IT felt scripted. Not in a Groundhog Day sort of way - though that was the easy crack to make - but rather like the speech that is prepared and told over and over again in one’s mind before it is finally spoken to inevitably break up a loveless relationship.

We knew the day was coming, the question was whether it was this year or next year (and it could well have been last year). The age of social media and short-attention spans meant newspapers resorted to printing the views of former Arsenal players - from Ian Wright to Lee Dixon to Martin Keown (the latter in real-time) - as if they were some kind of uber-senate of Gooners and not paid analysts and commentators. If, as the narrative went in some quarters, Arsene Wenger’s own praetorian guard were no longer standing with him then surely it was time for him to bow out.

Such reflections miss the point. A 5-1 defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich - replete with second-half collapse - is disappointing and horrid but the result of a single game can’t determine whether Wenger is the best possible choice to manage Arsenal. And, fortunately, it won’t. He’s not resigning which means he will stick around until the end of the season.

If Wenger is to go then it ought to be for a range of reasons and not because Arsenal are one the verge of being eliminated from a competition they were highly unlikely to win in the first place. Or because they are 10 points back in the Premier League (two points out of second and level with Tottenham whose manager is considered a genius). Or, should they lose to Sutton tomorrow night, because they won’t win the FA Cup, a trophy few cared about when they did win it two years ago.

Nope, the case against Wenger ought to rest on the fact that his football, while pleasing on the eye and effective in most contexts, isn’t great at making his team more than the sum of their parts. Or, at least, not to the degree that they can close the gap on better funded and better coached opponents.

This gets exacerbated by the club’s mysterious financial situation: mountains of cash reserves in hand, but no real desire to spend them. And this doesn’t just have implications on transfer spending (to be fair they have picked this up in recent years) but in the general sense of drift. The fact that Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil’s contractual situation remains up in the air is due just as much to the club’s (OK, Wenger’s) inability to sell them on the idea that Arsenal will be competing at the highest level next year as it is squabbling over a few thousands pounds a week more or less.

Compounding all this is Wenger’s ferocious loyalty to what were once his wunderkinder but are now highly paid marginal figures. Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs, Jack Wilshere (yes, he’s on loan, but you just know he will be back) are all former prodigies who, sometimes through no fault of their own, haven’t kicked on. At other clubs, they are politely shown the door. Wenger’s loyalty knows no bounds and so we end up with guys like Tomas Rosicky. Casual fans might think he left a long time ago; instead, he only departed last June, after a 10- year career which saw make all of 107 league starts.

It is this stasis, this acceptance of the status quo, this blind belief that if you show Walcott or Wilshere enough love they will turn into Neymar and Iniesta overnight that ultimately is so frustrating. The more soul-destroying part, of course, is that it suits the owner, Stan Kroenke, just fine. The revenues keep rolling in and Wenger does it on the (relatively) cheap. Which makes Arsenal a cash cow.

But we know all of this and we have known it for a long time. And one night in Munich doesn’t change that.

Wenger said on Friday that he was definitely going to manage next year, whether at Arsenal or elsewhere. He is a proud man and he has every right to be. This is what he is. This is what he does. And unless someone has the courage to go in a different direction, he won’t be walking out of his own accord.

THIS week Mark Clattenburg will meet Mike Riley, the head of the Premier League referees and negotiate the terms of his exit. He has signed a deal to go work in Saudi Arabia, where he will be doing some officiating as well as working with the local referees’ association to offer expertise and raise standards.

That meeting will help determine whether Clattenburg takes charge of another game this year or makes tracks immediately for Riyadh, as some have suggested. He is still under contract until the end of the season, of course, but the general sense is that if his heart isn’t in it, he won’t be asked to officiate.

That it has come to this is quite extraordinary. Not so much Clattenburg leaving for Saudi - he more than trebles his annual wages of £140,000, he’s not the first Premier League referee to make the trip and he will get plenty of opportunity to bounce back to his native Newcastle whenever he fancies - but rather that he would just walk out in mid-season.

Plus, he is giving up a chance to work at the World Cup which, given that it is supposedly the pinnacle of a referee’s career and something he has never done, seems equally remarkable.

That Clattenburg does not have a great relationship with Riley or Professional Game Match Officials Limited is no mystery. But that he would wander off and effectively retire early suggests there are other factors in play and that, perhaps, money isn’t the only one.