FROM DARLINGS to dunces in the space of a week. First, we all waxed lyrical over "The Arsenal Way", the Gunners' ability to play some of the prettiest football around and to do it with a gaggle of cut-price youngsters plucked as teenagers from around the continent. Then, when they produce an absolute stinker against a mediocre and injury-crippled PSV side, we declare Arsenal's season over and put another tick in the failure column.

It is one of the most glaring inconsistencies that we in the media are guilty of. When Arsenal win, we shower them with praise, because, more often than not, they do it with style, flair and youth. When they falter, we crucify Arsene Wenger's whole approach to football: too self-indulgent, not enough directness, too pretty, why don't they shoot more often?

The reality is that you can't really have it both ways. What makes Arsenal one of the most admired sides in Europe in terms of playing style and long-term strategic approach is also what can occasionally penalise them. In that sense, they polarise opinion. You either embrace what Wenger and David Dein are trying to do or you reject it altogether.

Two major factors set Arsenal apart from other top European sides. The first has to do with their long-term team-building strategy, the second is tactics and playing style.

Five of the players who featured against PSV were aged 21 or younger. Liverpool did not have any in that age range, Manchester United had one and Chelsea three. Arsenal have chosen youth and young players are, generally, inconsistent and inexperienced.

You can go on a dazzling cup run just as easily as you can falter against a veteran, well-organised side like PSV.

Should Arsenal have chosen a different approach? Did they get their mix of youth and experience wrong in the transfer market? Theo Walcott and Jose Antonio Reyes cost Arsenal in excess of £20 million between them. Could that money have been better spent on older players?

Potentially, the answer is yes, though it's worth mentioning that the jury will be out on both for a few years to come. But if you look at transfer balances, Arsenal have been outspent by Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham over the past five years. They simply lack the financial might to compete with those clubs directly. Thus Wenger and Dein would argue that they have no choice but to choose their spots and bet heavily on kids.

Their argument is particularly compelling when you consider two other factors. The first is the dearth of options in the mid-range of the market, £5m to £10m players aged between 24 and 28. In the last two years, between them, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool have signed Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Khalid Boulahrouz, Asier Del Horno, Dirk Kuyt, Craig Bellamy and Peter Crouch in that category.

Clearly, it's a very mixed bag: not one of these guys can claim to have been a bargain. Put another way, if you operate in that area of the market, at best you'll get a guy who lives up to the price tag, at worst you'll be stuck with an expensive bust.

The second factor is the fact that Arsenal's style is such that the pool of veteran players who can fit seamlessly into the system is very small. Look at the players above. How many of them would slot into this Arsenal side and make a tangible contribution? Vidic perhaps, possibly Evra, at a stretch Kuyt. Arsenal's style is so unlike other clubs that it takes time for players to fit in. It's not a coincidence that, to a man, almost every mid-career player Wenger has signed struggled to some degree in his first few months. And that's precisely why Arsenal like to sign them young.

Which brings us to Arsenal's playing style. To some pundits, the seeming panacea to all the club's ills would be to sign a genuine goal-scoring target man. A young Alan Shearer.

Leaving aside the obvious point, that a player of Shearer's calibre could probably fit into any team anywhere in the world and make them better, this argument ignores the knock-on effect that a traditional penalty box striker would have on the side. Wenger clearly believes the presence of such a player would affect Thierry Henry and others in a negative way. He may well have a point. Henry and David Trezeguet never forged a truly effective partnership for France.

More to the point, the notion that Arsenal's problem is scoring goals seems a complete fallacy. Only United have scored more this season, just as they were the only club who scored more the year before. Guess who were the top scorers in 2004-05, 2003-04 and 2002-03? That's right, Arsenal.

Last season was supposed to be a transition year. This year is looking like a transition year as well, which is not what Wenger wanted. And with Henry out until the summer, there won't be much left to salvage.

If anything, that's the greatest charge you can level at the club: that they are so dependent on Henry. But even that situation is changing. Wenger is trying to give them an Henry-less identity.

It's just that it will take time, perhaps longer than expected.