Robert Exley
(Ed’s note – This piece submitted last Wednesday morning, before the FA Cup exit at Old Trafford)
I’ve never been one to use Twitter. I’m not adverse to social media but the Twitter phenomenon has largely gone over my head. However on reading the Independent Newspaper back in February, the section of the paper that highlights famous people’s ‘Tweets’ had highlighted ’comedy writer Armando Iannucci’s comment which read: ‘Back in the UK. Sad to see it’s still run by dogmatists masquerading as pragmatists, but at least it’s sunny’. For footballing reasons at least, this ‘tweet’ had stuck in the mind and came to the forefront again today just as the Arsenal side touch down back in London after their latest Champions League exit to a genuine European Superpower. The argument over whether Arsenal is run by Dogmatists or Pragmatists has been a long running debate in the Gooner - both in print and online for a good few years now. Arsene Wenger - proud owner of a Masters Degree in Economics from Strasbourg University - has over the years developed his own economic model on how to run a football side which has been lauded in many quarters, including my very own contributions to the Gooner over the last three years.
In 100% honesty though, my knowledge of Economics is basically knowing the difference between Adam Smith and Karl Marx and that John Maynard Keynes sits somewhere in the middle of the two. One thing I do know however is that the thin line between dogmatism and pragmatism is often a very narrow one that can be blurred in the eyes of many. The fact that ‘Wengernomics’ has achieved thirteen successive Champions League qualifications on the bounce even in the stormy economic conditions of the last few years and with the market distortions caused by Manchester City and Chelsea’s petrodollars, means that as a model for stability it is second to none - in the last six or seven years however there is little if any evidence as to whether it can be seen as a sufficient model for growth and prosperity for a football club’s fortunes on the pitch.
Being a graduate in Economics Arsene Wenger would no doubt have paid close attention to the emerging Economic superpower from the East - the People’s Republic of China, that very much threatens to overtake the USA’s economy in the very near future. China’s rapid progress can be traced back to changes made by Deng Xiaping’s leadership from the mid 1970s through to the 1990s. Prior to this China had been in the midst of its ‘cultural revolution’ unleashed by Mao Tse Tung with the purpose of modernising its economic infrastructure - which was enthusiastically pushed by a group of young activists called the ‘Red Guard’ to effectively remove any ‘capitalist tendencies’ from Chinese life. This meant effectively eradicating what Mao called the ‘Four Olds’ - Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. Old was loosely defined as anything existing prior to Mao’s Communist revolution of 1949. In an attempt to win the laziest pun of the year award, I’d be quick to point out that Wenger has brought a positive ‘cultural revolution’ of his own to Arsenal since 1996. Conversely he has also in the years since dismantled a ‘four olds’ of his own along with their customs, culture, habits and ideas - namely the aging back four that won his first double. Also in recent years he has moulded a youthful ‘Red Guard’ of his own which seems to be well indoctrinated with questionable dogmatic Wengerite ideology to boot.
By the time of Mao’s death in 1976 China’s attempts at anything closely akin to a modern industrial revolution had failed and with it so too did the lofty aims of the ‘cultural revolution’. Deng had launched the ‘Beijing Spring’ in 1977 - a period in which open criticism of the regime’s previous excesses and the cultural revolution itself had been permitted. By 1982 Deng’s Central Committee had released a document entitled ‘On the Various Historical Issues since the Founding of the People's Republic of China’ which in reference to Mao had stated that ‘His accomplishments must be considered before his mistakes’ (sound familiar?) however concluded that his impact on China had been ‘seven parts good three parts bad’ (which could often be an appropriate remark on Arsenal’s outfield players when you think about it).
On Deng’s watch economic reforms had increased capitalist elements, while maintaining Communist-style rhetoric. The explanation behind allowing the Communist dogma of the Cultural Revolution to be consigned to the dustbin of Chinese history, in Deng’s own words, was that ‘it doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice’. I don’t know about Mice but Moths seem to be the major problem effecting the Arsenal trophy cabinet in recent seasons and with this point in mind Wenger should certainly look to be a lot less fussy about what methods lead to their eviction from the empty trophy cabinet.
What Wenger can learn from the Chinese example is that sticking to principles rigidly isn’t always a good thing if you want to achieve stable growth and reach the pinnacle as a major superpower. I genuinely love the fact that Arsenal play fantastic football, I genuinely love the fact that the early Wenger years saw a team of winners playing great football - far more than the latter Graham years that saw a team of unwatchable winners. Trouble is Arsenal display an incredible level of arrogance when referring to the likes of Stoke as ‘limited’. Arsenal’s football maybe easier on the eye, but their lack of a Plan B and unwillingness to win ugly, coupled with their ability to pass the ball to death often with no cutting edge or end product is every bit within the dictionary definition of ‘limited’ as Stoke’s reliance on the long throw of Rory Delap or the thuggery of the likes of Ryan Shawcross.
Down to ten men in the Camp Nou, outplayed but one goal from eliminating their technically superior opposition with time ebbing away - I surely could not have been alone in screaming for us to utilise our 6ft 4in centre forward by going route one for once? Especially seeing that Barcelona also seem to have a similar weakness to ourselves for outplaying sides and still losing. In 180 minutes of play at Ashburton Grove over the past two seasons Barca held two thirds of possession and the result is an aggregate score of 4-3 to Arsenal over the two games. Also Inter’s share of possession in last year’s semi couldn’t have been much more than our own on Tuesday night but they came away with the result.
What about the argument that Arsenal have limited funds due to paying off the mortgage on Ashburton Grove and can‘t compete with other top sides in the transfer market therefore are perennially at a major disadvantage in comparison until this millstone is removed from our necks? Well here we have part two of this very crude macro-economic come history lecture. It is an MI5 maxim that any society is never more than four meals away from anarchy, a point excellently illustrated in North Africa in the last three months alone. Arsenal’s wage bill means the idea that any of Wenger’s side will be ever be deprived of four meals is extremely remote, however ‘Wengernomics’ has a similar maxim - Arsenal are quite clearly never more than four injuries away from mediocrity. Also, like with the Libyan economy, Arsenal’s relatively abundant resources make it baffling to the outside world that a starvation diet is the order of the day - why is this wealth not trickling down considering that Arsenal have consistently recorded profits over the last few years?
Also the idea that Arsenal’s inability to sign one or two big name players of experience over the last two transfer windows due to their hands being financially tied is based on false economics. Any big name signing made at the market rate can easily pay for itself should it result in some form of on pitch success. Last season the club’s turnover from the football side of its business was marginally down due to five fewer home cup matches, yet a bigger squad to cover this may have meant a longer FA Cup or League Cup run.
Also the further a side progresses in the Champions League the more it reaps in prize money, Arsenal’s early elimination and inability to top their group in the first phase due to being one or two top class players short means they will reap less out of this campaign than they did in reaching the Semi and Quarter Finals in the last two seasons, so consequently they haven‘t saved much from supposedly avoiding profligacy in the transfer market. Prudence with the purse strings also doesn’t count for much if you’re profligate on the pitch. ‘Chesney’, Koscielny and Fabregas may well be three key parts of this current side, however one defender and goalkeeper unable to communicate amongst themselves at the back and a captain who deems it necessary to try a backheel on the edge of his own penalty box has meant two trophies from a possible four are no longer obtainable this season.
Also Arsenal had received less from merchandising, attributable to the recession. Surely this and other elements of fallout from the economic situation are both out of Wenger’s control and also a good reason to be tighter with the purse strings? Well - again I’ll answer this with another piece of crude economic thinking. You’ve heard of ‘Pop Psychology’ - psychological concepts that are generally dismissed by the scholars as oversimplified, unproven, misunderstood or misinterpreted despite attaining popularity among the general populous - well I’m endeavouring to indulge in ‘Pop Economics’ (in more than one sense of the word) and the scholars can argue amongst themselves as to whether they think them workable or not.
For my example of recession busting economics I point to what I would call the ‘Jackson Effect’. In 1982 Michael Jackson’s album Thriller was released amid what was then America’s longest and deepest post-war recession, which had deeply effected its recorded music industry seeing that LPs are considered a luxury item rather than one of life’s necessities. Thus there was what the economists would call ‘income-related elasticity of demand’ - i.e. less taken home in the wage packet means less to spend on records. Despite this recession, the extraordinary buzz surrounding the album due to critical acclaim and its extravagant promo video had led to Thriller becoming the biggest selling LP of all time and single-handedly overturning the recession itself within the recorded music industry by 1984.
His death in 2009, amid another global recession as bad as the early 80s one, saw not just another glut of record buying with his back catalogue shifting units, but also overturning a downturn in the publishing industry as newspapers and magazines in their saturation coverage of his premature demise shifted far in excess of what they otherwise would have done. The lesson learned from the ‘Jackson Effect’ is that hype is recession proof - major events can often overturn the elasticity of demand rule for luxury items, giving the consumer the impression that the item’s consumption is itself a necessity.
The long wait for an Arsenal title since 2004 or a once in a lifetime Champions League triumph would no doubt fly in the face of recession and see a rush to buy merchandise as well as a glut of season ticket and membership renewals as a result. Critics of this theory may point to the fact that Arsenal won the double in 2002 and still made a loss, today however we have far bigger stadium capacity and a fan base slightly less accustomed to success than they were in 2002. Arguably Stan Kronke’s inclusion on the board means we’re more clued up about exploiting overseas merchandise than we were in 2002.
Another lesson from the world of popular music is that a sizeable amount of its leading lights throughout its history - such as Bill Haley, Bill Wyman, James Brown, Jimmy Page, Freddie Mercury, Joe Strummer, Bob Marley, Debbie Harry, Ian Dury, both of the Pet Shop Boys, Ian Brown, Shaun Ryder, Jarvis Cocker and Noel Gallagher - were all over the age of 25 when they came to prominence. The moral of this fable is that what appears on the surface to be a youth led phenomenon usually isn’t quite so and often is the result of the stars spending several years toiling around the outposts of their chosen industry whilst learning their trade.
Alan Hansen famously remarked in 1995 that you never win anything with kids, contrary to popular myth he was actually proved right, seeing that Fergie's so called Fledglings were a mixed economy of youth and experience. In the 1996 FA Cup final which sealed the double that year for United, their side included 33 year old Peter Schmeichel, 30 year old Dennis Irwin, 31 year old Gary Pallister and was captained by 30 year old Eric Cantona - all of whom had several winners medals to polish and no doubt quite a few war stories to tell young Giggsy, Becks, Gary Neville et al. Also despite GG’s first championship side having an average age of just under 25, the road to Anfield ’89 was paved by the contributions of those pushing 30 years of age such as Viv Anderson, Kenny Sansom and Steve Williams in the years just prior, as well as having 31 year old David O’Leary in defence and in 27 year old Kevin Richardson a previous championship winner with Everton in the starting line up.
So then, today it’s March 9th and we’re just twelve days short of the first day of spring. Of the quadruple that was still up for grabs two weeks ago we’re two down, two left to play for. The luxury that Wenger has is that unlike Chairman Mao, he has the opportunity not to wait until he himself is history to enact his very own ‘Beijing Spring’ here and now in the Arsenal dressing room. He is contracted until June 2014 and has the opportunity to reassess to what extent his ‘Wengernomics’ programme is grounded in dogma rather pragmatism and do something tangible to rectify the situation if not by May 2011 then certainly by May 2012. And in a reversal of Margaret Thatcher’s famous dogmatic ‘U-turn’ boast from the 1980 Conservative conference: Mr Wenger - you stick if you want to, the Arsenal public who pay your wages seem to be increasingly interested in turning. And in increasing numbers they seem to have been turning on you and your modus operandi for a good few years now.
