The Gazzetta dello Sport's damning verdict on Arsenal's 4-0 thrashing by AC Milan said it all.
'Una delusione totale,' the Italian daily commented on Thursday, highlighting a sorry slide in fortunes for the English club that required little translation.
A traumatic season marked by record defeats both in domestic and European competition has left Arsene Wenger facing the biggest challenge of his 15-year career in English football.
All but eliminated from the Champions League and struggling to qualify for next season's competition, Arsenal's chances of holding onto their best players -- or of luring world-class talent -- appear to be fading by the week.
The failure to adequately replace the departed Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri was ruthlessly exposed in the San Siro on Wednesday, where Milan ran riot as Arsenal crashed to their heaviest ever European defeat.
It was a loss that will edge Arsenal captain Robin van Persie, still yet to agree a new contract, ever closer to a summer exit from the Emirates.
English commentators united on Thursday in lamenting Arsenal's unrelenting march towards irrelevance in the upper echelons of English and European football, which has already seen the team beaten 8-2 by Manchester United this season.
"This humiliation felt like a watershed in Arsene Wenger's Arsenal career, a watershed filled with tears," wrote The Daily Telegraph's Henry Winter.
"This was a chronicle of a death foretold, a suicide note for the season a long time in the writing.
"Wenger's failure to invest properly last summer finally caught up with his team on Wednesday night."
The sense that the San Siro carnage had been an accident waiting to happen had been brought into focus on the morning of the match, when Arsenal legend Dennis Bergkamp had bemoaned the problems bedevilling his former club.
In a wide-ranging interview in the Daily Telegraph, Bergkamp had pointed to the structural flaws in Arsenal's current squad, complaining that Wenger's side lacked the steel of previous incarnations.
"Sometimes you need more of a winning mentality than a passing mentality," Bergkamp said. "I'm not sure Arsenal have enough of that in their players, when the attitude becomes more important than the ability to just pass the ball.
"I don't know if the English mentality is missing a little bit."
Arsenal's former captain Patrick Vieira meanwhile pointed the finger at the players for the current problems.
"There was a lack of leadership," Vieira wrote on Twitter. "You cannot blame only Arsene, the players must take some responsibility as well."
The problem for Arsenal is that restructuring the current squad is likely to prove difficult unless there is a substantial loosening of the purse strings.
Wenger can justifiably take pride in the fact that Arsenal have hung onto their place among the elite of English football without the benefit of the sort of wild spending that has marked the rise of Manchester City and Chelsea.
But without the incentive of Champions League football next season, the Emirates is unlikely to be an attractive proposition for proven talent, particularly when clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United are all willing to pay vastly higher wages.
To add insult to injury, Arsenal's current problems are in stark contrast to the upwardly mobile progress of their bitter North London rivals Tottenham.
As Arsenal wobble from one shaky performance to the next, Tottenham are winning plaudits as the most stylish side in English football, virtually assured of a place in the Champions League next season thanks to an irresistible attacking brand of football that once was the Gunners' hallmark.
A sign of the changing times came in comments from Lille's highly-rated Belgian star Eden Hazard earlier this week, who indicated a preference for Spurs as he contemplates a summer move to England.
Meanwhile in the short-term, Wenger will be preoccupied with trying to ensure that Wednesday's hammering doesn't herald a complete unravelling of Arsenal's season, with an FA Cup outing to Sunderland on Saturday.
"The result is a disaster, although the season is not finished," Wenger said on Wednesday. "There is a danger (the result could impact the Premier League). A big disappointment like that has consequences on your belief.
"We need to show something completely different on Saturday."
rcw12/phz/
Source: AFP
