So all the transfer windows have finally closed and we know the Arsenal squad that will see us through until January at least.

Overall, it seemed like a good window. We kept all our big names, reinforced key positions that needed addressed for a long time, left space for youth, sold deadwood instead of just sending them on loan, Ospina aside, and brought in a new coaching regime at all levels.

One of the benefits of having a manager in place for as long as Arsene Wenger may have been stability, but as we are appreciating now that he’s gone, it also allows methods to go stale, rotting if not addressed early enough.

That’s what Unai Emery was greeted with when he took the job – a set-up that was once revolutionary festering.

To expect massive change in the space of a few months with a limited budget was never realistic. Questions, of course, must be asked about Arsenal’s promises that they would be able to compete with the top clubs in terms of spending. Perhaps that’s why Ivan Gazidis has been flirting with AC Milan, he realised he made quite a few promises Arsenal can’t keep, but we are where we are and must make the best of that.

Starting a new season with a new manager against the only team to ever collect 100 Premier League points was a cruel twist from the fixture computer but in some ways, it was helpful for Arsenal.

Emery will have appreciated the clarity he received from Arsenal’s first few games.

He now has no doubt about the size of the task facing him as he attempts to undo decades-long collective and institutionalized idiocy that also comes with a special penchant for spectacular individual mistakes at the most inopportune moments.

It was easy to get carried away before Arsenal’s game against Manchester City kicked off. I know I did. I even convinced myself we could get something from the game. Well, maybe I wasn’t convinced, but I certainly didn’t stop myself from contemplating it as a possibility.

But the task facing Emery and his coaches is far bigger than many of us realised or accepted until the season got under way. Normally a new manager comes in and makes an immediate impact – new manager bounce – but Emery won’t get that.

While many of the flaws we’ve seen repeated this season are ones we know come from the Wenger era, with Emery at the helm we can be confident that the team will be, at the very least, trying to address these issues.

That in itself is all many Arsenal fans wanted – to know that the club saw the same problems as they did and wanted to fix them. Nobody is expecting immediate results except the most intractable idiot who rarely finds happiness in anything. We just want something different.

We know that we need to give Unai and his team time. Gary Neville said on Sky Sports after the City game that he thinks Emery will need three or four transfer windows to really make a difference to this team and how they play. That would take us to January 2020.

I don’t think it will take that long, but it is likely to cost us a return to the Champions League this season via the Premier League.

We also know the defence still needs serious work, Petr Cech is not the keeper for us going forward, and that Matteo Guendouzi was bought as more than just ‘one for the future’.

Rehabilitation is not a quick process. You cannot expect to unlearn a lifetime of destructive habits with a couple of therapy sessions and a self-help book, so the Arsenal team will need much longer to find their new way.

The important thing is not how far they have to go, but that they are finally on the road.