Ian Henry
in the boardroom of the blind the one-eyed man is king. Or rather the man with the rose-tinted spectacles who takes no account of his surroundings is sitting Canute-like as the waves of defeat wash over him.
The coming week and certainly the days through to the closing of the transfer window will be the defining moments of Arsene Wenger’s career at Arsenal. Defeat on Wednesday to Udinese would almost certainly be followed by defeat to ManU the following Sunday. Nasri will be sold, and none of the quality players the manager tells us he would have liked to sign or got closing to signing will come to a team not in the Champions League. Imagine, if you will, that you were Gary Cahill – you have been linked with Arsenal all summer, you would probably like to come because of Champions League football and the great players there – but you have a year on your contract at Bolton, why not see it out, and move on a free to Chelsea or Man City, or ManU even, for a stoking signing on fee, and guaranteed Champions League football?
Before the season started I predicted that we would probably end August with 2 points and playing in the Europa League; I was probably too optimistic, as I suspect it will be 1 point (and no goals scored) to go with the Europa League. Before the AKBs write their ripostes, tell me this – in the absence of signings, who will play in the midfield at Old Trafford – Ramsey and Rosicky (assuming both stay fit for long enough), Lansbury and Eastmond perhaps? Enough to strike fear into the heart of the opposition I should say (not).
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that Arsene Wenger had lost it and it was just a matter of time before the board realised it too and gave him his expensive cards. When did I realise it? 2009, in fact, at that infamous shareholders' Q&A when the manager took great exception to one questioner who described Silvestre as geriatric. But it wasn’t that particular item that caused me to lose my faith in the manager – rather it was his response to my question which did not transmitted on the edited highlights I saw. I asked Wenger why he played so many players out of position, to which, as I recall, he asked me what I meant, with my replying mentioning Bendtner on the right or Diaby on the left. His retort to me, before Bob Wilson moved on to another questioner, was that Diaby had been trained on the left.
I didn’t believe him. The next day I got one of my French staff to phone Auxerre, PSG and Clairefontaine, i.e. places where Diaby learnt his trade; from that we learned that Monsieur Diaby spent a lot of his development as a young footballer playing as a “faux neuf” (literally “false nine” or in football language, the deep-lying striker, i.e. the no.10 …). Moreover, we were told, Monsieur Diaby was never given any defensive responsibility because no one at these august footballing establishments believed he had the concentration to play the defensive midfielder role and he certainly never played on the left.
I disliked being fobbed off in this patronising, dismissive manner, but wasn’t surprised. I hesitate to use the words “lie” and “untruth” but since that fateful evening in May 2009, I have found it very hard to take much of what Arsene Wenger says with much seriousness.
He says no one will leave (Fabregas has left and soon Nasri no doubt), he and Ivan Gazidis say they know what needs to be done to improve the team (where are the central defenders, cover in midfield and a new striker) and he does nothing to instil discipline and common sense into his players (2 red cards and a post match suspension already this season); and he clearly goes against the spirit of the UEFA ban on contacting the team during the Udinese match, never mind if he did not actually speak to them directly.
Before the Liverpool game I was offered 4 pairs of tickets to pass on (at NO charge in case someone at the club reads this!), but I couldn’t find anyone interested in taking even one pair. Several people I know had tickets on ticket exchange which they tell me they couldn’t sell.
We have now reached the end of August and the squad’s thin-ness and unsuitability in terms of mix, numbers and experience for the season ahead is all too clear; the stadium is not full for the first home game of the season, against Liverpool (when did this match not sell out before?), and the manager says it is not all doom and gloom. He is right of course – he may be able to turn this around, he may buy some players and the team may well get the result they need on Wednesday and scrape a draw on Sunday. It may happen, but I don’t believe it will.
Sometimes, in order to improve or sort out a number of problems, you need to sink to real depths. I don’t think Arsenal will return to past glories under Arsene Wenger, so either he stays until 2014 and we bumble along – selling players, bringing in more youngsters and watching crowds dwindle, while paying the highest prices in the country to watch the mediocrity we are served just now; or when we are in the Europa League, with 1 point and no league goals scored come next Sunday evening, Silent Stan will phone Ivan and tell him to sack the manager. By then it may be too late to buy the players we need for this season, but as our esteemed editor has said on many occasions on this site, a stronger manager, a more defensively astute manager, would be able to get more out of the current squad. George Graham as caretaker until Pep Guardiola gets bored of winning everything and decides he needs a real challenge?
