Arsenal came into the summer desperate for reinforcements, with glaring holes in our back five (I’m looking at you, Almunia), scratching our heads as to how we’d keep up with Man U and Chelski and stay ahead of big-spending Man City. But, instead of bolstering our squad, it seems like we’ve thinned it. I don’t pretend to know what Arsene Wenger thinks, but what I do know is that this summer is now a major crossroads for our team and for Arsene Wenger.

Gael Clichy said the other day, the same thing Theo Walcott said last year and countless players have said before, that it’s time for us to stop using our shortcomings as an excuse, it’s time for us to stop blaming our failures on the wandering scapegoat (baaa) — of youth, inexperience, old age, busy schedules, injuries, money, and whatever else nurtures a losing mentality — and realize that our shortcomings are mental, not physical. This summer shouldn’t really be about who we did and didn’t sign, it should be about recapturing the mentality of the warrior, of the hero, of the champion. That’s been our biggest failure, Arsene’s biggest failure too, that our team doesn’t have that instinct smashed into its collective brain anymore. But, whether we like it or not, the depth at our squad hurt us last year too, it was a hindrance against squad belief at the very least, and reigniting that faith, even superficially with a signing or two to help players and fans believe again, could give us the push over the course of a season to bring home a trophy.

And, as we’re Arsenal fans, guerrilla fighters trying to convince the rest of the hard knocks Premier League that our style of football matters, we also came into the offseason hopeful of our chances to recapture the hearts and minds of the footballing world. This was supposed to be the summer of Wenger, where our tight-pursed manager finally opened his secret vault (with Geraldo standing by) and poured Roman-era gold coins he’d been saving “for the right moment” onto tables at Werder Bremen, Juventus, Inter Milan, and walked away from transfers with a fresh legion of world-class soldiers. That was supposed to be the master plan. We were supposed to take advantage of the transfer market, where our Premier League counterparts couldn’t because of financial indiscretion, and reinforce the castle walls.

Was it delusional? Probably. It seems the delusions get worse every year for me, dreaming of the “perfect signing” who’s going to somehow play keeper like Gianluigi Buffon and score goals like Thierry Henry. Is Rene Higuita out of jail yet? The reality is that those types of signings, those earth-shattering, press-stopping signings aren’t our way of life here at Arsenal. We don’t participate in the day-to-day meanderings of million pound mistakes (or successes). Wenger is tactical, for better or for worse, letting the overpriced and overvalued go and focusing on the best possible value. It’s what’s saved our books and kept our finances resolute. It’s also opened up our team to some of the brightest young players in the world: Aaron Ramsey, Kieran Gibbs, Jack Wilshere, Alex Song. Wenger could easily cast those players aside for better, faster, stronger, more Daft Punk-y stars, but he doesn’t because he believes in his philosophy, he believes in himself, and, most importantly, he believes that the faith he’s shown in building a team around youth will be repaid for years when those players reach their full potential.

We came oh-so-close to a trophy last year, and, if not for a few high-profile gaffes from our witless keepers and a stronger defense, it’s entirely possible that we could’ve finished the season holding silverware over our heads. That’s what made this summer so important. We saw potential, we saw how good we could be, just like Wenger saw those things and realized that giving up 41 goals wasn’t going to cut it. He felt the cigarette burns left on his arm by a porous defense and Swiss cheese goalkeeping, vowed to take care of it, and then balked at the transfer market.

We lost two experienced defenders (three if you count Mikael Silvestre’s corpse), one experienced striker, and another striker to injury before the season even started. Wenger has brought in forward Marouane Chamakh on a free and defender Laurent Koscielny (I’ve now learned how to spell both by memory, thank you) for roughly £8.5m. That’s been our summer. We were thin defensively last year, not bad, just lacking the necessary depth and needed to bolster our back line. We were poor in goal, no way around that one, and hoped to have a real splash this summer to address it while continuing the growth of Wojciech Szczesny. Wenger is a smart man, a man of history and philosophy, it’s something I’ve always appreciated and admired about him. So why does it seem like he’s so keen to repeat last season?

Part of me thinks it’s stubbornness, that Wenger’s so determined to prove his critics wrong that he’s willing to stand on the ship as it’s taking on water. But that part of me, even though it’s desperately clawing to stay attached to my brain, is fading away more and more each day. I don’t think Wenger is trying to kill himself twice, I don’t think he’s capable of doing that. What we’ve seen this preseason (and carried over from loan spells and Reserve team success last season) is that the next generation of great Arsenal players may be arriving sooner than we thought they would. It’s a terrifying conclusion, not because I don’t want to see it, but because we’ve been told for so many years that it was coming, only to have it used as an excuse against us when things haven’t gone well. The youth movement is here? The revolution is here? But I’m still in the shower …

For Wenger to shrug off the transfer market means that he believes in his squad, that he’s willing to say, like a confident poker player prepared to risk it all for the win, “You know what? Screw it. These kids are damn good and I’m willing to give them a legitimate shot to help us win a trophy. Not next year, not five years from now, but today. Right now. They’re ready. I’m ready. They have the heart, they have the desire to be great, they wear the Arsenal shirt for the right reasons and have since they were schoolboys, so screw it. Screw you guys, screw the media, screw everyone, I’m going all in.”

His youth dream, his home-grown Arsenal-bred dream may finally be coming true.