Arsenal’s two games against Manchester City this week told us quite a lot about where Arsenal are as a club and a football side, and it’s not a pretty place.

Well, it perhaps confirmed it more than revealed, but there is no denying that this week the club, players, supporters, and press all seemed to cross the Rubicon.

There can be no going back…

Arsene Wenger has no plans to leave

Wenger has always said that he will know when the time is right to quit Arsenal but it is clear at this point that he is not able to see that time has long since passed.

Like a person in a destructive marriage, too afraid to leave for a life unknown, he is convinced he is the man to turn things around despite being the one causing the problems.

He probably could turn things around, at another club, because he is a very good manager.

The problem, for the most part, is not his ability, it’s the staleness that has set in after more than two decades with the same manager teaching the same methods backed up by mostly the same people

At Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson changed his assistant manager regularly to ensure that he had fresh ideas injected into the squad.

Wenger has had two – Pat Rice and Steve Bould – and the latter would most likely not be in the job if the former had not contracted cancer.

Ferguson, by contrast, had seven over the course of his 27-year tenure. That’s a new one every four years or so, on average.

Wenger’s first assistant stayed in the job for 16 years while Bould has already surpassed that four-year mark by two years.

Modern footballing wisdom says that managerial changes are needed regularly in the game these days to keep on top of emerging methods and tactics and there is a reason the likes of Pep Guardiola only stays at a club for a few years before moving on.

Things get stale.

Players become immune to instructions, like children who’ve listened to their parents tell them every day for five years to tidy their room. There comes a point when they just stop listening because they’ve heard it all before and it’s boring.

Arsenal passed stale some time back.

Now the club is starting to rot.

Next, Arsenal are at war with themselves…

There is a war going on behind the scenes

Arsenal are known for their ability to keep most things out of the paper but over the course of the last week leaks have increased as both sides – those who want Wenger to go and those who want him to stay – lay out their case in the press.

We’ve had stories from private player’s meetings, a former chairman weighing in, and reports of Wenger’s meeting with the players.

We’ve also had leaked manger lists, reports that Arsenal wanted to hire Leonardo Jardim last summer and Thierry Henry, backed by Sky Sports, pitching himself for the job.

While it certainly makes for interesting reading, it is concerning because it seems to indicate that nobody is actually in charge or has a clue what to do.

If there was one person ultimately responsible for the club, they would be able to make a decision.

As it stands, we’re waiting for a manager to decide his own future, despite his claims of being ‘only an employee’ while his employers, who have been happy to hide behind the manager for the last decade, are paralysed by the fear of making the wrong decision.

But doing nothing in a situation like this is exactly the same as doing something. It represents a choice.

If your house is on fire you can choose to try and extinguish that fire, knowing you might only add to the flames, or you can stand by and watch it all burn to the ground.

Taking the latter option, you may not have contributed directly to the situation getting worse, but by failing to even try to stop the fire, you made it quite clear than you give no shits whatsoever about your house.

Next, Arsenal are in worse shape than we feared…

Arsenal are in worse shape than we feared

Although there’s no shame in losing to Manchester City, there was plenty of it to be found across the two games for different reasons.

The final last weekend showed us that Arsene Wenger can no longer get these players to bounceback and that the players themselves, so long self-motivators when a final rolled around, have no longer got that in their locker.

The league game on Thursday night delivered a far better performance from Arsenal. Unfortunately, that was matched by an even better one from City and the true gulf in class, with all mitigating factors removed, was clear for all to see.

Arsenal could not say they had been unlucky or below par. There was no referee to blame.

They were simply outclassed comprehensively.

There is a reason that Manchester City are 30 points ahead of Arsenal and we saw that clearly on the pitch this week.

Arsenal’s move to the Emirates was supposed to bring us level with the biggest clubs on the planet.

Instead, we seem even further away than we were before the move to the new stadium.

Next, fan protests work best when they are organic…

Organised fan protests are not as effective as organic ones

There was no denying the message sent to the Arsenal board by Arsenal fans on Thursday night. Never have so many spoken so loudly by saying nothing and staying at home.

Although the weather gave the club some sort of wiggle-room to defend the awful turnout at the Emirates, nobody was fooled.

The club, as usual, said that the attendance was over 58,000. Around 30,000 of those fans clearly brought their invisibility cloaks to keep them warm.

For years, various pressure groups have dreamed of an Emirates as empty as the one we saw on Thursday night but fans were never going to vote with their feet until things got beyond unbearable and even then, Arsenal’s fanbase is so loyal they were never going to convince everyone to stay away.

The fans who turned up to see Arsenal lose against City are the real hardcore fans, and it was they who booed the team off at the end of each half and, more telling, on at the start of the second.