HEA7EN KNOWS IT'S MISERABLE NOW

And so, as a preamble to another season of the bloated, overhyped and cash engorged Premier league we were subjected to the Glutton Bowl between the two most avaricious clubs in the country. If ever a game summed up the state if football it was the Russian oligarch's playthings against the Middle Eastern Sheikh's trinkets in the community shield. It was all there; mercenaries, red card challenges, deception, malice, cheating, inflated egos and everything that the Olympics weren't. The lessons we took about sport from the London games are meaningless in the Premier League. So out of step are the clubs and players that they operate above the morality and spirit of sport.

If the community shield between the club that bought the Premier League and the club that bought the Champions League is an indicator of the arrogance of the modern football world then we are in for a bleak season of petulance, greed and rotten core values.

Of course my support for the Arsenal remains as always; and yes, there are Premier league shaped issues at our club, but we still retain some core values, we still feel like a club that has not as yet sold all of its soul; but at what cost? Success, perhaps?

The Arsenal is part of the problem, part of the disease of the Premiership yet it seems that we still retain a 'good guy' status in regard to the Arsenal way. The question is will we become even more like a purely financial institution that doesn't compete at a football level or will we prove (finally) that victory can be achieved without the saturation of cash and uncouth characters?

Our club does not have such loathsome egomaniacs as Jay Tee, Wazza, Tevez, Suarez et al, all consumed by their sins of pride; not yet, and hopefully we never will.

If the tipping point for the modern game is not far off then maybe the football supporter needs a palate cleanser, a club that they can respect and a club that starts to redress the balance in favour of the Corinthian spirit and some sense of idealism; an antidote if you will. And if so; why not us?