Gare Kekeke
Arsène Wenger is a good manager. There was a time when he was a very good manager. Some may argue that he is a great manager. Certainly he is one of the Arsenal’s greatest-ever managers. To say he is the Arsenal’s GREATEST ever manager is almost disrespectful to the likes of Herbert Chapman and George Graham, great managers for the Arsenal in their own right. In my mind, only those who know very little history of the game would make such a statement. I am, however, happy to be corrected on that theory. I’m not convinced that he is one of the greatest managers of all time, though. Wenger certainly deserves credit for his overall outstanding contribution to the Arsenal and English football since his arrival in 1996. From the changing of the playing style, to overhauling the youth system, the trophies and the training ground, used at times by the England national team and Barcelona for their 2011 European Cup final against Manchester United, Wenger deserves a major pat on the back.
But what are the things that make a manager great? Many things, as we know, do. The so-called experts and pundits claim that the hallmark of a great manager is that he wins back-to-back titles and/or a European trophy, especially the European Cup. Sadly, Wenger can’t claim to have achieved any of these feats. True, he is one of two managers in English football to have won the League and FA Cup double twice or more, and he can point to winning the 2003/04 Premier League title unbeaten. But he has never backed up those great triumphs by landing Europe’s ultimate prize. And you get the feeling that his time to achieve true greatness may have passed him by. Back-to-back titles could also have been achieved if he hadn’t rest on his laurels after each of his three title wins. When the championship trophy is lifted and the medals are handed out, the great managers start planning for the next season. Wenger seems to dwell on his triumphs for too long, and is often slow to stay ahead of the game (no pun intended).
What has stopped Wenger from being a truly great manager? His reluctance to adapt and evolve in the constantly changing times in football is one thing. Whereas Sir Alex Ferguson has constantly refreshed his coaching staff to bring in new ideas and methods (some of those changes enforced, like the constant stream of No.2s leaving for pastures new), Wenger, on the other hand, has not changed his first-team coaching staff since his arrival back in 1996. Convincing Pat Rice to continue as assistant manager for this season when it’s clear to all that Rice wants to retire tells its own story. According to Sol Campbell, Wenger doesn’t like being challenged on the training ground. That’s why I’ve been specific that Rice’s successor must be strong and tactically-aware. Someone to tell Wenger that always playing high defensive lines is not always clever and to show him how to combat the threats of players who hurt us every season, such as Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney.
Wenger’s unflinching faith towards players who have let him down at times has also been his undoing. Philippe Senderos was mauled by Drogba in two Chelsea v Arsenal encounters in August, 2005. From then on, with Senderos it was inconsistency. The penny finally dropped on Wenger after Senderos endured a torrid time against Liverpool in a European Cup encounter at Anfield in April, 2008. Some of the greatest managers know when to move players on, even if they are great players. When Bob Paisley (more on him later) masterminded Liverpool’s first European Cup win in Rome against German champions Borussia Mönchengladbach in 1977, two of the players he started with that night were long-time Anfield stalwarts, Ian Callaghan, Liverpool’s record appearance-holder, and one-time title-winning skipper, Tommy Smith, scorer of Liverpool’s second goal that night in 3-1 win. But when they retained the trophy a year later against Belgian club FC Bruges at Wembley, Messrs Callaghan and Smith were replaced with Graeme Souness and Alan Hansen, both of whom would go on to forge successful Liverpool careers themselves, especially as captains. Sir Alex Ferguson has never shown sentiment to any of his players too, no matter how great they were. Just ask the likes of McGrath, Ince, Beckham and even Roy Keane.
Trophy-wise and to his credit, Wenger has been successful. But, compared to the truly great managers, not as successful. Certainly his failure so far to win a UEFA trophy is a horrible black mark on his career, and the fact that he is the only manager to have lost all three UEFA finals is a stain he doesn’t deserve. Would you really put Wenger in the same bracket as European Cup-winning managers such as Ferguson, Paisley, Clough, Stein et al? Some great managers have gone lengthy periods without trophies, but there are valid reasons for this. At Liverpool, Bill Shankly didn’t see any trophies at all for seven years between the title-win of 1966 and the title (at our expense) and UEFA Cup double of 1973. But this was because of his rebuilding process. A shock FA Cup Third Round exit at the hands of Second Division Watford in 1970 prompted Shankly belatedly to break up his great 1960s side. His assistant at the time, Bob Paisley, thought it should have been done two years earlier.
Sir Matt Busby and Brian Clough had similar droughts too, though with Busby he could be excused. So far, Wenger is seven years and counting without a trophy, not for the want of trying (sometimes). It’s the Arsenal’s longest lean spell without silverware since 1979-87 and is the longest that any manager of the club has overseen. And there have been too many excuses to boot. Injuries, bad refereeing-decisions, petro-dollar-filled clubs to name but a few. The 2007/08 Premier League title was ours for the taking but a poor reaction to Eduardo’s injury saw that challenge collapse. And what excuses were there for losing the 2011 League Cup final to relegation-fodder Birmingham City? Wenger’s apologists would argue that he is overseeing a transitional period. But do they really last at least five years? One reason for his constant rebuilding of ‘new’ teams is that he constantly loses players for a variety of reasons. Some of them some lose faith in him. And could you blame them? The truly great managers successfully evolve one great team to another.
Wenger’s defenders will claim the Double triumphs, the unbeaten title and consistently finishing in the top four make him a great manager. Greater than Brian Clough, who took not one but two medium-sized East Midlands clubs from Second Division obscurity to English champions and, in the case of Nottingham Forest, back-to-back European champions? Or Sir Matt Busby, who in the ten years after losing half of a great team to an aviation disaster in 1958, won the FA Cup, two First Division titles and, ultimately, the European Cup on English soil with three of the world’s greatest-ever players in Best, Law and Charlton? What about Sir Alex Ferguson’s achievements at Aberdeen? He ruled his own homeland, landed the European Cup-Winners Cup against Real Madrid and put the frighteners on the Old Firm, especially former club Rangers.
My favourite manager ever is Bob Paisley. Criminally never knighted, in nine seasons as Liverpool manager between 1974-83, Paisley could point to six league titles (three times back-to-back) and three European Cups, including back-to-back triumphs in 1977 and 1978, in an era when to be champions of Europe, you HAD to win your league, and when European draws were random, unlike the seeding and country-protection you get today. Wenger’s consistent ability to finish in the top four would look better if there were a couple of trophies along the way. Finishing second, third or fourth to qualify for the European Cup should never ever be recognised as a ‘trophy’. Wenger’s European Cup record is not as great as some would make out either. True, he has reached a final and another semi-final (in which we completely embarrassed ourselves). However, in fourteen consecutive seasons of European Cup football, Wenger has overseen four group-stage exits (one of which led to a UEFA Cup final defeat to Galatasaray, the only Turkish club to have won a UEFA trophy) and has been knocked out of the round of sixteen four times. Not exactly the hallmark of greatness here.
Arsène Wenger can still achieve true greatness if he learns to adapt and evolve. If recent history has taught us anything, he is reluctant to do this. Personally I don’t think he will, because he is too stubborn in his ways, but I hope I’m wrong. Failure to do this could lead to a few regrets, and those who are critical of him would make their opinions known with greater aggression. Certainly, Wenger’s overall managerial record makes a mockery of media darlings such as Allardyce, Pulis and especially Redknapp, who between them have won one major trophy and have finished no higher than fourth in the top flight. Up The Arsenal!
