As Hull City celebrated their stunning victory at the Emirates on Saturday, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was so devastated by the defeat that he referred to the victors as “West Brom”.
Indeed, Wenger’s touchline demeanour as he threw his cup down and pulled his tie all over the place suggests that Arsenal’s annual collapse has come early, even by their standards.
The pattern of the last three seasons has been the same. Arsenal set off on a winning spree, firing goals in from anywhere and drawing ludicrously hyperbolic praise from the impressionable football hacks.
Then around Christmas comes the crunch. Arsenal get taken apart, usually by Manchester United or Bolton, and all self-belief and discipline drains away. For the rest of the season Arsene looks increasingly like the benighted Inspector Dreyfus being driven insane by Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films.
Surely lowly Hull City haven’t pricked the Arsenal bubble so soon? The key will lie in Arsene himself. He blames the players for lack of mental strength but it is clear that it’s his own mental fragility that transmits itself to them.
Arsene has many times praised the British approach to life. Perhaps it’s not too late for him to adopt that unfashionable but still valuable characteristic, the stiff upper lip.