager in Wenger’s position would have struggled this summer to bring in a very top defender.   Yes a defensive midfielder would have slotted straight in and replaced Arteta, but the men wanted did not want to come, were themselves injured, or were not being let go by their clubs. People don’t just come to Arsenal because we want them.

But there is more than what some would call “just excuses”. Who would we get as the new manager?   Wenger came out of nowhere (well out of Japan anyway). Is there another such man? I doubt it, although given the fact that by definition he is unknown in this country, I wouldn’t know, would I?

There is Fabio Capello, who is working unpaid for Russia – unpaid because they cant actually afford to pay him his salary of £7m a year. Something to do with having to pay it into a bank account somewhere in some sort of foreign currency maybe. (Actually I just made that bit up – but the bit about him not being paid and the Russian FA saying they don’t have any money is true).**I also heard this on the radio today!- Editor**

And who else?

Now before you start listing managers at other clubs, remember two things. First, changing managers is not a magical solution to a club’s problems. Rioch had a year of it before Wenger, and struggled even to get us into the equivalent of the Europa League (it was achieved on the last day of his season). And you only have to think of Tottenham managers to know that change can make things worse – you can ALMOST feel bad for Mauricio Pochettino.

And second, people you might like to name might not want to come to Arsenal.

And why should they? The journalists will be on their back from day one (remember the rumours the press circulated about Wenger on the day of his arrival?), the expectation of bloggers is that we have a devine right to win something each year, fourth is clearly not good enough for many (although achieving so many years in the group stages of the Champions League would seem a dream come true to most clubs), and the transfer problem of players not being of the high enough quality or simply not being made available or wanting to come to England, would still be there.

So if you are pressing for a change, just remember, managers don’t automatically want to come to Arsenal, and clubs can go down as well as up.

Anyway, just for old times sake, take a look at the team that was hammered at Highbury by Blackburn, all those years ago. It contained a few names you might remember…

Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Adams, Keown, Overmars, Petit, Platt (Boa Morte 76), Parlour (Vieira 65), Wright, Bergkamp.

Not a bad line up. And they turned out all right in the end.

So maybe the anti-Wengerites should take a bunch of deep breathes and at least keep a lid on it until the Summer of 2015 as surely then will be the best time to make the appointment of a new manager rather than trying to hire a top manager in the middle of the season (virtually impossible) or appointing a lame-duck interim manager now. That is assuming that Arsene Wenger is sacked in 2015 or sooner with a new manager of any kind to be appointed – sacking the Great man would be a grave mistake.