Emmanuel Fyle
Dear Arsène,
This letter is coming from a fan of over 30 years.
I have supported this club through various spells both lean and victorious. I understand the transient nature of football, and winning isn’t always possible. Some times are tougher, and you take the rough with the smooth. I respect you as a football manager for your achievements and hard work for Arsenal and there is no question that you will forever be remembered by generations of fans.
A football club has a social contract with its fans and is supposed to share a bond. In return for the hard earned money and unconditional support the fans give over, the manager and club are to do absolutely everything within their power to ensure success. To my mind, and that of thousands of Arsenal fans I speak to, this is not happening under your tenure – and has not been for several years.
It appears that your individual principles, and the manner in which you individually see football, take precedence over what Arsenal FC requires. Hence, if Arsène Wenger decides a player valuation is not to his liking then, irrespective of the glaring deficiencies in the squad, Arsène Wenger’s principles will win (to the detriment of the club). For an individual with a much-feted degree in economics, it is rather incredible that you fail to grasp the vagaries of the modern-day transfer market, and that price is determined by supply and demand. Hence a player is not worth whatever Arsène Wenger deems the player to be worth – he is deemed what the market determines he is worth. This point is exacerbated by the fact that you appear perfectly aware of how the market functions when it comes to making profits for the club: Adebayor sold for over £25 million, Nasri sold for over £24 million (despite having just one year of his contract left), Cesc Fabregas sold for £35 million. And yet, you are still to pay more than £20 million for a single player.
Teams like Aston Villa, Tottenham and Liverpool have all exceeded Arsenal’s transfer records, despite not having the luxury of Champions League television revenue. This is inexcusable, and more so in light of the fact that you personally defended the club hiking season ticket prices by 6.5%. This was allegedly done to ‘be more competitive in a testing transfer market’.
It is admirable to an extent that you have a strong philosophical belief in financial fair play, and a dislike for the excesses of vast oil wealth. Again, however, you have not opposed profiting from clubs such as Manchester City and Chelsea, selling players to them for vastly inflated fees – hence fuelling the success of these ‘financially-doped’ clubs and ironically, inflating the market whose very inflation you rail against. Despite your consistent deploring of the excessive wages that players demand, it is well-documented that your personal salary packet is, itself, huge.
There is only so much that oil money and financial doping can legislate for. It cannot legislate for any Arsenal manager citing fourth place as a ‘trophy’. It cannot legislate for domestic competition exits to Bradford and Blackburn in the same season. It cannot legislate for deliberately fielding weakened sides in serious cup competitions, and then dismissing the FA Cup as ‘not a trophy’. I think you will find that if you look around Arsenal’s honours in the Emirates stadium, the FA Cup of 2005 is noted as the last trophy the club won. You cannot begin to redefine which trophies can be selectively called trophies, because football and the history books do not distinguish between trophies.
I understand that you cannot win everything, every year. Unfortunate things happen in football that can throw plans into disarray. However the well-known saying is that if you fail to prepare, you must prepare to fail.
There is no excuse for becoming the first Premier League club to throw away a four-goal lead. There is no excuse for becoming the first Arsenal manager to suffer the ignominy of suffering an 8-2 humiliation at Old Trafford. This defeat was a direct consequence of a failure to prepare your team adequately for the season. There is never an excuse for a manager of your individual standing to look at the past eight years, and see that you have achieved less trophy prestige than the past and present managers of Swansea FC, Wigan Athletic, Portsmouth FC and Birmingham FC.
There is no excuse for losing a cup final to a Birmingham team that was subsequently relegated. Again, this defeat was a direct consequence of a failure to prepare, and a certain superiority complex that has appeared all too common at the club over the past few years, whereby ‘inferior’ opposition are not treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve. So, as the Birmingham players all turned up to Wembley early, dressed in suits and ties; the Arsenal ensemble arrived dressed in tracksuits and trainers, and appeared to think they only needed to turn up.
This is not the Arsenal way.
However, Arsène, two more recent incidents have occurred, which now serve to confirm absolutely that your time as manager of Arsenal must come to an end.
The first is the absolutely unacceptable preparation for the current season. Arsenal are one of the richest clubs in Europe. This is confirmed by Deloitte and by Forbes. Their cash reserves are immense, their financial health has been documented and analysed by the likes of Swiss Ramble. The glaring deficiencies in the team are well known to almost everyone, and Arsenal had the advantage of having settled management to steal a march on the likes of rivals Manchester City and Chelsea. The summer however, irrespective of what may occur in the next two weeks, has been an unmitigated disaster, and a shining example of how not to prepare. For this there are no excuses.
What is even more staggering however, is that you have openly stated that, despite spending ’24 hours a day’ analysing every player in Europe, you have been unable to find players of better quality than the ones you currently possess. This would be the same group of players incapable of mounting any credible challenge for the league last season, and that were embarrassed in the domestic cup competitions. You have even gone so far as to ask journalists and fans to immediately name-check the players better than your current ones. This is supposed to be your job, not that of the journalists. It is what you are paid to specialise in. If it is indeed true that you have been unable to identify anyone better than these players; then this is a sure sign that your tenure as Arsenal manager must end.
It is simply unacceptable for a club of Arsenal’s prestige and standing to be subjected to a scenario where there is barely a left-footed defender available in the whole squad, where there are barely 16 top-level players available for selection in the entire club, where an erratic goalkeeper continues to make key errors knowing there are no credible consequences for his actions; and whereby the team ends a match with an international attacker at left-back, a midfielder at centre-back, and a right-back playing out of position on the left. This does not happen at non-league clubs and it certainly should not be happening to a club with aspirations of winning the Champions League.
The second incident which occurred was the sale of Robin van Persie to Manchester United. Now, as fans, we understand that the player wanted to go and that it is difficult to keep an unhappy player. However this was the Arsenal captain and the best striker in the division. Having competed with Manchester United for so many seasons; it goes against the competitive spirit to sell van Persie to them. This summer has proved again that there was an alternative to selling van Persie. Liverpool, who have nowhere near the financial resources of Arsenal, dug their heels in with Luis Suarez and refused to sell him to Arsenal. This was despite not having Champions League football and despite a mammoth offer. Manchester United, likewise, have refused to entertain the notion of selling Wayne Rooney to a domestic rival, despite the offers on the table. In fact, looking further afield, even Borussia Dortmund held on to Robert Lewandowski despite his being a free agent next summer. Their manager emphasised that footballing ambition and rivalry would always supersede money (Goetze had left only because of a legal clause in his contract – Dortmund have learned from this and now removed all clauses from future contracts).
However van Persie was gift-wrapped to Manchester United with the sign-off from you to Alex Ferguson that ‘he is better than you think’.
I believe this is a huge betrayal of the Arsenal fans.
You have been at Arsenal many years and you have done a lot for Arsenal – but Arsenal has done even more for you. There is absolutely no chance that any other elite club would tolerate three years without a single trophy, let alone eight. It is unthinkable. Arsenal fans have patiently backed you for eight fruitless years. They have stood silent as you derisorily told them they ‘had not worked half a day in football’ (a peculiar observation, as it would mean film critics would all have to retire, not having worked half a day as directors). They still said nothing as you again accused them of wanting caviar on a daily basis. You even went as far as to blame these fans for Gervinho’s failure as a footballer just a few days ago. You have failed to take personal responsibility for Arsenal’s current state, whereby it is deemed ok to celebrate fourth place with champagne, and sell your best players to domestic rivals.
