Gary Neville was on commentary duty for Arsenal's capitulation away to Man City, and joined Souness and Henry in the Sky Sports studio after the game. Arsenal have made these collapses with such grim regularity that their fans are now seeing past blind anger at the result and see the larger context: namely that insipid results like these will do little to persuade Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil to extend their contracts at the Emirates - City has been spoken as a potential destination for Alexis, on the assumption the riches on offer from the Chinese Super League do not make up for its irrelevance.
As Arsenal fans fret about the future of their two best players, Gary Neville was rather sanguine about the situation after that game. Given that much of the narrative surrounding the contract wrangle has focused on the idea that Arsenal cannot have pretensions to success if they allow Ozil and Alexis to leave the club.
Neville - despite spending much of his career committed to the singular duty of finishing ahead of Arsenal - was on hand with some words to the contrary, to at least comfort Arsenal fans at the end of a horrid week.
So cheer up Arsenal fans, at least, if they do leave, your club will persist, and will keep on finding new ways of letting you down.
