I have been immersed in the English Premier League for most of five years now, and I have revealed/conceded both on this blog and in print that I am an Arsenal fan.

(Or at least as far as I would prefer them to win, and I like them better than their competitors. In some quarters, that may not reach the threshold of “fan” at all.)

Now about four years into Gunners semi-fandom, I am beginning to wonder if I chose poorly.

For starters, there’s that no trophies since 2005 thing. That might not seem a long time for fans of North American sports, where the big leagues have 28, 30, 32 teams. Winning once a decade is a great rate, over there.

But English Premier League teams are competing for four trophies a year — the league, the FA Cup, the League Cup and the Champions League. (Yes, English teams once aspired to winning the Champions League. Seems crazy now.)

Arsenal won the FA Cup in 2005. And since then … nothing.

Also, there is a certain craven tendency to collapse under pressure, among recent Arsenal teams.

If they really need to win, they almost never do. Except when it comes to finishing fourth in the league and getting into the Champions League, and raking in all the cash that comes along with that. They ran down Tottenham for fourth place last year, and that’s about as good as it gets for Arsenal fans. “We’re No. 4!”

A recurring complaint, during this dry spell, is that Arsenal does not spend on its team as do the other contenders. This is a problem on two levels.

One, Arsenal is not going to be in the bidding, not seriously, for proven talent.

Second, the club’s best players are likely to be snapped up by other sides. Cesc Fabregas by Barcelona and Samir Nasri by Manchester City in 2011, and, the one that really hurt, Robin van Persie by Manchester United, a year ago. Arsenal might have won the league with that guy. United did.

One working theory is that Arsene Wenger became conditioned to working with a limited budget, and that he no longer knows how to spend money. (Evidently, the club was trying to pay for the new stadium for the past several years. Or that’s the story, and they are sticking with it.)

This summer, for the first time in years, Arsenal allegedly had money to spend … and what did that dignified gentlemen (and veteran coach) Arsene Wenger do with that money?

So far, essentially nothing. Literally the only new player is … Yaya Sanogo, the same kind of guy Wenger would have gone for a decade ago: young (20), on the rise, not quite there yet, cheap and French. So far, he hasn’t played.

Arsenal’s pursuit of Liverpool’s Luis Suarez has never seemed quite real. The Liverpudlians have said Arsenal’s offer of 40 million quid is too low, and you get a sense that Wenger’s inner voice was saying, “Good. I didn’t want to spend that much on him, anyway.”

Wenger would rather have a half-dozen young, not very expensive guys from under-evaluated parts of the world, and that may have worked a decade ago, but lots of other clubs seem to have caught on to that.

My other major complaint/observation is … Arsenal never wins when I am watching. Opening weekend of the Premier League, Arsenal and Aston Villa were on the big screen in the office, and Arsenal had a guy sent off, wasted an early lead and lost 3-1 to Villa — which almost was relegated last year.

Then, last night, when I slipped into a coma before kickoff, Arsenal routed Fenerbahce of Istanbul 3-0, the first half of the two-game Champions League play-off for a place in the lucrative group stage. In Istanbul. Had I been watching, the Gunners would have contrived to lose.

So, a fairly frustrating team. Seemingly stuck in a rut of “not bad enough to overhaul, not good enough to win anything”.

I can imagine, almost, how serious fans must feel.