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It's Deja Vu Time All Over Again

Fears that decline of a great manager may be terminal

5 April, 2011 10:00 22 comments
It's Deja Vu Time All Over Again

Arsene: Not his finest weekend

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I am so depressed. I saw United were 0 - 2 down at Upton Park, then found out to my horror that they had won 4-2. Time for Arsenal to show what they are made of. Erm...

I'm going insane. Are we dealing with :-

1. A totally stubborn manager who ignores all the evidence on the pitch that we are woefully short of players in key positions who are good enough to drive Arsenal on to win things; or…

2. Someone who has completely lost it and cannot organise and set up the team to defend? We still don't get players into the penalty area on the end of crosses/passes either; or…

3. A still superb manager who is being starved of transfer funds while the club is made cash rich by its sales each summer?

I wish someone would explain the answer to me.

I thought Gilberto was an excellent captain of Arsenal. He led by example, could head the ball, tackled and scored more than his fair share of goals before he was unceremoniously replaced as captain of Arsenal by Cesc and bundled out of the club. Gilberto was still good enough to play for Brazil (no less) and was the type of highly experienced, midfield soldier we all hope will arrive in each subsequent transfer window. Gilberto's departure for me was as much the catalyst for our current woes on the pitch as the move from Highbury to the Retail Park.

I hope my faith in Le Boss is repaid by him doing a "Gilberto" on the players who have let him and the Arsenal down on so many occasions and follow this up by acknowledging that standards must improve and doing some genuine strengthening of the side, buying in some real talent along the spine of the team. But we’ve been here before in seasons past and the same players who are frequently identified on this website as ‘never beens’, continue to re-emerge in the legendary Red and White the next season to further disappoint, nauseate and frustrate us all in equal measures.

I'm praying that the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach yesterday morning was a combination of too much weekend booze and Monday morning at work rather than the symptoms of watching a wonderful and once untouchable manager in terminal decline.

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22
comments

  1. Claudegordon

    Apr 06, 2011, 19:32 #4640

    @croker Your dignified response shames me, and I retract my last comment. As for the general gist of the article, I agree. As an MBA and manager, I think one of the big problems is that Arsene has total control. The board needs to separate coaching and general management from the finer points of negotiation. Once Arsene identifies a target, it should not be up to him to wrangle over the last 100K of a players value. Seems to me he has too much to do already, like developing NFL style special teams coaching around defending. I loved Loco Lehmann, but we should never have found ourselves in a position where we have to hire a retired player as cover. More fundamentally, Alex Ferguson's ability to get the most out of a midfield that a mix of ageing (Giggs, Scholes) and ordinary (Carrick)is testiment to HIS tactical skills. Arsene (and I'm a huge admirer) is not the manager he was.

  2. fozzys mate

    Apr 06, 2011, 17:30 #4620

    At the time all this happened wenger made a big mistake that went unnoticed. Diarra had performed very well when he played and said he left Chelski for Arsenal to get first team football and made it quite clear he would leave at xmas if not. Flamini who was playing well at the time stated early that season he would not sign a new contract and go on a Bosman. A very decisive manager would have told Flamini in no uncertain terms that if he did not sign he would be replaced by Diarra. Instead he lost both Diarra who went on to be a regular at Real Madrid and Flamini to Milan. Gilberto who despite having his best season the year before hardly played and asked to leave. We lost our 3 solid midfielders in one go. The result was that we lost the opening league game of the following season 1 nil to Fulham with a central midfield of Dennilson and Eboue after an agonising summer of speculation re what everyone thought was the blindingly obvious prospect of us signing an established solid central midfielder having lost not 1 or 2 but 3 in the very recent past. Following that we had an appalling start to the league season and trailed in 4th only due to Villa imploding. For me that was the start of the decline.

  3. JJ

    Apr 06, 2011, 17:23 #4618

    Even if we won the league we would still be all angst'd up because football is officially dead unless, we go back to jumpers for goal posts and a bit of 3 and in. These french philosopher types make me laugh! Whoever called the emirates the retail park could not be nearer the truth Adieu! Half a crown and into the north bank - ahh such days. Hot dogs were free after the match .......

  4. Croker

    Apr 06, 2011, 13:57 #4572

    @Claudegordon. You're quite right to do so and another good call about the loss of Flamini.

  5. Brian

    Apr 06, 2011, 13:26 #4556

    Wow, did Gilberto Silva write this? Gilberto was finished and quite rightly lost his place to Flamini in 07/08. I'm not happy with what has happened since but his departure was no catalyst for our downfall. If evidence is required rewatch Tottenham 5 Arsenal 1 in the Carling Cup. He could not run any more and it was embarassing watching second rate players skipping round him like they were Lionel Messi.

  6. Richard Ansell

    Apr 06, 2011, 12:38 #4528

    I am being driven as insane as you by Wenger's bizarre behaviour. We are all watching the same players making the same mistakes and offering zero effort time after time after time and yet Wenger sticks with them and hails this as his best squad ever! As for the comment that Wenger will turn it round, I wish I could see just a scrap of evidence during the last six years to support this view. If I could then I would stick with him but he is doing nothing and taking us all for mugs. Not only that he made it quite plain after the Blackburn game that he cared very little about what us fans think - he only cares about his players! You can say that again and don't they just love him - I wish I had a boss that would praise me to the hilt and pay me loads of money for having zero commitment and no ability to compete at the level expected of me.

  7. Claudegordon

    Apr 06, 2011, 9:46 #4518

    @croker "I've overlooked Gallas and fast forwarded to Cesc" Not going to let you off that lightly, Charlie. That was seriously sloppy. Any Gooner could see straight away it was wrong. If you can't remember Gallas/Eduardo/Taylor/St Andrews Or Flamini displacing Gilberto, effectively and well You should not be doing these analyses. I for one cannot take what you say seriously.

  8. fozzys mate

    Apr 06, 2011, 9:34 #4517

    We have become the new spurs drawing glory only from the failure of our rivals. My fears began when wenger starting bandying the phrase internal solutions around when selling the likes of vieira, henry, pires and gilberto and then toure and idolbanrndoor. What that mean't trousering the fees and not signing any replacements. Even a slightly passed their best world class player needs to be replaced and not always with a rookie or unknown. The worlds most successful managers use every penny at their disposal to improve their sides no matter how good. They do not refuse to sign a midfield player to wait five years for one of song, dennilson and diaby to become adequate and the other 2 poor. A wilshere or ashley cole will become irresistible no matter who is in the squad because they are up to the standard required for the giants of the world game. However this board have turned us into an ambitionless money machine.

  9. charliegeorge

    Apr 06, 2011, 1:32 #4510

    Would people please stop saying that the players have "let him down?" He has let himself and the supporters down, by his inept attempt at trying to prove us all wrong.

  10. Arsene knows

    Apr 05, 2011, 23:57 #4505

    Yeah yeah, spurs smashed where we won 1-0... Arsene will sort it out, and u lot will all hail the man... When chapman died it took nearly forty years to get back to the top... I'm as frustrated as everyone else about the same players & issues, but he will turn it round

  11. mark

    Apr 05, 2011, 20:17 #4494

    wenger is part of the management starving the cash from building a team. not a victim of it. he is star trader at arsenal PLC and gets well rewarded for making money. fine but guess what that is now important than winning trophies. pls stop debating it when it is totally obvious

  12. Croker

    Apr 05, 2011, 19:26 #4491

    Ooops - sorry everyone. Can't think why I've erased his captaincy from my memory [wink]) but I've overlooked Gallas and fast forwarded to Cesc.

  13. HowardL

    Apr 05, 2011, 19:24 #4490

    Regarding Gilberto as captain: I saw him lead a team of youngsters brilliantly at Doncaster in the League Cup. He also led by example, scoring a last minute equaliser to reverse a potentially embarrassing evening. And yes, it was that same 'too old' Gilberto still playing for Brazil last summer in the World Cup. I think Wenger gave the captaincy to Henry just to keep him for another year - and whilst it did just that it patently was not a success.

  14. thenorthlondonupstart

    Apr 05, 2011, 18:45 #4486

    Gilberto was replaced by Cesc? Did Henry replace Kenny Sansom?

  15. Depressed Dave David Davidson of Devon.

    Apr 05, 2011, 17:56 #4483

    I really want to hear what the AKB has to say, they are so interesting and they think anyone who says anything against the mighty Arsene of Wenger is scum. So come on Pro Wenger's tell us why the club would crumble if he left! Please I really want to knowzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  16. Pedant

    Apr 05, 2011, 17:33 #4481

    To be fair, Gilberto was never club captain. He was vice-captain during 2006/7 while Henry captained the side, and when he left Gallas was appointed captain the following season. Gilberto was never replaced as Arsenal captain because he never was Arsenal captain in the first place. And given he barely played in 2007/8, there wouldn't have been much point in making him captain anyway. We can argue about the sense of that as much as we like, but using his non-appointment as captain as a stick to further beat the manager is a bit pointless.

  17. Pete

    Apr 05, 2011, 17:04 #4479

    Gilberto wasn't replaced by Cesc, he was replaced by Gallas which is an even worse decision. This is made worse still by the fact that Gilberto himself wasn't told in person and found out the news via the club's website. Cesc only became captain when Gallas was stripped of the captaincy after publicly criticising the club

  18. Jekyll

    Apr 05, 2011, 16:19 #4477

    Even if it was 3. (which both Gazidis and Wenger have stated it isn't) that still doesn't explain the lack of leadership and organisation at the back (even the crappest teams at least try and have this) and arrogant, ridiculous comments to the press such as 'In England you think sport is a battle and you need a general. In France we see it as creative expression', to give one example, many of which he repeats ad nauseum.

  19. Fletch

    Apr 05, 2011, 16:18 #4476

    Eh, I think you will find he was replaced by Gallas for some stupid reason and found out he was not captain via the internet. Yes Wenger didn't even have the decency to tell him face to face.

  20. Tom

    Apr 05, 2011, 16:17 #4475

    Something has 'broken' this season. In previous years we could hide behind injuries or bad luck but this season has shown that we simply aren't good enough. I still support Wenger but this summer is his last throw of the dice. Failure to strengthen adequately coupled with a poor start to 2011/2012 will render his position untenable.

  21. GunnerX

    Apr 05, 2011, 16:10 #4473

    ERRmmmmmm- Maybe its a combination of all three points, but we cannot be sure, but, what is for sure, is that something has to change as this is the third year in succession where we have fallen short come the end of the season.

  22. wenger out

    Apr 05, 2011, 16:08 #4472

    answers 1 & 2. Get Wenger out!