Uefa Champions League round of 16: Real Madrid v Arsenal Estadio Bernabeu, kick-off 7.45: Arsenal signed another prodigy last week. Carl Parisio is a 16-year-old defender and came from AS Cannes, of the French third division.

Since he was not under contract, they were able to acquire his registration outside the transfer window and will pay only a nominal fee to the French club, whose president described the ex-gratia payment as "a stylish and exemplary act".

Some of Arsenal's fans, feeling their management has been spending too much time on laying plans for the distant future and not enough on more immediate concerns, may be less impressed.

Tonight's rendezvous with Real Madrid at the Estadio Bernabeu in the first leg of the Champions League's round of 16 should have been the first instalment of the glamour tie of the club's centenary year. Instead it represents the first stage of the last opportunity to salvage something from a season in which the decline in performance on the pitch has developed at an exponential rate.

Of their 12 matches in all competitions since New Year's Eve, Arsenal have won four, drawn three and lost five. Two of those games, four days apart, put them out of the League Cup and the FA Cup. Consecutive reverses, at the hands of Everton and West Ham, ended their last vestige of interest in the Premiership title. The most recent league defeat, at Anfield last Tuesday, left them lying fifth in the table. Qualification for next season's Champions League is thus uncertain, adding an element of risk to the £365 million investment in their new stadium.

To blame the problem solely on the sale of Patrick Vieira to Juventus last summer is to ignore the fact that in their former captain's last season and a half the team had demonstrated the beginnings of a tendency to lose battles against opponents willing to commit themselves to the highest level of physical effort.

It was as if the historic undefeated season of 2003-'04 had sated their appetites. None would admit it, of course, and perhaps none felt it on a conscious level. But from mature internationals such as Robert Pires and Fredrik Ljungberg the club's fans had a right to expect more influential performances, and this season the captaincy appears to have impaired Thierry Henry's concentration on the task of scoring goals.

In defence, the evident collapse of Sol Campbell's morale amid the recognition of his waning physical powers combined with an unfortunate sequence of injuries and absences to destroy the integrity of a unit on which the team's self-confidence once rested in near-total security. Here the lack of preparation for a seamless transition has been at its most evident.

But inevitably the discussion returns to Vieira, and to the absence of authority in midfield since his departure. "When I was six years old people were talking about the midfield as the key area of the pitch," Rafael Benitez said at the weekend.

In Arsenal's case, neither Mathieu Flamini nor Cesc Fabregas has managed yet to reinforce skill with steel. Gilberto Silva, such an efficient lieutenant to Vieira, turns out to be nowhere near as effective when required to set the tone and tempo.

In the short term, Wenger might done better with the likes of Joey Barton or Jimmy Bullard, whose wholehearted endeavour and positive movement contribute so much to Manchester City and Wigan Athletic.

As things stand, the Frenchman's refined sensibility appears to baulk at the employment of players raised in a rough-hewn domestic culture.

Clearly, Wenger is trying to build another side capable of playing with the speed, sophistication and intuitive deadliness of earlier years. And, given time, the generation of Fabregas, Flamini, Gael Clichy, Johan Djourou, Robin van Persie, Abou Diaby, Arturo Lupoli and, who knows, Carl Parisio may reach similar heights at the Emirates stadium.

What does not seem within Wenger's scope is the ability to devise an interim solution to the sort of challenge posed tonight by Real Madrid, whose recent emergence from their own prolonged period of depression represents the latest threat to Arsenal's hope of leaving Highbury with cheering in their ears.