Where do Arsenal and Arsene Wenger go from here? The five steps needed to steer the Gunners away from the brink

The north London side are wounded after an 8-2 humiliation at Old Trafford and now their under pressure manager needs to address some glaring issues as a matter of urgency

It was the most humiliating defeat of Arsene Wenger's 15 years in charge of Arsenal.

The Frenchman vowed to fight on after the "terribly painful" 8-2 capitulation at Manchester United on Sunday but he must surely now make major changes at the club.

Even Sir Alex Ferguson said he was glad United did not score more - they could have done - a measure of the embarrassment inflicted on Arsenal.

Wenger insisted he is looking to the transfer market to improve his squad before the window closes on Wednesday, but Sunday's result leaves Arsenal teetering on the brink of a full-blown crisis.

Signings

As if it wasn't obvious already. Every Arsenal fan on the planet has been urging Wenger to spend money this summer, even before the high profile departures of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri.

A commanding centre-back like Bolton's Gary Cahill should have been signed two months ago but now Arsenal are backed into a situation where they have less than three days to plug some gaping holes in their squad.

While Carl Jenkinson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Park Chu-Young could turn out to be astute buys, they will not cut it with Arsenal fans who have seen the highest ticket prices in the country rise by 6.5 per cent this season but not enough evidence of the money being re-invested in the team.

Wenger was at pains on Sunday to insist that he is "working very hard" on bringing new players to the club - he wants a defender and a midfielder - but surely Arsenal must swallow their pride and pay the asking prices for the players they are chasing.

A low-ball £6m offer for Cahill was laughed out of town and, judging by the shocking performances of the two centre-backs at Old Trafford, the commanding defender could prove well worth Bolton's £15m-plus asking price.

A defensive midfielder in the mould of Rennes star Yann M'Vila is also badly needed to add some steel to the Gunners midfield and provide a platform for Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey to control games with their passing and creativity.

Tactics

Never mind new players, Arsenal need some sort of tactical plan to fit them in. Even Paul Merson says that the Gunners were just a collection of individuals, with no sense of understanding between the defenders and no cohesion in their attacking play on the ball.

Arsenal played a suicidal high line against United and it allowed the hosts to play balls into acres of space time after time - but Wenger didn't seem to change anything as the goals went flying in.

In midfield, United were put under absolutely no pressure and the likes of Wayne Rooney and Anderson were able to pick up the ball and have time to pick killer passes out wide, where the Arsenal full-backs were invariably offered no support from the central defenders.

Wenger has always been a squad-builder rather than a tactical mastermind - for years his substitutions have been criticised - but Arsenal seem to play with no plan when they step on the pitch.

'Go and play' is not enough when playing against a team of United's quality and Arsenal also need to find a Plan B when things aren't going right. For a start, Arsenal need to work on set-pieces and establish some kind of defensive shape, but it could also be time for Wenger to re-think his formation and consider a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 that might stop them being so exposed in wide areas and provide some balance.

Leadership

Whether it's in the boardroom, the dressing room or on the pitch, Arsenal appear to be badly lacking clear leadership.

The fans want to know who is accountable for what, they want to hear from majority owner Stan Kroenke. Known as 'Silent Stan', he has made no attempt to communicate with supporters and to talk about what he plans for the club.

Was it really Kroenke who insisted that Arsenal needed to sell Nasri? What is he doing to cajole Wenger into spending some money? At boardroom level, chief executive Ivan Gazidis is beginning to take more control of affairs, diminishing Wenger's powerbase after the Frenchman previously had complete control over football matters when Arsenal was a public company with a growing share price.

The boardroom confusion has been reflected on the pitch, where Arsenal have no natural leaders. Robin van Persie has been handed the captaincy following Fabregas' move to Barcelona but neither are true leaders.

Wenger has tended to give the armband to his best player but Arsenal need an inspiring figure to organise and galvanise his team-mates when the going is tough. How he could do with someone like Tony Adams or Patrick Vieira in his squad now because there is a clear absence of character in the Gunners' meek and introverted line-up.

Injuries

Arsenal were punished in the worst possible manner for being forced to play such a weakened starting line-up but the chink of light is that it is unlikely Wenger will have so many players unavailable again this season.

Six players missed the trip to Old Trafford through injury, meaning the Gunners were forced to put out a mish-mash of a team including youngsters Jenkinson and Francis Coquelin, neither of whom looked anywhere near ready to play at this level.

The humiliation certainly would not have been so severe had the likes of Jack Wilshere, Thomas Vermaelen and Bacary Sagna been fit to play. The good news for the Gunners is that some of the injured players should be fit again following the international break, the bad news is how bad the casualty list is so early in the season.

Arsenal's annual injury crisis usually hits in the final month of the season and is often dominated by a puzzlingly high number of muscle and tendon injuries. Do Arsenal just have the type of players who get injured easily or is it preventable? One theory doing the rounds among the fitness coach fraternity is that training should be more football specific, rather than fitness specific. Using this method, certain player specialised programmes keep them fresh and prevent overtraining.

Suspensions

Arsenal are yet to finish a Premier League game with 11 men on the pitch having had someone sent off in each of their three matches. It has not only made life difficult in those matches, but it has also created selection problems for Wenger.

Gervinho, Alex Song and Emmanuel Frimpong were all suspended for the trip to Old Trafford while Jenkinson will now also be banned after his 76th minute dismissal for two bookings. It reflects the naivety and lack of discipline in the Londoners' squad at the moment and Wenger needs to get his players to act more responsibly.

There are no excuses for the violent conduct that resulted in three-match bans for Gervinho and Song while dangerous studs-up challenges are inexcusable.

The Gunners were lucky that Andrei Arshavin was not sent off on Sunday after he made shocking tackles on Phil Jones and Ashley Young.