The pre-season panic seems to start earlier every year like a really shitty Christmas

Has your club ever succumbed to pre-season panic? If not, they will soon.

The pre-season touches us all at the end. It's a tantalizing mix of what have become highly visible and official-looking games, often with a fake trophy in play, that a) doesn't really matter and more importantly b) has absolutely no impact measurable over the following season.

But that's just the surface. Pre-season games are also all we have to do in the July desert. Fragile and unreliable evidence, but the only evidence. After spending the last two months of the season exhausted and desperate for it all to end, by the time July rolls around we're all gagged for a dose of football after an extremely long month without it. So people are jumping on these pre-season games. And even more than that, pre-season games are particularly intoxicating because unlike real games that matter, they can mean as much or as little as we want in order to confirm existing opinions and prejudices. Often in the same game.

They're essentially the perfect vessel for instant social media madness, and the very first example of this year came - much to no one's surprise - from Arsenal.

Now it is important to stress here that we are not singling out Arsenal because their online fan base is a particularly vocal, loud and nonsensical online fan base that remains heavily divided over the manager and direction of the club . It's just a happy coincidence. The intensity and volume of the reaction may have been heightened by all of these factors, but this fate can befall any club. Check out the reactions to West Brom's 2-0 loss to Stevenage if you want confirmation that this isn't just an Entitled Big Six Crybaby phenomenon.

But back to Arsenal. Now this one was really perfect. Because let's be honest, there's no better club for this stuff right now. They are a club in that sweet spot where the glass can be half full or half empty and both of these views have some merit; the problem is that for the loudest fans, the glass overflows or is absolutely empty.

Last season's fifth-place finish and its narrow Champions League miss can be described as real signs of progress for a young team and a young manager who are lucky enough to start again this season, or as proof of a lack of killer instinct and a misfire. opportunity that may never come again. Arteta getting a new contract is either proof of the low bar at Arsenal these days or a welcome return to stability and long-term planning.

With both of these viewpoints having some merit, pre-season comes with its perfect ability to prove anything you want it to prove. And even better than that, comes the perfect deck to pour even more fuel on that fire.

When Arsenal lost 2-0 to German second division side Nuremberg, both teams came out to fight their corner. Soon #ArtetaOut grew from a combination of a few people actually thinking it and many people calling it silly while further amplifying the initial stupidity at a time that was both Arsenal's peak and Twitter's peak. .

The Arteta Outers saw this as further proof of his fraudulent unsuitability for high office. The Arteta Inners were trying to point out that it was pre-season and results didn't really matter. Then Arsenal ran out 5-3 wins and the two factions found themselves forced to swap positions.

The most important and obvious thing about pre-season is...