Theo Jensen
The mood of many fans has lifted of late, as we've won four league games in a row, firstly against an out-of-form West Brom, and then against relegation strugglers Reading, followed by Wigan Athletic and a Newcastle team that faded in the final 20 minutes. Some good signs, certainly, reassuring many Wenger supporters that fourth place is realistically attainable. In the Premier League's current state, however, it may not be as prestigious as first it seems.
Regarding the ongoing debate about the manager's position, there is of course a wide range of issues and problems surrounding this debate, but I am going to focus in this article on just Wenger's transfer policy, and his judgement of squad strength (both ours and other teams') which, I believe, may shed light on whether or not he's been at fault for our recent failures.
One thing which is increasingly claimed is that, because of the board, he is not in possession of much money to invest in the squad, and that what has been invested in terms of wages and net transfer spend is lower than that of the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and the two Manchester clubs. It is the first claim which is of key significance here. Apart from repeated quotes available from Ivan Gazidis, the chairman Peter Hill-Wood stated unequivocally in 2010, "It is our policy that we give the manager a transfer budget, which includes the ability to use all the money from player sales. He will get the money no matter how much we got from selling a player".
Like most, my disenchantment with the manager is fairly recent, and for me the key turning point perhaps came following the sales of Kolo Touré and Emmanuel Adebayor. Both sold correctly, no doubt, but the use of funds since then to strengthen the squad has in my view fallen short. But how do we know that their sales, for a combined fee of £41 million, weren't used to balance a transfer deficit? I believe we can presume very reasonably that it was all available to spend - £10 million was initially spent on Thomas Vermaelen, while the following summer Eduardo was sold for £6 million. Squillaci and Koscielny came in for a total of £14 million. That left, in theory, £23 million of the 'war chest' available. In the summer of 2011, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Gervinho were bought for a combined fee (excluding add-ons) which totalled £23 million. Furthermore, the signing of Gervinho came before Wenger's infamous quote “Imagine the worst situation, that we lose Fábregas and Nasri; you cannot convince people that you are ambitious after that.”, while the negotiations for Oxlade-Chamberlain were transpiring in the same period. So it seems unlikely that he expected these purchases to be covered by the sales of Nasri and/or Fabregas.
There were many Arsenal fans and pundits saying (not unfoundedly) during the 2010-2011 season that we were just a few quality players away from matching the best English and even European teams. The choice of Wenger in the summer to spend £14 million on Squillaci and Koscielny was surprising to say the least. Don't forget, at this stage he had £36 million in transfer fees to invest. The less said about Squillaci the better, while Koscielny was completely out of his depth that season, having plied his trade in Ligue 2 the year before. Why didn't he use that money to invest in a proven centre-back? One who wouldn't have needed a year to adapt, and who even now has never matched Vermaelen or Mertesacker - who came in as proven internationals? Would someone proven in the Premier League and a commanding presence like Chris Samba not have been cheaper in both fees and wages, for example? A player of whom George Graham said earlier this year in fact “They need a strong defensive centre-half to play alongside him [Thomas Vermaelen] though and Samba would make the perfect partner."
Even despite this, the opportunity for investment, not just for the deficiencies at centre-half, could have been remedied in January of 2011 - but Wenger opted not to invest any of the £23m remaining. This is interesting, as it follows logically that perhaps either of two possibilities was at hand; either Wenger miscalculated his squad's ability to win the League Cup and closely challenge elsewhere and so chose not to invest, or he was not concerned about reaching such a level. In any case, the squad subsequently collapsed and this culminated in the loss of Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas, as we all know.
So why was the investment so minimal? What Wenger did not seem to grasp is that he had a choice regarding investment - either he could make it properly and take us up a level, or fail to do so and watch us potentially slide into a sinking decline as star players left, with the failure of the squad to win or challenge for trophies properly that year. I could understand a reserve of cash being held back, but to see only two poor centre-backs signed when a 'war chest' of £37 million could have been put towards addressing so many deficiencies in the team, let alone the squad, it's clear where the blame lies.
I would argue therefore that Wenger clearly had the opportunity to strengthen us but did not see or value the opportunity to do so. It came as no surprise that Fabregas and Nasri left; Nasri was perfectly replaceable of course, and probably motivated foremost by money in any case, but the loss of Fabregas was truly the loss of the 'jewel in the crown'. I tend to agree with Ian Wright's comments on his departure - “People say, 'but he wanted to go home', but when Arsenal were playing Barcelona in the Champions League a few years ago, if Barcelona had come for him then would he have gone? I don't think he would have. He had the players around him that could challenge Barcelona on a level playing field”.
Still, it didn't have to deal a mortal blow. Juan Mata for example, who has shown everything to suggest he is of the same calibre at Chelsea, had a buy-out clause of just £17 million, but Wenger stalled and therefore his arrival never materialised, choosing instead to promote from within. Another missed opportunity to sustain or even improve our squad's strength.
I believe that, thereafter, finishing last season in third rather than sixth place can be explained by three key factors, which I do not believe Wenger planned -
1. The form of Robin van Persie. It was Wenger who nurtured and created the Robin van Persie who led us last season, so credit where it's due, of course. He even went so far as to compare him to Messi and Ronaldo. I doubt, however, that he predicted him to achieve the kind of form he showed last season. Why? Commenting on the possible departure of Cesc Fabregas, van Persie said, “In general, I think it will be hard. From my own situation, he [Fabregas] is the one I first look at to see if he is playing or not. We have a connection – he knows exactly when to pass, exactly when to make his decisions in the game. He is quicker in his mind than most other players. That is very special... He is a really special player. He can see things quicker than others. He would be a miss for any team. That is why I hope that he stays and we can play on a bit longer together because I really rate him.”
Indeed from 2006 to 2011, Fabregas created more chances than any other player in Europe. The whole system we played was based around him as a playmaker. Lionel Messi has an 84% strike rate for Barcelona, with Xavi, incidentally, having created 11 fewer chances than Fabregas in that 2006 to 2011 period, while for Argentina he has a 41% strike rate, supported by relatively weaker players. Don't forget that Wenger elected to play the plodding Aaron Ramsey in Fabregas' place. Regardless of that, however, such a consideration is essentially secondary. Whatever the prediction, RvP was without an injury-free campaign in all of the previous seven seasons. It was a gamble to assume a different situation would transpire, with Chamakh and Park hardly representing viable alternatives.
2. The shortcomings of rivals. Looking at our main competitors for fourth place, it's clear that it was their weakness as much as our strength that carried the day. Liverpool's form in the 2009-2010 season under Kenny Dalglish was equal to second place, but a combination of poor finishing and refereeing decisions preceded their collapse the next campaign, though they still managed to dominate the majority of their games. Spurs were comfortably on course for third place until the vacancy of the England manager-post came up, which caused their season to collapse, while Chelsea employed a manager who not only demoted their best players, but also enforced an open and attacking style, without a single in-form striker, leading to his short tenure being ended.
3. The deadline day signings. Essentially, there are two possibilities here - Wenger either chose to wait until the end of the window, in which case it caused a calamitous campaign start. Or, as is more probable, the 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford prompted him to panic-buy, meaning that he must have made a misjudgement as to the squad's strength beforehand.
The key issue here is that without the combination of these factors, third place could not have been achieved. Wenger cannot exactly take full credit for these components and therefore it seems fair to say that what we have is more evidence of something important - miscalculation. That is the key issue which is at stake here - not the hand of cards but how they are played. There have been numerous opportunities in the past two seasons to improve, but Wenger chose not to use them, or simply did not see them. We see then that the chances for our club's ascension was not taken, as a result of which even our position as a Champions League team last year was luckily (and just barely) gained.
I wrote in my last post how I felt the transfer activity this summer again was lacking. I feel that I have laid out sufficient evidence across these two articles, despite dealing with just a fraction of the problems, to suggest that despite his fantastic achievements for Arsenal for most of his tenure, Arsène Wenger, by the way he has chosen to play his cards in the last two seasons, rather than by what his hand has been, has caused us to decline.
This very area of discussion is the source of much ongoing debate. Whether or not you ascribe any motive to it, however, it can be very reasonably shown that we have declined. If we use the European competitions as a barometer, we can see that between 2005 and 2011, an English team made the Champions League final every year but one, from a selection of four teams, while the closest league, La Liga, had only one club (Barcelona) present during that time. In terms of depth of quality, it truly was the strongest league in the world. Indeed, three of the four semi-finalists were English in 2009, including ourselves of course. Last season however, only one team made it past the last 16.
Additionally, the Manchester clubs were knocked out by, in European terms, the very weak teams of Basel, Sporting Lisbon and Athletic Bilbao, but still finished the season 19 points ahead of us in the league. Chelsea's capture of the trophy, as evidenced especially in their victories over Napoli, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, will of course be remembered as one of the luckiest in the competition's history. And we have seen again this year the English clubs' weaknesses in the tournament compared to a few years ago.
And therein lies the answer to the other main contention. Although Arsenal may indeed have spent less than the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and the two Manchester clubs in terms of wages and net transfer-spend, sufficient but not substantial investment during the times I have pointed out, especially when we had Fabregas, but very feasibly even later, would have helped us retain or even improve our previous status, and the substantial decline we have witnessed would likely not have set in - as it has for the other top clubs in England. The choice was made not to do so in any case.
Whether or not we are witnessing an ongoing decline will arguably depend on what happens this January and in the summer, regarding who we can keep and whether or not the necessary signings are made. Sadly, however, the latter seems to me an ever more distant possibility.
