By Tony Attwood

Now the initials, the “AAA”, have not been used on this site for a while, but I find myself noting them today: they are the people who spend all their time complaining about Arsenal while claiming to be Arsenal fans – the anti-Arsenal Arsenal.

The view of this group, whose YouTube sites were seized on by journalists and others ato prove that Arsenal were so awful even their own fans hate them, was that if only Arsenal would listen to THEM, instead of hiring managers such as Bruce Rioch, Arsene Wenger, Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta, everything would be fine.   For those managers, they argue, were not only tactically naive but also consistently bought the wrong players, invariably paying too much along the way.

Of course, they went rather quiet during Wenger’s run between 1998 and 2005, but when he reduced his purchasing of players in order to help the club pay for the new stadium, the AAA turned on him with a vengeance, which was also seen in the first couple of seasons under Arteta.

They are still there, the AAA, although I must admit that I long ago stopped noting what they said, since...