Thierry Henry’s suggestion was pounced upon, and now everyone finally seems to agree: Arsenal need surgery. Thus far, the surgeon has escaped lightly. Having given his all to the cause, Henry questioned this season’s lack of spending to strengthen the squad amid the recriminations that followed Arsenal’s Champions League exit.

Like the theatre and the novel, English football is constantly in decline, someone once wrote. There are dire warnings that England are about to enter the international wilderness. Early last week, Arsenal became the first English club to name a team and five substitutes without one native-born player.

Premiership managers are fending off agents as the amount of business done during the current transfer window struggles to match the speculation. It feels quite like old times. The papers suddenly look more like themselves, and the court circular of King Lear, as they muse on who is in and who is out.

Though it follows that some managers are not right for certain clubs, others fit, being in the right job at the right time for the club’s development. Harry Redknapp is one such. Redknapp’s reputation in the game is legendary, from playing on the right wing in West Ham’s Moore-Hurst-Peters days, to managing the club and going on to Portsmouth.

Winning is not everything, Bill Shankly once said; it’s the only thing. Thus will Real Madrid, for which above all or anyone else victory is paramount, be unhappy about winning one and losing one. Thus Michael Owen prepares for life at the Bernabeu, but Patrick Vieira, somewhat surprisingly, remains at Arsenal.

Enter Jose Mourinho at Chelsea, Rafael Benitez soon at Liverpool and Jacques Santini at White Hart Lane. Next season, the Premiership will boast a European Cup, Uefa Cup and, according to the bookies, the European Championship winner. And so the top managerial jobs in England go to overseas coaches.

With a lack of fuss and fanfare evident in his neat, tidy and unhurriedly sublime skills, on Saturday Dennis Bergkamp overtook Peter Schmeichel’s record for a foreign player of 252 Premiership games for one club. Surprisingly, Southampton’s Claus Lundekvam, on 245, will probably overhaul him.