Mark Woodard
The comments below are from the article, Fans support worries Wenger.
“I am worried our fans are not behind the team," explained Wenger. "The players deserve it.
"It is important there is a love between the fans and the players and the players have shown their commitment which deserves the support of our fans.
"In 15 years at the club I look at the quality of the players I have brought in and you will see I have not done too badly.
"Sometimes the credit players get is linked with the amount of money you paid for them.
"It is frustrating sometimes because it looks like players are judged just through the money they cost."
So, are we, the supporters, now going to take the blame for the continued and managed decline of our club? If Monsieur Wenger believes there should be “love between the fans and the players”, he needs to look closer to home, where he actively encourages the players to be so insulated from their “fans” that there is now little or no interaction, and most people simply cannot relate to the players or feel the empathy that was there less than a decade ago. One very simple example: at Highbury, fans would queue for hours to witness the coach arrival and, from close up, to see their idols disembark and walk up the stairs into the marble halls, and also to get a chance to snatch a few autographs and words. Today, it’s a rapid descent into the bowels of the bowl and out of sight. All of which was envisaged at the building and planning stages of the Emirates, for which le Boss takes a fair amount of credit. Hence he was an active participant in creating the circumstance of his own complaint.
He continues with the statement “the players have shown their commitment, which deserves the support of our fans”: oh please!! Samir wants out now that he’s got a better offer and we’ve all known it for yonks when he wouldn’t sign a new contract, so committed was he. Other players displayed relegation form in the latter stages of last season and trotted out the same tired old excuses of identifying the problem of not working hard enough against the “lesser” teams and telling us that “we’ve learnt our lesson” only to repeat it the same week (Aston Villa towards end of last season anyone? Needing to win to keep ahead of the “Citeh” to stay in third place, and we go for a walk-around in the sun and find ourselves 2–0 down!!).
Week in, week out last season, unless playing a “big” team, the same pattern emerged. Then we have Denilson and his words of wisdom before having to backtrack as no one wanted to buy him. The fact is that our players can mostly be divided into two groups: those who are simply not good enough today, but who were previously identified as potential and tied to long-term contracts and stupid money which, despite their having achieved absolutely nothing trophy-wise, nevertheless kept them “loyal” and whom we cannot subsequently get rid of. They themselves are generally “happy” to stay for the good money that they won’t get elsewhere. Why did Traore stay rather than go to Benfica last year and get first team football? Answer: the money he is on with us, despite no chance of first team football (at that stage). Yes, our players, as with all other teams, are indeed committed at least to something, the money.
Then there is the second group, who start in a similar manner, or are already established at a lesser club and are developed into stars with us or at least are seen as such, e.g. Hleb, Flamini and Nasri. These guys were brought in on the same basis but did have what it takes, or took, and got noticed for at least a season. They see there is no real chance of Project Youth giving them the trophies they now desire in a short career. Having already got the money, aspiration means that, unlike their lesser blessed team mates around them, they can now go further and actually win something as well because they now they are “good enough” for the big/bigger teams to want them, and they are far more convinced that these teams will actually win trophies (regardless of whether the player concerned actually turns out to be successful once he gets there).
Finally, yes, there are a few who are committed - until they lose faith. In the recent past, Fab clearly wanted to win things at Arsenal rather than be a sub at Barça, but in the end, over the last season and a half, was so disillusioned with yet more vague or unfulfilled promises to address our weaknesses that he was not only prepared to sit on the bench in Catalonia, he was reported to have been prepared to take a pay cut to make it happen.
RvP is into his penultimate year of contract and I have no doubt that red and white blood runs through him and I do not question his commitment. On the contrary, as this season wears down (and I fear a very weary season this term) and we face a repeat of the Nasri situation, I wouldn’t blame him if he feels he is being let down and taken for a ride, all for the glorification of one man’s stubborn dream. It’s not his commitment to the club I would question; on the contrary, it’s his manager’s commitment to making Arsenal a footballing success if that means he has to change to do it, i.e. address the areas both we as fans and even he has identified, and bring in some (not necessarily £50 million) experienced players - players who are established, have experience at the top level, and who are not callow youths whom he can shape and control like the father figure he appears to want to be.
For the last three close seasons, he has begun the transfer window apparently re-stating and accepting what we all know (talking about the need to strengthen the defence) but he ends up weakening it. We then get told we need top-quality before we bring someone in and have ended up in recent seasons with the likes of Silvestre, Squillaci and now, this term, Jenkinson, who, whilst I agree he looks useful, is nevertheless hardly the top quality to strengthen us with experience but is yet again young potential from a lower league. Only Vermaelen has looked the business with any degree of consistency out of the last three seasons’ purchases and six transfer windows.
If we take the comment “in 15 years at the club I look at the quality of the players I have brought in and you will see I have not done too badly”, we can all agree. Who will forget the debut and consistent form of PV4, or the pace and joie de vivre of Henri in full flight. There are plenty more: Pires, Gilberto, Fab, RvP, Overmars, Petit etc. However, this is the good AW of old, who could and did get hold of both established and youthful players and develop both. The above examples come from what may well come to be known as the successful half of his reign. Then there is plain old deceptive bad AW, who managed to bring in the likes of Eboué, Denilson, Traore, Silvestre, Squillaci, yet (insultingly to the above-named) talk about them as being part of “the best squad ever” So whilst it’s true that he hasn’t done too badly, he has also brought in some real duffers to account for and, unfortunately, he seems unwilling to go seriously for experience of any sort in the Premier League - the bid for Jagielka at a level similar to our previous one was a joke and makes our club hypocritical when complaining about Barça’s bid for Fab earlier this summer.
It seems that, first of all, AW wanted to blame the media for turning the fans against the club, and, now that their evil little “campaign” appears to be working (after all, clearly we are all so stupid we can’t think for ourselves ), we are told that we are not behind the team. So here it is from me in one (ok, very long) statement: I have been behind the team since I was 7 and will still be behind it should I live to be 107, a mere 18 years shy of this “125th” anniversary season. I detest the rampant self-interest, commercialism-beyond-all-else and self-serving rubbish that is spouted by those in and around our club. Nevertheless, I (stupidly, no doubt, from their point of view, given the previous comments) renewed my season ticket and will continue to do so whilst I have breath left to get to the ground with.
However, I believe that AW is now only interested in doing things his way, to the detriment of all else (as ultimately happened at Monaco) and this method is simply not possible in today’s game if you actually want to win trophies, which, after all, is one of the main raisons d’être of a football club with aspirations. He will no more change his modus operandi than the proverbial leopard changes its spots, and continues to demonstrate ever more frequently by his utterances that he is unable and/or unwilling to adapt to this reality. Hence the comments about getting into the Champions League being the equivalent of a trophy, and his “sudden” realisation that the fair play rules are not really going to be enforced nor even things out.
Did anyone really believe that Uefa would ever ban its box office teams such as the Barças, Man Utds, Real Madrids etc, the very type of big-name draw that they need to make their competition sufficiently appealing to the broadcasters and sponsors so that they continue to invest the amounts of money that they do? If they did, then the recent £400m+ that Man City just received for naming rights from …their owner, with only mealy-mouthed comments of no real consequence emanating from UEFA, has well and truly put paid to that, and AW knows it. As things begin to fall apart ever more obviously on the pitch, and sections of the paying public disappear - as we have already seen - AW will cut ever more pronouncedly the forlorn grey figure on the touchline.
Already looking tired and out of ideas towards the end of last season, things are quite likely to implode over the next 12 months and, as the pressure mounts, the observations that we will hear will become ever more detached from reality, and it will be a question of will the board act or will AW move aside. I fear he is quite content to continue as he likes and with the freedom granted him at a big club on a good salary, whilst the board will procrastinate as long as they can. (I believe his contract is worth some £20 million, not something that our board would like to have to pay off). I do so much hope I am wrong, but it feels like groundhog day every time I hear the man speak now. Odds for the first game after which we hear “our mental strength” speech anyone? What I cannot accept is his comment that we are not behind the team. It’s his method and refusal to adapt to today’s circumstances to which I and many others are no longer committed. I have, in years past, written eulogies to the man and what he had achieved: it is truly terrible to witness his demise in this way, going on and on, treading an identical path year after year, well past its shelf life and out of ideas when it could have been so much better by just making a few small concessions and getting things back on the right track during last season.
