Arteta Out Brigade Shames Arsenal 

Tim Cooper reminds the Arteta Out Brigade of a little bit of recent Arsenal history that many seem to have forgotten

Disappointed? Yes.

Angry? No.

Time to sack the manager? Never in a million years.

OK, I mean, maybe in a few years, when he's taken us as far as he can.

But that's not second place.

That's not the semi-finals of the Champions League (but please can we go back to calling it the European Cup once the actual league part is over?).

Mikel has more to do, and he's going to do it. We have bigger fish to fry and Arteta is the chef, to use the sort of analogy he enjoys in the dressing room; he's probably got a vast paella dish in there to demonstrate the missing ingredients we need to add for next season.

Hopefully including a striker, a wide forward and a reserve 'keeper. And that's just for starters - or tapas, as Mikel might put it.

But if you don't see that happening, if you're one of the moaning many, or the Arteta Out brigade that frankly shames our club, then let's remind ourselves of a little bit of Arsenal history - recent Arsenal history - that many of us seem to have forgotten.

Full disclosure: I'd forgotten too, until I read it in The Athletic today. It's like this: "Only one other side in Premier League history has previously achieved — or suffered, depending on how you see it — three consecutive second-place finishes. That was also Arsenal, between 1999 and 2001."

And here comes the punchline (though you may already know it): "The following year, Arsene Wenger’s team went on to win a domestic double."

Yes that's right.

So let's remember how it worked out.

We entered the 1998-99 seasons as double winners but ended a single point behind Man United, who went on to knock us out of the Champions League in that horrible semi-final (Bergkamp missed a pen, Vieira gave the ball away, and Giggs ran around waving his shirt and showing off his hairy chest) and won the Treble.

We still had the famous back five Arsene had inherited from George Graham, with the mighty Vieira and Petit in midfield, supported by Overmars, Parlour and new signings Kanu and Ljungberg.

But Wrighty had left and we were heavily dependent for goals on Anelka and Bergkamp, the only two to reach double figures.

The next season saw the start of that team beginning to break up.

Out went Bould and Anelka: surely the club's best business ever in proportional terms - we bought him for £500,000 and sold him three years and 28 goals later for £23 million - and in came Suker, Sylvinho, Luzhnyi and a young forward called Thierry Henry.

We finished second again, this time a distant 18 points behind our big rivals from Manchester, and lost a horrible UEFA Cup final to Galatasaray on pens in Copenhagen.

On to 2000-2001 and we were once again second-best to United, this time by ten points, and lost another up final, the FA Cup, to Liverpool.

But a new team was starting to take shape. Out went Winterburn after 13 years of loyal service, along with Overmars, Petit and Wreh, and in came two Frenchmen to replace them, Pires and Wiltord, as well as a Brazilian midfielder called Edu, while home-grown Ashley Cole stepped into Nutty's shoes admirably at left-back.

Into the summer of 2001 and we made more changes, though only two of them made a major impact: the arrival of Tottenham talisman (and captain) Sol Campbell caused ructions in one half of North London; he was joined by an Ivorian utility player called Kolo Toure who would develop into a defensive rock for us (and later for City). Our other signings were far from stellar: the Dutch midfielder-turned-left back Van Bronkhorst and a motley selection of nearly men - Jeffers, Tavlaridis, Inamoto, Wright and Juan, famous more for his song - "There's only one Juan" - than his defending.

But with Henry taking off into the stratosphere, supported by Bergkamp and Pires, Ljungberg and Wiltord, we were scoring goals for fun and romped to the title, seven points ahead of second-placed Liverpool, before dispatching Chelsea in the FA Cup final to clinch Arsene's second double in four years.

Could it happen again?

The last time I asked that question here, it was before we took on Real Madrid in the Bernabeu in April.

You all know what happened there.