Matthew Bazell
Apart from the influence of money, what’s a major factor that sets the great clubs apart from the rest? For example, when AC Milan or Bayern Munich finishes 3rd or 4th do they think ‘how wonderful we’ve got Champions League football’ or do they get angry? The Arsenal attitude in recent years has been ‘things could always be worse’. Great clubs simply don’t think in those terms; they get vexed when they’re not up there challenging to be the best. Arsenal are one of the few clubs with big funds (the fifth most prosperous in the world and with two multi-billionaires as the majority shareholders and a manageable debt) and yet instead of being a wounded tiger we’ve adopted the attitude of a contented sheep.
In recent years I noticed a major change in attitude among the new breed of Arsenal fan. For example when Chelsea won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006, it was common to hear JCL’s come out with things like ‘But they don’t play football the way we do’ and ‘I don’t want to win trophies playing like Chelsea’. My God did it sicken some of us to hear that! That’s the same garbage that Spurs fans used to spout during the George Graham glory years of the late 1980s and early 1990’s. And it was a false perception as Arsenal under Graham played far better football than Spurs. The same way as Chelsea under Mourinho played better football than anyone else; because they were brilliant in defence it frustrated the away fans and neutrals – good for them.
The same stubborn attitude has held back clubs like Spurs and West Ham for decades. Any new manager (of which there have been loads) has to play the ‘right way’. By playing the so-called ‘right way’ these two clubs have won the league title as many times combined, as we have at White Hart Lane!
If Arsenal are to retain greatness then we can’t put up boundaries that hold anyone back from doing a good job. For example, a significant amount of Arsenal fans would not want someone like Jose Mourinho as Arsenal manager because of his playing style, despite the fact that Mourinho would probably bring greatness to Arsenal. In regards to Wenger’s one day successor I hear people say things like “But we’d need to get someone who will play the Wenger way?” As far as I am aware, Arsenal Football Club does not have a written constitution stating that the team has to play the ‘Wenger Way’. Are these people fans of Arsenal FC 1886 or Arsene Wenger FC 1996? The manager who follows Wenger should succeed or fail by doing things his way, and anyone who has a problem with that should go and create the ‘Church of Our Lord Wenger’ and stop laying down rules that have no continuity with Arsenal’s overall history.
I’m not screaming ‘Wenger Out’. I still like and respect the man for his past achievements. Loyalty is important and for the most part Gooners are not really the kind to turn on someone we love. Even when George Graham lost his magic touch in the mid 1990s we still backed him even though we knew he had peaked. Wenger’s record between 1996 and 2006 was - to put it in one word - great. Hypothetically, if another manager took charge after the Champions League Final in 2006, and had the same record up to now as we have had, he would be universally hated by Arsenal fans for ruining Wenger’s great team. So do you employ a manager on the basis of what he’s done in the past, or for what he will do for you in the future? Personally I hope Wenger stays and proves many of us wrong, but if this is beyond him then a great club will have to search for another way forward.
I’m not a glory boy. I do not demand success or unfairly demonise those who can’t deliver it. But I do expect a fearsome attitude and genuine desire to be the best, especially from the biggest club in European football never to have won the top honour (name a club bigger than Arsenal never to have won the Champions League/European Cup?). It’s the least the supporters deserve when they are burdened with high ticket prices on the premise that if you want the best you have to pay for it. Right now the feeling that many of us get, is that the club are content to be bridesmaids on the pitch, just so long as the business model and spreadsheets are competing with the big boys.
Matthew Bazell is the author of Theatre of Silence: the Lost Soul of Football
