Kevin Whitcher
Ok, so first the good news. Spurs took a hammering at home and are in the relegation zone. Arsenal have a potload of money to buy new players by the end of Wednesday. The Gunners will enjoy another Champions League campaign this season. The Arsenal Ladies won the Ladies title at Liverpool. And er… it could have been worse at Old Trafford. Oh yes, United could easily have had double figures.
Here’s a nugget of defensive wisdom I am going to hand to Arsene Wenger absolutely gratis. When you are trying to play an offside line, the players in midfield need to put pressure on the opponent with the ball. Sorry, I withdraw that. My opinion is worth nothing because I haven’t worked half a day in football. Arsene, as he demonstrated with his tactics at Old Trafford, knows best.
It was like watching a car crash. And perhaps, in a perverted kind of way, this needed to happen. The club has been going backwards under the current manager for a while now, the majority of supporters (surely) now want him replaced, and – given the complete balls up the club have made of the transfer window – the time has come to accept reality and try and move on. ‘Forward’ is the club motto for the 125th anniversary season. And indeed, it is time to move on. Conceding eight goals in a game is the stuff of the late 19th and early 20th century. Humiliation isn’t the word for it. Tellingly, Manchester United’s starting line up apparently had an average age of 23.1 years. Arsenal’s was five months older. So the excuse of it being a young team is no defence. The plain fact of the matter is that Alex Ferguson has shown – by a margin of six goals – that even when it comes to developing a young team, he is the master to Wenger’s apprentice. This was no case of men against boys.
Pride comes before a fall. Arsenal’s stadium has celebration of Wenger’s achievements all over it. I can see fans throwing the remains of their half time beer at images of him on the concourse walls at the next home game. He has re-shaped the club and helped it to move stadium, but – allowed to indulge his fantasy of building a team of players developed from youth level by himself (and challenged by no-one) – he has lost his way. People are now being charged caviar prices to watch sausage fare. The club will struggle to sell out the next few Premier League Saturday 3pm home matches even though they are not on television. And that message, if nothing else, should get through to the board of directors even if an 8-2 defeat fails to.
This game demonstrated clearly that neither the personnel nor the coaching are good enough for Arsenal to defend well enough to win trophies. There is no point in my berating individuals, although I will just say that if Johan Djouoru ever plays as a centre back for the club again, it can only be after he has experienced a period of defensive instruction under a coach worthy of the name.
I haven’t had the heart to watch any post-match interviews the manager might have given. He will probably have claimed that if Robin van Persie’s penalty had gone in it would have been a very different game. Not with the tactics and personnel on the field for Arsenal I’m afraid. The one heartening thing was to see some of the players having a go at each other about their perceived mistakes. At least it showed they gave some kind of a damn. Anger certainly isn’t allowed in the cosiness of the dressing room, where raised voices are frowned upon. But that is one thing that is missing from the London Colney crèche (copyright Myles Palmer). Players taking each other to task and getting things sorted out.
Most of the first team squad cannot speak highly enough of Arsene Wenger. And no wonder. Most of them would not be able to earn half as much as he is paying them elsewhere. And the ones that can are keen enough to jump ship, so the loyalty of quality players cannot be bought.
Paul Merson, summed it up. “It’s so bad it’s unbelievable.” And yet, it was almost expected. The most damning aspect this is that it was entirely predictable. In the build up to the game, the 6-1 defeat from February 2001 was recalled. I actually stopped caring towards the end. A bit of me wondered if ten goals for United might mean the dismissal of the manager. As I went and eat some dinner rather than watch the post match coverage I didn’t catch Alex Ferguson apparently stating (a text later informed me) that United eased up towards the end as they didn’t want to rub it in.
Pre-match, Paddy Power offered to refund all losing bets if Arsenal won. As Martin Tyler once said, “That sums it all up.” They were on a sure thing.
If Arsene Wenger has any honour, he would resign now. He’s been rewarded enough by the club over the years. If he really cares about Arsenal, he would not cost them any more money. The season might only be three league matches old, but we are already looking at 2012-13 now. This one’s a write-off. There is no coming back from this. If a 2-1 defeat to Birmingham City is enough to cause the team to collapse completely, there is no way back for many of these players after this. At least not without a change of manager. And to think Wenger put Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain into the middle of this. Give the kid a break.
And if the manager hasn’t got the decency to step down, the board should use some of the money swilling around in the coffers to pay him off. Change is desperately, desperately needed. The players that are at the club need organising and coaching. A tactician, a motivator, a disciplinarian is needed and if Arsenal can afford to pay the manager £6.5 million a year, they can get someone in who will do a decent job, even just for the course of this season, which is now about rebuilding confidence in the football team. The attacking side of Arsenal’s game has kept them in the top four in recent seasons, but even that now looks like it’s on the wane. Against a very young United back line, it was actually fill your boots time, but a side concentrated on going forward rather than worrying about what the opposition might do struggled to convert their opportunities.
And remember, this was all without the traditional boo boys of Denilson, Almunia, Eboue, Bendtner and Diaby. Two have been moved on, although we’ve only received any money for one of them. If you are under any illusion Denilson’s coming back, remember his squad number has been given to a teenager. So the Brazilian in the end was not ‘killed’ by an experience signing but another young prospect. I’d rather have had Xabi Alonso three summers back thanks very much. No-one’s foolish enough to take Almunia so he’s on the wage bill for the duration of his contract, and no-one is going to match Bendtner’s wages in a month of Sundays. Diaby isn’t even for sale, as the manager still hasn’t twigged that one yet, although if he were he surely wouldn’t pass any medical worthy of the name.
Paul Merson again – “A League 2 team would have made it more difficult for Manchester United than this,” or words to that effect. And I tend to agree. United were not even actually that good. The point is they didn’t have to be.
We’ve come to a point where it’s like watching a terminally ill patient pass time waiting for the inevitable end. No-one knows when it will come, just that it will. And there’s a horrible atmosphere, knowing recovery is impossible. I do not care about the transfer market, this season is over in that it’s time to start re-building now. Since the Carling Cup Final Arsenal have now won two league matches out of 14. Some fans have a fear of relegation, although I can see Arsenal recovering to make the top six, if only because they will win enough games against lesser teams. There is not a cat in hell’s chance of them finishing in the top four with the current manager now that Liverpool have sorted themselves out and invested to shake things up.
Arsenal have been standing still for a long time, things have gone stale and the team now in gradual decline. It’s not too late to arrest it, but the first thing that needs to happen is a complete change of manager and coaching staff. I hope the board have got the balls to do it, but I doubt it. Still, self-sustainability eh? Shame they don’t give out trophies for prudency.
Over 95% of Arsenal is owned by two billionaires.
