It’s the Arsène Wenger legacy that Arsenal fans have been anxious to preserve by sacking him, but eminent football historians have given notice that this particular ship has long since sailed.

The legacy, tarnished, was built upon the Frenchman’s revolutionising of the English game since his appointment as Gunners boss in 1996, not to mention twice leading them to a league and FA Cup double and lasting the whole of the 2003-04 Premier League season undefeated.

According to historians, these achievements sustained the Wenger legacy throughout approximately five years of underachievement before finally running out of credit sometime around the 2011 League Cup final defeat to Birmingham City.

Had Wenger departed immediately after that match there would have been “a good chance” of keeping his legacy intact, we are told, but it now lies in tatters following yesterday’s 1-2 defeat at home to Manchester United.

Speaking exclusively to Football Burp, one eminent football historian explained that not even last season’s FA Cup win could salvage the Wenger legacy as things currently stand.

He said: “Scraping past Wigan and Hull is hardly the stuff of commemorative statues.

“Arsenal supporters are adamant that Wenger must be sacked in order to preserve his legacy, but the previous decade-or-so’s worth of frustration is what people will now take away from it all.

“The only way Wenger’s legacy could be salvaged now is by baking every single Arsenal fan a cake, and personally delivering each one while singing a specially composed ode to the recipient.

“And even then he’d still need to register himself as a player and score a last-minute bicycle kick winner against Tottenham.”