On The Premiership:Transition is football's newest taboo. The term has become synonymous with weakness, underachievement, feeble excuses; hence Arsène Wenger's stubborn refusal to admit Arsenal are the Wembley stadium of the Premiership: shiny and stunning from certain angles, but really still swamped in scaffolding.
It is easy for Wenger to remain blinded to the obvious. Arsenal have spent most of this season fumbling for their best form but they are only ever one game away from restoring faith in their manifold talents, as evidenced by Saturday's thumping victory over Tottenham Hotspur. But while local pride should never be undervalued, such parochial concerns are trifling in the grand scheme of Arsenal's season.
No other members of the Premiership's blue-chip elite feel the financial imperatives of Champions League qualification more keenly. They have a new, £390-million stadium and training-ground redevelopments to pay for, plus a hefty wage bill to support, and there is no oil-rich sugar daddy or American super-tycoon to cover the costs. Put bluntly, the club's accountants simply cannot afford to see if Wenger's new golden generation will fulfil their considerable potential. Success must be instantaneous; transition can wait.
But Arsenal are in desperate need of rebuilding. The departures of Robert Pires, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole and Dennis Bergkamp, all linchpins of recent triumphs, plus a long-term injury to the defender Lauren, cannot simply be shrugged off, and Wenger must already be breaking out in a cold sweat at the prospect of replacing Thierry Henry, whose future is in jeopardy following the pair's spat last week.
Bodies are easily found, but know-how is a far more precious commodity, and with the exception of William Gallas - hardened by five seasons at Chelsea - none of the club's new signings boast any experience of English football's "unique" charms. They will acclimatise eventually - and soon, perhaps, given the outstanding displays of Emmanuel Adebayor and Tomas Rosicky on Saturday - but while Arsenal ride out their period of flux, they will be overtaken by clubs in a more advanced evolutionary state.
It is vital Wenger and his board resist the temptation to panic. The club's vexation at seeing their title challenge fail to extend beyond Christmas is understandable, given their thrilling charge to last season's Champions League final, but transition is not necessarily a barrier to such achievements. Wenger's team may be wildly inconsistent but their highs - when they reach them - are stupendous, so they are perfectly suited to the oddly occasional nature of cup football. It is the same reason why they can make mugs of Manchester United in their own back-yard in September, while stumbling so wretchedly against West Ham, Bolton and Fulham in November.
Yet the longer the slump persists, the more Wenger might come to view that wet night in Paris as a curse. It has hoisted expectations at the Emirates stadium to the sort of heights usually the domain of the sponsors' 747 jets and masked a young team's inevitable deficiencies: a lack of variety, a tendency to lose concentration and being flustered when confronted by adversity. It is no coincidence that on the nine occasions Arsenal have fallen behind in league matches this season, they have only once recovered to win, at rock-bottom Charlton. Such statistics are barometers of maturity.
Wenger is not the sort of manager who actively seeks out the company of his peers, but if he is searching for sympathy, he might do worse than talk to Rafael Benitez. In 2005 the Spaniard took a developing Liverpool team to the Champions League final, and topped Wenger by winning the trophy in absurdly dramatic fashion.
But the trouble with being reared on fairytales is that real life looks wearyingly prosaic in comparison. Liverpool have never threatened to match their achievement of that giddy evening in Istanbul, and, given the following year's return of an FA Cup and third-placed league finish was deemed underwhelming by the Kop, the hysterical reaction to their faltering start this season is hardly surprising.
"Usually, if you appoint a manager and you finish fourth straight away, people are happy," Benitez observed recently. "But we started by winning the Champions League. That creates a big problem."
It might appear churlish to complain about having club football's most illustrious prize in your trophy cabinet, but the Merseysiders were not ready to be catapulted to that lofty height. Benitez knew it and that is why he is treating his side's current struggles with equanimity. He has recognised that Liverpool are still a club in transition, and the quicker Wenger arrives at a similar conclusion, the sooner Arsenal will turn their sporadic sparkle into sustained success.
