Over the past few days I have posted a couple of articles which I thought were pretty uncontroversial. But the number of (abusive) comments I received was quite surprising. From the predictable ones telling me I’m a Manchester United / Chelsea / Tottenham / Manchester City fan (delete as appropriate) to those just telling me I’m a massive cunt.

Am I a cunt? I didn’t think so but I digress.

The two topics I covered were where we would finish next season and how I thought our latest signing of Granit Xhana was underwhelming at best.

For the first topic, I argued that our level is to finish in the Top Four – hardly a revelation surely? If you evaluate the last decade objectively, it would be a completely fair and justified statement to say that we’re good enough to finish in the Top Four, but not good enough to win the Premier League.

So it was my argument and belief that because of Arsene Wenger’s stubbornness and unwillingness to change (again, another uncontroversial comment) that has seen us not progress to genuine title challengers, then his happiness to settle for a Top Four finish will see us fall out of the Top Four, considering the changes at all of our rivals this summer.

Again, it’s not controversial to say that Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool will all get much stronger next season after having such poor campaigns last season. They will all be hungry to improve, and achieve success, while Arsenal do the same old thing year after year – look to improve just enough to achieve a Top Four finish.

On the second topic of Granit Xhana, even the most hardcore Arsenal fan would surely admit that they had never heard of the guy?! Unless you happened to be a Arsenal fan from Switzerland?

There’s no doubt he is probably a decent player but is he world class? You hear Arsene Wenger say time and time again that he only brings in players who are of “top, top quality” and who can improve the squad. Otherwise purchasing average players hinders the progress of the current playing squad.

For the last 12 years now we haven’t looked like winning the Premier League and it’s because Arsene Wenger makes the same old mistakes – but for some reason most Arsenal fans just can’t see it!

He won’t bring in a world class striker, hiding behind the excuse that none are available and if they are, they come with inflated prices – and the fans buy this crap!

If no world class forwards were available then by that logic surely that would mean no team would be strong enough to win the league / Champions League? Exactly, that theory is farcical and I’m sure teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint Germain, etc. would disagree, and tell you that world class strikers are available for a price.

I’ve seen quite a lot of Arsenal Fan TV interviews and those fans, the fans that pay their hard earned money to watch Arsenal, seem to hit the nail on the head. They are the ones who go to the games, see Arsenal live week in week out and they are all unhappy at what is happening at Arsenal.

However, a lot of know-it-all fans and members of the Arsene Knows Brigade all seem to think Arsenal are on the right path. We are always 2/3 players away from winning the league so why don’t we do it?! And we always make the same stupid defensive mistakes and bottle it in the big games or bottle it at big moments in the season.

If you believe that Arsenal can win the league next season, you are seriously deluded.

The return of “The Special One” to the Premier League has finally be confirmed and with that deal thrusts Manchester United from Top Four hopefuls to genuine Premier League contenders.

Jose Mourinho is a talented coach and love him or hate him, he is a manager who wins trophies. He has signed a 3 year deal with the red side of Manchester and will go head to head with his best friend Pep Guardiola. The media must be licking their lips with excitement and to be fair, it is a mouth-watering prospect.

One thing you can be certain of with Jose Mourinho is that he goes to manage a team to win, and to make that happen he needs assurances that the odds are firmly stacked in his favour – meaning that it is almost guaranteed that he will be given a massive transfer budget to create a title-winning squad. Which is a daunting prospect for the rest of the league.

You can say whatever you like about Mourinho and whether he starts to lose the dressing room in his 3rd season, but the fact remains once he arrives at your club, he wins trophies. In the first two seasons at a new team are usually the most successful in a Mourinho-era as it were.

Considering he usually moves to a completely different league from where he managed previously, this will be his 4th consecutive campaign in the Premier League so he knows the league inside out. He knows what it takes to win the title and you can be sure Manchester United will be giving him everything he needs to achieve it.

Mourinho is a serial winner and when you put his tactical knowledge and Manchester United’s resources together you have a recipe for success. And compare him to the other title rivals, he still has the strongest horse in the race.

Pep Guardiola has a re-building job at Manchester City and will be in a league where he doesn’t have the strongest team for once. Jürgen Klopp will be starting his first full season with Liverpool but without Champions League football might not be able to attract the big names they need to challenge at the top. Tottenham looked impressive last season but can they replicate the same form next season? And Arsenal are nowhere near looking like they have the players and personnel that have the mental strength to fight for a while season.

Many are predicting the toughest Premier League season for a long time and there’s no doubt that there will be about 6/7 teams who think they can reach the Top Four / win the title, but for me Manchester United are the team to beat while the others are fighting for second place.

Next season is shaping up nicely for the neutral – Pep Guardiola is joining Manchester City, Jose Mourinho has been confirmed as Manchester United manager, Chelsea will appoint Antonio Conte in due course and Liverpool will have Jürgen Klopp starting his first full season. Tottenham will be encouraged by their impressive season with their young guns and on top of that, the chasing pack of Everton, West Ham United and Southampton also have cause for optimism.

Unfortunately for Arsenal though, this is bad news.

Other teams are strengthening, improving their management staff and recruiting top class players, whereas Arsenal are as usually staying still. After another Top Four finish in the bag for the 17th season in a row, we look no closer to winning the league than we have in the last 10 years.

Last season was the best chance we had to win the Premier League and we bottled it. We bottle it time and time again and it doesn’t matter which players we bring in – the mentality of the team and the staff is all wrong. Essentially, failure is acceptable and there are no strong personalities or leaders in the team. Where are the Tony Adams’ and Patrick Vieira’s?

The problem is all of our players (with a couple of exceptions) are too nice. There’s no fight, passion or even nastiness in the team. Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Gilberto, Sol Campbell, Jens Lehmann, Lauren, Ashley Cole, Kolo Toure, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Ray Parlour, Martin Keown et al were all fighters and more importantly winners. They played pyrotechnic football which was thrilling to watch yet they understood that the main thing was to win. They term “winning ugly” is thrown around far too much but to me winning a battle of a match is beautiful to see. Grinding out a 1-0 win is nothing to be ashamed about – unless you’re Arsene Wenger of course.

With the Premier League getting stronger next season Arsenal have missed their chance and failing to win the title last season could be one of the most costly things to happen in the Arsene Wenger reign. A title win would have been something to build on but now Manchester United and Chelsea who both finished outside the Top Four will not just be Top Four candidates but genuine title contenders. Manchester United will splash the cash (you can be sure it was written in Mourinho’s contract that money must be spent) and Chelsea will throw money at changing their fortunes. Tottenham will be stronger than last season and you have Pep Guardiola as the boss of a team who aren’t short of money and more importantly not shy of spending big.

If you asked me now how the top half of the table would look at the end of next season, my early prediction based on events so far would be:

1. Manchester United
2. Manchester City
3. Chelsea
4. Tottenham Hotspur
5. Liverpool
6. Arsenal
7. Leicester City
8. Everton
9. West Ham United
10. Southampton

Look at those 10 teams – the top half of the table has teams which are extremely strong and essentially, Arsenal will be fighting an uphill battle next season.

Winning the title next season is probably about 10 times harder than it would have been last season, and potentially things could go very, very wrong next year.

First of all, a huge congratulations to Leicester City on winning the Premier League. Sincerely from the bottom of my heart, I am over the moon for the club – they have been the best team in the country this season and completely deserve the Premier League title.

They have played excellent football and have been a team that works incredibly hard for each other. And while their achievement is quite simply phenomenal (they deserve all the superlatives they will receive over the coming days and weeks) it can’t help leave a sour taste for Arsenal fans.

Leicester City are everything Arsenal aren’t.

First of all they are a club with supportive owners, owners who clearly have a massive affection for Leicester.

They had a clear plan for Leicester when they first arrived at the club in 2010. They were bottom of the Championship when they purchased the club and famously had the “5 year plan” to win the Premier League in that time. It is subject of many jokes that they actually failed as they “only” won the Premier League one year outside of that plan but the key point remains – Leicester City’s owners have the clubs best interests at heart and understand the importance of the fans. You would have all heard about the beer and donut offering to their fans a few weeks ago to celebrate the vice-chairmans birthday – they just understand the supporters.

What’s the best thing we’ve received from Arsenal Football Club? A cap on the already extortionate ticket prices.

Secondly, Leicester have players who fight for the manager and the club. Arsenal don’t have that – instead we have over paid players who clearly don’t care if we win or lose. No-one could argue that Leicester have a better squad than us yet they are a million miles ahead of us in the Premier League table. What Leicester do have however is a harmonious dressing room full of players who respect the manager and give him 110% every single time they step over that white line.

Another thing Leicester have that we don’t is a manager who is tactically aware. Arsene Wenger is famous for “only concentrating on his own team” and quite frankly he has not moved on with the times. The same mistakes happen season after season and after 12 years of not winning the league it’s all just getting a bit tiresome now.

Claudio Ranieri is a good manager – you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would put him in the upper echelons of the greatest managers – yet he knows how to win football matches. Arsene Wenger is stubborn and doesn’t correct his mistakes. Things you can guarantee with Arsenal are things such as always bottling it against Chelsea, under performing at Old Trafford, making the same defensive errors to concede stupid goals, never signing a top striker – the list goes on and on!

So while Leicester City (quite rightly so) celebrate into the night, you just can’t help thinking why Arsenal are stuck in this ridiculous rut.

It’s time for change, because at the moment most Arsenal fans just don’t care about the club anymore.