Analysing the
situation at Arsenal and deciding whether A.Wenger should leave the club
I have always been convinced, that there is
nothing easier than to sit down and write something about your favorite sports
club (In my case, Arsenal). After all I am a fan of this football club, I
support it with all my heart and I daily spend at least an hour (to put it
mildly) in reading and reasoning about everything connected with the team.The
truth is that like every other supporter when their team loses or wins it is
hard for me to hold my emotions. As the old cliche says : "writers take their
pain and emotions away by expressing it in a written form". So, that is
what I am about to do now.
Here are the facts:
The curse of the “B”-s.
That
is an insane theory. Arsenal leaves FA Cup, defeated by Blackburn. Before that
loses by Bradford in The Capital One Cup. And in the Champions League the
Gunners meet Bayern Munich. Three squads, whose names begin with the letter
“B”. What is the possibility to be defeated by all of them? I do not really
know, but it happened. However, to say that the reason for those failures is a
letter is just wrong. But the whole situation in the club is similar to that
theory - it is a total absurd! I have a
feeling, that emotions are taking their toll and that is the same as predicting
the outcome of a football game by using letters from the alphabet.
I believe that the facts cannot be confronted.
Here are some of the most important ones:
- For the first time since 1984-1985, Arsenal
was eliminated from the two English knockout tournaments by squads, which are
in a lower division in the football hierarchy.
- For the first time during Arsène Wenger’s
era, Arsenal is eliminated from the FA Cup, defeated by a club from a lower
division.
-
Arsenal had an enormous streak of consecutive matches without a loss in the FA
Cup at home. The exact number was 34, which is a record. For instance,
Sheffield Wednesday has had such streak
during the twenties. That makes the elimination from Blackburn even more
shocking.
-
After looking at the two failures against clubs from a lower division it is
time to examine the situation in the Premier League. The team has the lowest
amounts of points at this stage of the
season during Wenger’s reign.
-
Last season marked the worst start during that era. A record loss against AC
Milan followed in Europe and the rematch cannot compensate it. And I do not
even want to mention the devastating loss against Manchester United.
-
Moreover, there were a lot of bad move on the transfer marker Chamakh, Park,
Squillaci, etc. The list is far too long…
The
signs are clear and no one can argue with them. If it is one season, then there
is nothing to worry about. But the Gunners’ free fall has been happening for a
second consecutive season, without even mentioning the other six long years
without a major trophy.
The
Lack Of Trust
Unfortunately,
the loss of key players, who leave the club, became a tradition. The first ones
were the captain Patrick Vieira and the winger Robert Pires (2005-2006). They
abandoned the project and decided to continue their careers elsewhere. What is more concerning is that, the symbol
and all-time leading scorer – Thierry Henry left the Gunners as well, in 2007.
He left in order to pursue trophies (not that he missed them with Arsenal), an action which
showed that the French does not believe in Wenger’s project, too. A few years
later he wanted to be a part of the team again! How comfortable! Actually,
Arsenal needed Henry then, not now. But that is an another topic. During the
next years Hleb, Flamini, Toure, Gallas, Clichy, Nasri, Fabregas and Robin van
Persie all left the club. I wonder if Thierry Henry had not left the club,
would they have stayed, but I cannot give an answer to that question.
That
is too much of a talent! There is no team that can depend SOLELY on one player,
but when your best players start to leave you in bunches, this cannot do no
harm to you. And for me the real problem has never been the departure with so
many valuable footballers, but when you make a list using all the players that
have left in recent years, you will find that they are too many and the time
interval, in which they have chosen to continue their careers elsewhere is too
short. But even those departures would not have been so much of a problem if
Wenger had found adequate replacements. Instead of doing that, he missed on
players like Xabi Alonso and Juan Mata because of meaningless transfer fees and
salary misunderstandings.
The
Failure
All
this speaks of a lack of trust expressed by the players to the club. Not just
the newcomers, but also the ones who have been a part of “The Invincibles”. The
signing of the young British core (Walcott, Wilshere, Ramsey, Chamberlain,
Jenkinson, Gibbs) shows that Arsenal has made some progress in trying to
persuade their own footballers that the club is capable of getting silverware.
Still,
the biggest problem of the Gunners is their policy and philosophy. For that the
blame should be put not just on the manager, but on the board of directors and
the owner, as well. The owner is the one who should set the tone and define the
club’s goals properly, but Stan Kroenke is definitely not doing that. Playing a
creative but ineffective football and using the young players as a financial
profit instead of trying to win at any cost just justifies that. The main
problem is that, we, the fans just do not see that mindset – “trying to win at
any cost despite all the odds”. The whole club is just struggling to establish
an identity that can prove to be successful through time.
What
needs to be done, is to give a clear answer, regarding the future of the club.
8 years without a trophy is not that bad. Arsenal and the other big English
clubs have had bigger lackluster periods in their history. The most significant
matter is to develop a working. ambitious plan for the future than can satisfy
everyone connected to the club.
But
let's talk a bit more about the failure of the French genius - Arsène Wenger.
The team is going nowhere and the manager who for so long was a by-word for the
brilliant reading and marshaling of young and sublime talent appears to be as
lost as some of his most hapless players, the ones who were ejected from the
League Cup and the FA Cup by Bradford City and Blackburn Rovers and were
effectively ushered out of the Champions League by Bayern Munich so briskly they
might have been disheveled intruders into some fancy party at the Ritz.
There
is no more pleasure in saying this than in spitting in the face of a proud and
distinguished man of the most impeccable achievement and values, but it is only
to state the reality in which Wenger has been threshing so desperately these
last few days.
It
is also, of course, to concur with the inevitable verdict that it is time for
Wenger to go.
Ideally,
it would be by his own hand, his own decision when weighing all the options
because who, deep down when the hurt pride and the angst over the lost days of
that ineffable touch and judgement have been put to one side, knows better than
Wenger that what he is doing now simply no longer works.
Surely
he knows this more surely than the fine Arsenal loyalist Bob Wilson, the
goalkeeper of that Double year of Charlie George and George Graham, who for
some time now has been railing over the lack of respect for the man who turned
the modern Arsenal into something far more than another winning team.
Jack
Wilshere, the one Arsenal player who
might have augmented the strength of Bayern, made similar noises in the
rubble of something that was less a defeat and more a shocking vision of what
the future, on all available evidence, can no longer hold for a team that once
adorned both English and European football.
Wilson
and Wilshere were running up the flag for Wenger's past – not the effectiveness
of his work for today and the future. It is, heaven knows, understandable that
no one at the club has shown the least inclination to play Brutus. Everyone
there knows that it would be seen by so many as an act of regicide, whatever
the state of the king's wardrobe.
Arsenal
were for so long the brilliant expression of Wenger's superb talent for drawing
the best out of footballers of the greatest quality. Now, despite the constant
claim that he has a war chest that, if it doesn't stretch to paying more than
£30m for a holding midfielder of the quality of Bayern's Javi Martinez, surely
provides the scope for something rather better than is currently being produced
at the Emirates.
No,
Wenger couldn't keep Fabregas and Nasri and Van Persie, he couldn't pay
£200,000 a week for the best of his talent, but he could have acquired recruits
that said rather more about his old insight than the likes of Wojciech
Szczesny, Per Mertesacker and Olivier Giroud. Wenger is enshrined at the heart
of Arsenal's business plan, the man who gave them a solid financial future and
a shining stadium and, with the increased revenue from sponsor deals, declining
stadium costs and extra TV revenue, the chance to invest in a new epoch of
glory.
It
is a beguiling idea but if football does cry out for sounder economics, if
anyone can see the value of a club creating its own financial independence, it
can never be reduced to some endless measurement of profit and loss. It cannot
live without some significant stirrings on the field.
Ultimately,
the old Wenger could not be about a shining set of accounts. He was always
supposed to be about a genius for the game, the point of it all; about men like
Henry and Vieira and Fabregas and if they can no longer be so easily acquired
there is a need for some authentic quality. Wilshere, at 21, has the Wenger
hallmark. He sees so many things so quickly. He can beat a man and take the
fight to any opposition.
He
proved that despite odds which would have drained the majority of talented
footballers of any age and experience. Yet Wilshere can do only so much. He
cannot make a team. That was, until these last few years, the glowing facility
of Arsène Wenger.
He
said this week: "You'll miss me when I'm gone."
That
might be true enough, but what will be mourned most sharply: the enduring life
of his work, or the memory of what he was?
This
week it has been only the latter – and never more hauntingly so.
Despite
the upcoming lucrative deal with "Adidas" and the famous financial
profits of the club, Arsenal is not going in the right direction, for sure. So,
is A. Wenger still the man who should call the shots and do the best for the
club? I do not think so and I am not sure who should replace him, but a new
face is desperately needed at "The Emirates".
