Asser Ghozlan
Let me start off by saying that, as a youngster, along with my grandfather and father, Arsène Wenger was my idol. He was my role model. A man of quality, a man of class, and a man with a competitive, winning edge. I suspect and know he was the idol of countless others.
He had taken us to new heights, heights that we would never have dreamt of, and heights that, it is fair to say, we all took for granted once we reached the top. The Invincibles, the Doubles, the football and absolute top-class quality to go with it were a total joy and luxury to behold. And this was all down to only one Arsène Wenger.
The move to the E******s, Wenger’s lovechild, was intended to help us sustain competition at the very top after the diminutive Highbury was deemed not fit enough for long-term elite success. And this is where the sad irony of it all lies. We have spiralled backwards to what looks like a point of no-return, from a move that was designed to move us forward.
Yes, there were financial restrictions early on, and yes, we do not possess the amount of stupid cash reserves the likes of, first, Chelsea and, now, City do. But this is where the buck stops with Wenger.
Strung up by his naïve, obstinate, delusional vision that success can only truly come from within, his youth-policy and intuitive player-loyalty have well and truly backfired - a principle that, at least in theory, was to be admired in this day and age, but only with the necessary supplementation. Arsène Wenger actively and deliberately refused to fill clear chinks in the Arsenal squad’s armour that were the fine line between being winners or mere nearly-men.
The net result? Those youngsters, granted, many of whom did indeed develop to become world-class footballers, lost faith and moved on to bigger and better things. We became a stepping-stone. A selling club. And now it’s the fans’ turn to shed any hopes of a turn-around in this rigid, failing thought-process.
Over those fruitless E******s years, we have seen it all unfold. The League Cup final defeat to Birmingham, unfathomably numerous missed opportunities in cup competitions, consistent thrashings at the hands of the big boys of the Premier League and Europe, we have had to stomach a lot. Not to mention the sale, almost uncontrollable haemorrhage, of top players for a combined price of £120 million and spending just under half of the money made from sales on “strengthening” the squad; culminating of course in the sale of Robin van Persie to Manchester United, single-handedly handing them the title, whilst proving van Persie right that we just haven’t got what it takes to ever compete with the likes of United for years to come.
It has been a gradual, steadfast decline. And then there is the gloomier prospect that it may yet get even worse before it gets any better. With Champions League qualification far from certain for 2013-2014, we run the risk of losing further quality, quality that is sparse on the ground in a squad of full of mentally weak deadwood anyway, as well as the risk of not being able to deploy the cash reserves from bundles of player-sales, TV rights and ripping the fans off with the most extortionate prices of European football to attract the very best in the game.
And while the board of conmen are a root cause of the club’s abject failures, led by a silent owner in Kroenke who is in it for the money, and a shambolically uncharismatic liar of a PR man in Gazidis, Wenger and his fabled views lie at the centre of this mess.
From the heights of glory to the depths of despair, we have taken a sharp and humbling nose-dive, with the only one Arsène Wenger still in charge, steering an ever-sinking ship to the wall, and playing the same broken record that we are about to miraculously turn the corner. Saturday’s gutless defeat to Blackburn; the first time Wenger’s Arsenal were ever knocked out of the FA Cup either by lower league opposition or at home, was utterly symbolic, Tuesday’s mauling at the hands of Bayern, in the competition qualification for which has become the mere hallmark of success in Wenger and his board’s eyes, utterly ironic.
I predicted that we would never win a trophy under Wenger again back in 2008 when Eduardo broke his leg and, with it, our title hopes crumbled under the pressure. And year on year I am being proven right, and I take no pleasure in saying this.
The time has come to acknowledge that the Arsène Wenger of the Invincibles is not the same Arsène Wenger who rabidly tore into the press conference pre-Bayern, nor the same aloof, disconsolate figure on the bench as Mario Mandzukic looped in Bayern’s third.
The scent of revolution is very much in the foggy Arsenal air. The end will be tragic, no doubt, but it is time for Wenger to do the honourable thing and jump, before the fans push him out. An even sadder ending for a one-time great of the game, of Arsenal, none of us would like to see.
