The consequences of the humiliating loss against Chelsea last night cannot be underestimated. Arsenal are set for a period of darkness unless some significant changes are made at the club with immediate effect.
There is going to be the usual sell a ton of players, sack Unai Emery and bring in six or seven players and rightfully so but the problem runs far deeper than that, it is institutionalised and unless that changes we are in trouble as a club.
Newcastle United are set to be transformed with new owners who will be injecting in some serious money, make no mistake, they will be looking to do a Manchester City and they will be among the elite soon.
Wolves, Leicester City and Everton have serious ambitions and will spend big to be even more competitive than they were last season.
Tottenham, Man Utd and Chelsea will also be spending significantly and all three at least have a decent core of players to build around.
Man City and Liverpool have flown and will be the dominant forces for at least the next three to five years.
So where does that leave us?
Arsenal is now becoming a Europa League club, that is now our level and we have to be honest and accept that as a fact.
But it does not have to remain like that, but it will unless the club changes its transfer policy.
It is commendable that we want to be self-sufficient and only spend what we generate but our rivals are not doing that, they are spending or set to spend huge amounts of money and while they are doing that we are getting left behind.
So much needs to change in terms of players that it will take more than one transfer window but we have to start that process and the loss last night means we will have such a restricted transfer budget that the best we can hope for now is sticking a plaster over a cut because that is all we can afford to do now.
Almost every position in the team is weak and even Pep Guardiola would struggle with what Unai Emery has to work with.
There are of course some decent players that we can build the team around but that is not going to be sufficient without an influx of some high-class talent.
It is not just about a huge transfer budget, what we saw yesterday was a collapse in mentality and that is seriously worrying, it is cultural and embedded in the club and it is not as if last night was a one-off, it wasn’t.
This feels like a bit of a ramble but that is because there is so much wrong that it becomes hard to articulate the extent of the problems we are facing now.
We will struggle to maintain a top-six position next season unless the board and owner change course over the summer, it will not get better otherwise.
I am not sure Unai Emery is the right man for the job but he must be given at least one more season, he must be given the funds to implement his vision, he must be allowed to offload players that do not fit the Arsenal mould, even at a huge loss.
But as things stand right now, with our transfer budget, with the players, owner and managers mentality we had better get used to the likes of Wolves and Leicester City being our closest rivals and not Tottenham, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool and Man City.
Drastic changes are needed and they are needed right now.