Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

Like every other Arsenal fan in the world, I was obsessively hitting refresh on every Web site I could think of yesterday, waiting for the Alonso news (because who else was there, really). I really can't believe we didn't sign him. My frustration is that so WHAT if Benitez wanted £16-17 and we thought he was worth £12-14? If you have £30 mil to spend and there is a gaping hole in midfield AND Cesc wants him AND he wants to leave L'pool AND he'd be perfect for our style of play, for God's sake SPEND IT (or at least some of it)!! I honestly just don't get what AW's plan is. I really don't.

I was thinking about how disappointing this all was as I walked to work this morning and I almost got tears in my eyes. If you hadn't guessed, I really did want Alonso to sign. Anyway, here's what I think:

1) We're good enough to beat the usual suspects -- yes, even Aston Villa. Come on. Not that we will beat everyone, all of the time -- but we can.

2) We're good enough to beat Liverpool.

3) We will lose points against Man Utd and Chelsea, as well as random games where we don't show up and/or Cesc/Diaby/RVP are injured. Even Chelsea at full strength can't win every game.

4) I'm terrified of the Champions League games.

5) We won't win anything.

6) We'll lose Cesc, at which point I WILL cry.

All of this is predicated on us playing the way we are now -- majestic football and all. If Theo suddenly improves, Diaby fills Flamini's shoes and Eduardo and Rosicky come back full strength and Cesc and Robin stay reasonably fit, hell, who knows what could happen. But what are the chances of that? Plus it's unfair to put that kind of pressure on Cesc, it really is.

Still, I do think that Diaby is a good player -- beats Denilson to pieces, that's for sure -- and Song shows promise. Nasri is a *clear* improvement over Hleb (loved him tripping Joey Barton). And perhaps Djourou is an improvement over Senderos as well. We'll see.

So maybe it won't be as bad as we all think right now. I mean, people couldn't stop complaining about Flamini the season before. And I'm sure we'll sign someone in January, maybe even Alonso.

Until then, we just have to keep the faith.

But I'm worried.