WILL Arsenal go unbeaten this season? Who cares? Arsene Wenger's finest achievement is already in place.
Mention ‘Boring Arsenal' to anyone under 16 and they'll think you've gone crackers.
In five years, one man has altered the entire culture of a football club, messed with its DNA in a way that makes Dolly the Sheep look like Larry the Lamb.
Arsenal's reputation, standing, its perception worldwide has been changed, perhaps for good. Jokes that had endured almost a century, chants that were as much a part of the English game as 1966, the Matthews Final and Bobby Charlton's comb-over have been silenced.
Imagine an event so huge it erased the belief that England always lose penalty shoot-outs.
What would it take? Winning Euro 2017 from the spot? That is the equivalent of Wenger's revolution at Highbury and it is unlikely any manager will have such a seismic effect again.
Arsenal are not just rewriting the record books — they are rewriting their history.
In Auxerre this week, the veteran coach Guy Roux replayed the seven years between matches with Arsenal in barely a second.
"What Arsene Wenger has done represents a sea change in the culture of English football," he said, admiringly.
As the coach who took a team from Division Two of the Burgundy regional league to the later stages of the European Cup, he should know.
Earlier, Roux had been the latest to draw comparisons between Arsenal and Brazil.
He also recalled the previous time the club had visited the Stade Abbe Deschamps, a month after George Graham left in 1995.
Arsenal fielded five defenders, had John Hartson leading the line and won 1-0 through an Ian Wright goal that could not have been repeated had he remained behind practising it until midnight.
The headlines told a familiar story. Lucky Arsenal. These days the tag seems so distant it might as well have been written on parchment.
Tony Adams once told me he came off the field in places like Turin and Paris laughing with Steve Bould that another top side had fallen foul of the old one-nil-to-the-Arsenal trick.
Old Arsenal were infuriatingly dull but effective. "We couldn't believe we got away with it," Adams said.
This season new Arsenal are having a laugh of a different kind abroad. They have so far soundly defeated the league leaders in Germany, Holland and France. Only a brave man would bet against them making a most unwelcome appearance at Old Trafford for the final in May. And United's frustrations would not end there.
What is remarkable, almost unique, about Arsenal's progress is its ability to win friends and influence people. Unlike their main rivals, accomplishment has not taken a toll on their popularity.
Sir Alex Ferguson turned Manchester United from losers to winners but won few friends on the way. His legacy is a cabinet full of trophies and a club that is now sadly and often unfairly reviled, as much through episodes of unpleasantness as jealousy at its lasting success.
Yet, if anything, Arsenal are better received on the brink of this golden age than at any time in living memory.
Many neutrals want Arsenal to go a year without losing. They think they play football that deserves it. They admire the challenge it represents. They like the man who has laid down that challenge.
Indeed, if Sunderland won this afternoon and Manchester United's record for unbeaten matches in the Premier League stayed intact, there would not be widespread cheering.
That is Wenger's sea change. A team you can see winning the Championship without losing your appetite. Whatever next for Arsenal? Any chance of a half-decent away strip, Arsene?
Yeah, right...
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