Joshua Clements
The words “mental strength” have been so preposterously used by Arsène Wenger to explain our many defeats that they now evoke the same sort of mockery which followed his “I didn’t see it” line. At a certain point, the point must beckon to him that this has nothing to do with mentality, rather that it is footballing quality which the current team lacks in spades. One cannot simply will to win a football match; otherwise, third-round FA cup-ties would all be won by the underdogs. Attitude and mental strength are important, but they are more generally the factors which tip the scale when two big competing teams meet. Anyone who follows Piers Morgan on twitter (an action which, in itself, is some form of self-abuse) will see his constant calls for Wenger’s head and will have to decide which side of the line they actually fall upon. The cross-roads have been reached; do we want him to stay or go? Now, it is natural to feel defensive of Arsène. I am not one who will ever be able to lead the call for his head, but the evidence in support of his continuing becomes far slimmer with every passing season. The goodwill he has gathered from being the founder of the modern Arsenal, the stadium, the Invincibles and the Double teams preceding that, has all but run out.
This cannot be a knee-jerk discussion. One defeat should never condemn a man of Arsène’s stature. The whole operation of Arsenal Football Club must be understood to see why Arsène’s time may finally be up. There are some false arguments floating around which disguise the real and far more damning issue. Firstly, some critics say he can’t organise a defence. I find this a somewhat shallow argument. They suggest that he inherited an incredible defence for the first half of his reign (which is true), but he still had to guide those teams into playing the best football the Premier League has ever seen. Critics also forget that, on our Champions League Final run, we produced one of the finest defensive displays that that competition has ever seen. The problem for me now is not so much in the organisation of the team, it is something far more systemic than that. It is the quality. The quality has gone, season by season, year by year; players have continually left and this coming summer will prove no different.
I cannot believe for one second that Song, who continually flatters to deceive, was not told before Wednesday’s game to stifle Ibrahimovic when he flittered between the lines of our defence and midfield. Too often, Ibrahimovic’s touch went unpressured and, on a night where the slight shift in personnel in the defence left us off-balance, he should have known better where to be. Let’s be frank, the far bigger problem was that there was only one area of choice for Arsène yesterday - to play OC or not. That was it. Whether he got that question wrong is slightly immaterial given the larger worry, which was that that was the only choice he had to make! Seven substitutes and only one of them we really wanted to see (excusing le king obviously). The idea for the game was to retain possession, dictate play, keep things tight, and, when Milan tired from chasing the ball, put on OC to exploit the pace and Henry to exploit the lack of concentration which tired legs bring. None of this happened because there wasn’t the quality out there to execute the plan.
Last season, there was still high quality in the side, but there wasn’t enough quality (the second-half-of-the-season implosion is evidence to this fact). Back then, we were 2/3 players away from strengthening into a title-winning side. Now we are what, 5/6 players away from even being able to compete again. Project Youth has failed. It has failed for two reasons; some of the players never fulfilled their potential and the ones who did left. Ironically, the ones that did make it left partly because they couldn’t stand the thought of playing with the ones that didn’t make the cut.
Arsène’s idea behind Project Youth was to forgo the stupidity of the £30/40m signing when big players can as equally flop as inexperienced youngsters. The lavish money spent at Chelsea and Liverpool on Torres and Carroll are testament to this fact. The €35m plus Samuel Eto’o which Barcelona dispensed in order to sign Ibrahimovic in the first instance, only to discard him for a knock-down fee a couple of seasons later, are further evidence of this. The preference for Arsène (and this has nothing to do with any FFP laws, which may or may not make any difference) was to play youngsters and watch them grow into superstars with an attachment for the Arsenal. Yet, after watching Flamini leave on a free, Arsène was acutely aware that, to ensure a proper return from these youngsters, they would need long contracts. However, to get a player to sign a long contract, an equitable wage near to the established stars already in the squad is required to maintain harmony. Thus Project Youth was a plot of numerous small investments made in order to create huge returns.
Arsène is an economist, never forget this. His calculation is that you can spend £18m on Anderson, as United did, or use that in wages to groom several in-house prospects. The transfer market can and will sink clubs which don’t have the commercial power-base of United or the oligarchy ownership of Chelsea and City. In an era when Leeds and Portsmouth have been washed into memory and where currently we are seeing Rangers fall into administration, the bank balance is an important asset. The flip-side of this positivity is that we, the fans, really pay the price for this good bank balance and we have seen absolutely no return on our investment. We are completely within our right to ask huge questions of the club because of the huge cost to us personally of supporting it.
The problem for Arsène became that some of these would-be stars are worth the investment and wage while others become impossible to offload because their contracts are too high. The likes of Denilson and Bendtner (etc, etc) must go on loan because of these wages, possibly for the remainder of their contracts, and Arsenal must still pay a good portion of them. Arsène, it could be argued, was simply safeguarding these players so they could not run off for nothing if they came good. £25m for Nasri, after all, is far from a poor transfer fee. Arsène believed these youngsters would come good and he believed this very strongly. In his fierce loyalty for those in the kingdom he has created, he misjudged how those he was nurturing might never be able to reciprocate that loyalty in performance terms.
Players like Eboué never deserved the manager’s faith, but, in giving it comprehensively, Arsène was subsequently blinded. For all of Mourinho’s faults, he would not abide some of the mistakes our players make. Arsène has too often forgiven players their shortcomings and spoken consistently about his belief in them, a belief blinded by an approach he thought as logical, economical even, and a loyalty to his players which boarded on selfishness on his part. After all, it is not their fault they are picked. It was incredibly sad that Rosicky spent longer on the sidelines then Eduardo, but it is clear he is not up to the competitive standard needed to compete at the top. It feels like Gibbs has been out for about five years. Despite this, Arsène was confident he could be our starting left-back this season. The list of players still at the club who can contribute next to nothing to the playing side is as extensive as it is soul-destroying. Yes, some of them might be alright for the Aston Villas or Evertons of the world, but this is the club of Bergkamp, Brady and Bastin; we need better.
Quality of sort is not enough. To be at the top, you need top quality. Arteta is a good player but he is not close to Cesc or Nasri. We lost these two top players because Arsène was unable to rid the squad of those that were unable to meet the level. The wages were definitely a stumbling block to selling on and replacing those players, but that’s where a man like David Dein would come in handy. A person at the club who understands the ins and outs of the market, not the global merchandising market, not the Asian market but the transfer market! An individual who could ensure Arsenal were in a strategic position to make possible signings for players like Mata when it would be very necessary. The club is very well run from a financial point of view, but this seems at the moment to come at the expense of the footballing side when they must not be mutually exclusive. The inability for anyone at board level to pressure Arsène into making the tough decisions on his players is a major failing.
Six months after Bendtner came back from his loan spell at Birmingham, someone should have said “Yes or No; is he good enough?”. The pressure-free position that Arsène has been in has made the squad untenable. Cesc loved our club but he couldn’t stick around and watch us falter anymore; it was too painful for him. For all the comments of greed that can be poured upon Nasri, he joined a club that are so many points ahead of us, one might need a calculator by the end of the season. And why spend the transfer fee now when to buy another big player would be to “kill” Ramsey. Arsène seems to forget that competition can be good for a squad. He trusts them and he believes they should trust him back. Defeats followed by defeats do not make great ties to bind players to their clubs.
There is a reason why even the most loyal of players leave their home town clubs for pastures new - everyone eventually gets tired of losing. Henry left because he couldn’t see out the growth of a new team and RvP will do the same as Cesc did the summer just gone. Arsène’s comments last summer speak volumes, “You can’t sell Fabregas and Nasri and claim to be competitive”. On this occasion, Wenger was spot on but was too blinded by loyalty and stubbornness even to understand his own position. He genuinely believed they would stay in the same way that Henry and Vieira in their pomp used to pass up the overtures of Real Madrid each summer. The difference in quality of the squads was easy for everyone to see but Arsène. It was a mixture of naïvety, arrogance and misplaced loyalty from him. It was a summer that called out for change and strengthening. We got change but only to weaken us, and not only our team but our stature in world football. It is hard to argue against the claim that we are now a feeder-club.
Project Youth also came at the expense of keeping older players on larger wages. It is only a passing thought, but one does wonder whether, if Pires, Vieira and Henry had seen out their playing time at the Arsenal, it would have born similar fruit to that seen at Manchester United with Giggs and Scholes. Chelski currently struggle as the money pumped into their team bought them one squad and one squad only. Transition between old and new is key; the young mixed with the old is needed in order to keep constant rejuvenation linked with established success. Some of the complacency that has seen Arsenal needlessly lose home games to the likes of Newcastle, West Brom, Hull and West Ham in years gone by would most certainly have been rectified by having seasoned pros who could ensure that winning remained a commodity you earned rather than something you’re entitled too.
On the side of the tactics of the team, these now seem even further off-key. The Cesc role now enstrusted to Ramsey is too much to bear for the young lad. Ramsey, a raw talent recovering from a devastating injury, has no quality, experienced midfield to guide him in this squad. He is in a role that requires too much. The role is pivotal to the way Arsenal play as it has to link the defensive and attacking phases through top-notch passing to create a counter-attack through one expert pass onto the flanks, or when in front of a bank of four to find that killer/unlocking pass. Unfortunately, the sideways pass appears quite sadly to be our raison d'être this season. The lack of goals over the winter months displays quite clearly a lack of incisiveness which accompanies our defensive frailties. When a team can neither attack nor defend, change is the only option. For Arsène, a change of tactic and approach is akin to admitting defeat; a wholesale change of personnel would equally be a defeat for him. In fact, it seems the only real squad-changes of significance have come as a result of player-power. Even Clichy, someone no Arsenal fan really wept for when he left, had an unsigned contract offer on the table for a long time.
Arsène now resembles something of a parody of his former self. The assured openness of attacking freestyle play of which his philosophy began is now a distant memory of his old Arsenal. Now he holds a rigid stubborn principle, a mixture of loyalty and ignorance which recreates the same mistakes. The continual decline in quality in the squad could possibly see Arsenal drop from the echelons of Europe’s finest competition, and for good reason, as our record against top opposition over the following seasons has been dismal. This season, including Milan, it reads as P9 W1 D1 L7 GF9 GA23. Losses in the next two games could see most of us finally decide that usurpation, or regicide, is the only option. For Arsène is now like a King whose people now go hungry, a prophet whose proclamations turn out all wrong, a magician whose tricks are poor and tacky. He still wants the same as us, and he has given us so much, which makes this all too painful to write. We want Arsène to succeed but we want Arsenal to succeed more. Perhaps he will see that he is a leader who has lost his way and he may yet abdicate gently, but I fear the mob will demand its lynching long before that happens.
(Ed's note - Article submitted before the FA Cup defeat at Sunderland)
