TALK of the title surely confirms Arsene Wenger is not living in the real world any more.
The Gunners, three-time Premier League winners under Wenger, finished 18 points behind champions Chelsea.
Boss Wenger, fighting for his career at the Emirates, claimed on Sunday that Arsenal could go on to win it next season with the same group of players.
Nobody on the Arsenal board, certainly on this side of the pond, is having a bar of it.
They have stopped believing — finally catching up with the rest of the world — after finishing fifth in the Premier League.
Arsenal, Champions League finalists in 2006, are no longer one of Europe’s superpowers. Wenger is still convinced he can somehow put Arsenal back together again.
But here in England, the main body of the Arsenal board — comprising chief executive Ivan Gazidis, chairman Sir Chips Keswick and director Ken Friar — are fast losing faith.
When Wenger spoke on Sunday, claiming that events in December were the reason behind Arsenal’s decline, nobody at the club had the first idea what their manager was talking about.
He has been down this road before, claiming he would one day disclose the reasons behind Robin van Persie’s £22.5million move to Manchester United in 2012.
Wenger never has. None of that matters to Stan Kroenke, the money man who is refusing to sell his 67 per cent stake in Arsenal to billionaire Alisher Usmanov.
Arsenal’s rising value has made Usmanov, whose bid won him the PR battle with Arsenal fans, a paper fortune in recent years. But Kroenke is not for selling.
Arsenal are an investment vehicle for the American — one of his most successful sporting companies — which has been ticking over very nicely with Wenger in charge.
And Kroenke sees no reason to change, even without the prestige of playing Champions League football next season.
Frenchman Wenger, 67, has a hotline to him, given the backing to pull his side out of this super-crisis.
Wenger knows the score, well aware the club were considering an approach for Juventus manager Max Allegri if he walked away from the Emirates.
Italian coaches are in vogue again, wanted men after Antonio Conte delivered Chelsea the Premier League title in his first season in English football.
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Allegri was up for the challenge of restoring Arsenal to former glories if Wenger decided to quit after almost 21 years at the club. It is too late now.
Allegri is a title winner again — his third Serie A crown with Juve — and preparing for the Champions League final against Real Madrid at the start of next month.
Allegri, ambitious man that he is, was not prepared to wait.
Instead Arsenal still have Wenger in place, waiting for their man to talk through his plans for the coming season at next week’s board meeting.
First they have to get past the FA Cup final at Wembley on Saturday when Arsenal will try to stop Chelsea doing the domestic Double.
The feeling around the club just now is that a big defeat — a real pasting at the national stadium in front of a worldwide audience — is the only thing that could perhaps sway Wenger.
His commitment to Arsenal is total, working harder than ever behind the scenes to turn them into a major force again. Nobody can fault that.
But Wenger’s recruitment — once one of his greatest strengths — is now one of his major flaws.
The true greats, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Nicolas Anelka, are part of the club’s history.
Wenger has never again come close to finding players with those talents, with the ability to take the team across the line in the final stretch of the season.
Arsenal are well off the pace now, holding on to Saturday’s appearance in the FA Cup final to save their season.
And to stop Chelsea will take something special, a big-game performance from players who are short of genuine class.
After the support Wenger has had down the years from Arsenal’s board — he has to make them believe in him again.
But sadly, nobody is buying it any more.
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