When Arsenal were not even trying to pretend to be a top-flight football team during the English Premier League game against Crystal Palace earlier this week, you knew what was going to come over the next few days.
Arsene Wenger making excuses and dodging questions over his future, purely because he knows the backlash he will receive if he announces what is really going on.
The players apologising and admitting they were not the better team/the other team wanted it more.
All the players insisting they remain behind the manager and they can still make it to the top four – as though just making the top four is what Arsenal should be aiming for.
The manager remaining stubborn as ever and refusing to acknowledge the obvious problems in the club.
And the Arsenal board, sitting quietly, not making one comment about the current situation as Arsenal go through their worst phase in over 20 years.
As Arsenal were suffering a meltdown against Crystal Palace, if you had looked up, you would have seen a certain chief executive sitting in his ivory tower and plotting the stories that he would leak to his preferred sources.
"The transfer warchest of £100 million didn't work. The fans are still mad.
"Well, we will just have to increase the amount. How much now, how much? Of course, let's double it and make it a cool £200 million.
"That will get the fans back on board and everything will be hunky dory again."
This is the problem with the Arsenal board.
They think, if they leak a couple of big "Arsenal are going to spend big in the summer" transfer stories, the fans will immediately be appeased and all the ill-feelings towards the club, the manager and the players will just die down.
And if the Arsenal board actually think that, then they are not only naïve, but they are also insulting the fans' intelligence.
This current situation isn't one that is just going to go away with a transfer story or seven; or by beating Middlesbrough on Monday; or even by, somehow miraculously – considering Arsenal will have to beat Manchester City and then either Tottenham or Chelsea – winning the FA Cup.
The current situation goes much deeper than that, and if Ivan Gazidis or Stan Kroenke, whose lack of ambition is the biggest problem that Arsenal have at the moment, bigger even than an ageing manager, think that it will just go away if the club go on a decent run in the next few weeks, they are in for a surprise come the end of the season.
Not for a long, long time have the fans – and that too the die-hard away fans – turned on the players. But the chants of "You are not fit to wear the shirt" after the Crystal Palace defeat pretty much encapsulated just how bad the relationship between the club and the fans are at the moment.
The supporters want change, but for an Arsenal board and majority owner in love with the Premier League cash that keeps flowing in, change is too much of a risk, and nobody wants to jeopardise personal money for club success and trophies now do they?
As long as the mindset of the board remains the same – and changing the structure of the club, by bringing in a director of football won't do anything – Arsenal Football Club will keep underachieving on the pitch.
That feeling of comfort, of needing to put in just enough to appease everyone upstairs has seeped into the club and turned into an uncontrollable, infectious disease.
There is only one cure.
Change.
