If I was to mark our Christmas scorecard, I’d probably give it about a 5 (as indeed did Gooner’s Diary in this piece in the Guardian).

It’s been far from disastrous, with a smooth passage through to the Champions League group stages being the highlight. If you look at the bigger picture rather than individual results, under Wenger we rarely do disastrous – one of the reasons for his impressive longevity.

And in Alexis Sanchez, we’ve bought a genuine superstar whose 14 goals so far have, at times, held the whole rickety structure together. We’re four points off fourth, so although the leaders are over the title horizon already, there’s stuff to be salvaged and cups to play for.

But of course, it hasn’t panned out how we wanted. We’ve yet to find any fluency and it’s already Christmas. Injuries have massively curtailed us, and we can’t even fall back on the one thing we used to hold dear during a barren decade – our glorious attacking football. We’ve played in fits and starts all season and have seen only small, fleeting glimpses of the kind of football we have grown accustomed to.

So Wenger’s back under pressure, and you have to say that much of it is self-inflicted. The gamble on sticking with a small cadre of defenders could not have backfired more spectacularly and it’s cost us points, consistency and confidence.

Injuries show no sign of abating, to be honest. With every one player who comes back, we lose another; it’s been a disaster on that front. A revolving door of hamstrung hamstrings, collapsed calves, grimacing groins, knee knacks and broken bones.

Mentally, we’ve veered from strong to weak, from concentration to absent-mindedness. You never know which Arsenal you will see.

Looking back at my limited volume of blog posts, the titles tell you all you need to know about the season. On the positive side we’ve had ‘Alexis marks the spot’, and ‘An explosive Chilean red’ (it’s that man propping us up again), but on the other end of the spectrum there’s been ‘Poor in the Ruhr’, ‘Arsenal Arsenal it up again’ and ‘Dismal Arsenal stagger on’.

A microcosm of our season, right there.

What will the new year hold?

This is how I called it a few weeks ago, and unless we can conjure up a new narrative and direction (and plug some gaps in the squad and in the minds), it still seems apt:

If you were a betting man or woman, you’d say the most likely outcome for the second half of the season is more of the same. We probably won’t beat one of the teams we measure ourselves against. We’ll win some and we’ll lose some in no particular order and we might be there or thereabouts for the fourth place trophy in May.

So things could be better, but things could be a lot worse. And in the context of everything else that goes on in life, and in the world, is it worth all the fury? It is not.

Ups, downs, good and bad. Going to the football is fun, it’s an escape. Meeting friends and talking crap and sitting drinking beer, great goals that become seared into the memory, shouting, wailing, smiling – that’s what it’s all about for me. And on that basis, I expect next year to be exactly the same as this one.

Rewarding.

Happy Christmas to you all.