The problem, as Arsenal enter the final stretch of a season in which the best-case scenario is fourth place and a Europa League, and the worst-case scenario is sixth place and another shot at the Europa League, is that at some point, Arsenal simply stopped making you feel.

There’s a medical condition called anhedonia, which has traditionally been defined as an inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities. In fact, it’s more correctly understood as a sort of emotional blunting, a dulling of both the motivational impulse and the appreciation of reward. It’s an idea that seems particularly applicable to Arsenal at the moment: a club whose furrowed brow, weary ennui and internal bickering seem to a large extent independent of results on the pitch, or even the sort of football they’re playing. Anhedonia is closely linked to post-traumatic stress disorder, which makes sense given the dramatic events of the summer, and the subsequent struggle by Arsenal fans to frame their new and peculiar terms of engagement.

Have you watched Arsenal Fan TV lately? During the late-Wenger years, it became a sort of foul-mouthed outlet for the skittish spirit of protest sweeping through the Emirates at the time. Now, slickly rebranded as “AFTV Media” after a stern warning from the club, very little of that thrilling insurgency has survived into the new era. Claude stares listlessly into space, like a man who’s seen all of our futures. Troopz wears the haunted, crumpled look of a firebrand preacher who’s taken a job in telesales. Robbie grins desperately into the camera, trying and failing to congeal his thoughts on a Torreira-Xhaka midfield two into a tangible emotion. The result is less viral soapbox, and more a bunch of middle-aged blokes arguing about who has the worse lower back pain.

And this triteness appears to be the prevailing weather at the moment, not just on the internet but in the Arsenal universe at large, and at the Emirates most of all, which even in its more electrified moments feels less like a football stadium and more like a sort of wailing seance: talk to us, talk to us, please don’t let us die alone. The club’s eerie media silence in the wake of a defeat also feeds into this, a sense that very little of the love and care bestowed upon Arsenal is reflected back outwards, that on some important level it remains cool, elusive, unavailable.

Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Show all 12 1 /12 Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Arsenal have enjoyed another season to forget. But what have been the very worst moments? Rex Features Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Manchester City (H) Arsenal are played off the park in an inauspicious start to the Unai Amery era Getty Images Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Danny Welbeck injured The England international fractures his ankle against Sporting ruling him out for the season REUTERS Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Southampton (A) Charlie Austin's goal ended a long unbeaten run and started a slide Getty Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Tottenham (H) The Gunners tumbled out of the Carabao Cup at the hands of bitter rivals Spurs Action Images via Reuters Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Liverpool (A) Roberto Firmino's no look finish is perhaps the nadir of the whole 2018/19 campaign in truth Getty Arsenal's 2018/19 low points West Ham (A) Arsenal slump to another disappointing defeat, this time at West Ham Getty Images Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Hector Bellerin injured Bellerin tears knee ligaments against Chelsea and is ruled out for the season Reuters Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Manchester United (H) The Gunners' run in the FA Cup is ended by Manchester United in comprehensive fashion Getty Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Manchester City (A) Sergio Aguero scored a hat-trick as City coasted past them in February Getty Images Arsenal's 2018/19 low points Aaron Ramsey announces his exit Ramsey confirms he will join Juventus on a free transfer in the summer Getty Arsenal's 2018/19 low points BATE Borisov (A) A desperately poor performance sees the Gunners lose in Belarus in the Europa League AP

It’s easy to blame all this on post-Wenger exhaustion, an inevitable comedown from the intensely emotional and at times bitterly rancorous debate over the club’s future. And there is a certain value in the idea that after the operatic tumult of the last few years, Arsenal just needed to lie low for a bit, to keep the show on the road, quietly build something while gathering strength for its next big assault. The appointment of the technocratic Emery - a paragon of extreme competence, classy and courteous and respectful and sober to a fault - seemed to confirm this.

But perhaps in the middle of this, something got mislaid. The first and last job of a football club is to make you feel something, which is not necessarily the same thing as making you care about it. From the corridors of Colney to the beach bars of Busan, there are millions of people the world over who care deeply about Arsenal, who invest fortunes and lifetimes, who see in Arsenal not just a means of leisure but a version of identity, an opportunity to be part of something larger. But what, exactly?

Arsenal have been reduced to this... hands on hips, a shrug of a football club (Getty Images)

Never underestimate the power of a purpose. From Klopp’s Liverpool to Warnock’s Cardiff, from Pep’s City to Pulis’s Middlesbrough, the modern club - and, come to think of it, the pre-modern club - runs on an idea. Something that distinguishes it from a ringbinder at Companies House. Under the efficient and yet entirely bloodless stewardship of Stan Kroenke, Arsenal strikes you as a club no longer certain of its basic idea. Sure, it wants to win. But how? And why? What broader aim is served by Arsenal winning? And why should everyone else move heaven and earth to prevent it happening?