Peter Le Beau
It's a remarkable thing that after eighteen years in the job the jury is still out among some Arsenal supporters on whether Arsene Wenger is the man they want to manage their football club. I guess whichever club you picked, you would find periods where the popularity of the manager waxed and waned. I know of one extremely intelligent and well-balanced Manchester United season ticket holder who never changed his early opinion that Sir Alex Ferguson was not a good manager of Manchester a United and was delighted when he announced his resignation. I wonder what he thinks now?
I mention this because on 22nd March Arsene Wenger will celebrate his 1000th match in charge of Arsenal Football Club. It is a remarkable achievement that will be debated in the press because his 1000th match will be against his Nemesis, (to me the utterly obnoxious) Jose Mourinho who has veered in his return to British football from referring to Arsene like a long lost relative (did anyone note, because Mourinho went out of his way to accentuate it, the phoney greeting before the Capital One Cup Tie this season?) to calling him ' a specialist in failure'. Wenger rightly did not respond to that most crass of remarks, but I personally felt a revulsion that a remarkable man had been vilified in this way. Imagine my astonishment when on a couple of well- known Arsenal websites, the overwhelming reaction was that Mourinho was right.
It pointed out the astonishing schism in Arsenal supporters between those who believe Wenger has done an extraordinary job at the helm of our club for 18 years and those who would replace him with any number of potential candidates. Over the years fashions have changed but I have seen people suggest the likes of Pardew, Redknapp, Moyes (ha ha), McLeish and O'Neill to replace him. Here I must confess that in a Gooner end of season poll a few seasons ago I responded to a question that asked who might replace Wenger when he stepped down as Arsenal manager with the answer Andre Villas-Boas who had just won the Europa League with Porto. That just shows how fashions in rating managers can alter quite radically over a short period of time.
As Wenger approaches what I think we have to regard as a phenomenal milestone, the press have started to pick up on a common theme. The first nine years of his reign were the Glory years, the next nine the Trophyless years and now we enter his third era. The wisdom among Fleet Street's finest is that these years (and there can't be nine surely?) will be the years when Arsene splashes the cash and restores Arsenal's position at the top of English and possibly of European football. There is decent backing for this hypothesis although we might re-classify the earlier periods as the Highbury Years and the Years of Austerity to underline the way in which the influx of huge amounts of foreign cash - 'financial doping' as Arsene refers to them - have so tilted the playing field against most sides in the top echelon of English football.
But, is this correct or is it a romantic tale told by a Fleet Street getting all sentimental about the senior statesman of English football? I think it is rather convenient to compartmentalise his Arsenal career as neatly as this but it also may sell him short in cataloguing the last nine years as failure. There can't be many Arsenal fans who aren't heartily sick of hearing the continuing dirge that it is now 7/8/9 years since Arsenal won a trophy. How many other teams face this sort of scrutiny?
It is amazing that our neighbours from N. 17 who haven't contended for let alone won the League for FIFTY THREE YEARS don't have this fact rammed down their throat at every opportunity. It rankles that the most popular radio sports station have a programme in which they debate 'the Daily Arsenal'. In truth it doesn't rankle much because the untalented and vindictive obsessive, who registers the tiniest of blips on the Richter Scale of importance in football is really not worthy of serious consideration. But in truth we have an ongoing critique of Wenger's abilities which suggests that the man is a failure and needs to be replaced before Arsenal can regain their former glories.
Let's examine the evidence. In trophy terms Wenger has landed seven major trophies including two doubles and an unbeaten league season and also taken the club to within ten minutes of the Champions League. He has also overseen qualification for the Champions League 17 times in a row. We are well on our way to making it 18 as I write.
Yet his critics, and even within the fan base there are many of them, feel that under Wenger we will never win another trophy. They cite an inability to win the big matches, an unwillingness to spend big or spend at all at times and a feeling that we are in a Groundhog Day scenario that sees us continually fall short of the highest prizes. These are all fair points. I, myself have written in the Gooner about this Groundhog Day feeling. I liken this feeling of frustration to the ups and downs you have in any long relationship. The managerial grass looks greener as far as we are concerned with managers who are the flavour of the month but have no concerted record of success. There are of course the very big beasts of football management like Guardiola, Mourinho or Ancelotti who have won the big prizes regularly. But have they had to operate as Wenger did for a long period in which Arsenal were a selling club and a team that were severely limited in what they could do in the transfer market? Could we imagine, Mourinho for instance staying at a club for nine years where he was forced to make a net profit on transfers. Could he do this and still deliver trophies? Could he do this and unfailingly deliver Champions League?
Wenger opponents, I nearly said Wenger haters because I know several Arsenal fans who hate his style and wince at his interviews, claim that despite the financial restrictions the opportunity to spend has been there for several seasons. They point to apparent cash reserves in excess of £200 million and feel that had we applied some of this cash to the team we could have closed out at least two titles in recent seasons. The recent transfer window fiasco in which we failed to recruit a much-needed striker and ended up loaning an injured Swede who has yet to play for us suggested that Wenger's conservatism has grown as a result of having to scrimp and save in the years following the move away from Highbury. His larger purchases Reyes, Arshavin and Wiltord (and the churlish would cite Ozil) have been criticised as not being successful but any assessment of Wenger in the transfer market has to cite the incredible purchases he has made who rate among the greatest players in the history of our wonderful club.
If you ask me whether I prefer our new home to Highbury, I always point out that my heart will always be at our original home. It was a place I fell in love with on my first visit and that feeling never left me. But I also accept that we had to seek a new site and build a new stadium and this enormous challenge has been facilitated by the phenomenal consistency of Wenger's attainment. I believe that only Ferguson and Wenger could have achieved this given the spending restrictions that ensued. It is little short of a miracle that we have not slipped out of the challengers for the top prizes in our football. Having said this I do believe that Wenger' s need to balance the books has made him too risk-averse in trying to build a team that will restore our former glories. I believe we might have been able to win the League with a more adventurous manager but could such a manager have endured the hardships Wenger has to get in that position and would they be willing to work for so long knowing that their CV would show comparative failure? I think we know the answer and I think we need to accept that Wenger is a remarkable man who will only be truly revered when he has stepped down from the job. If this season can bring a third double it would be a huge vindication of his ideas and policy but for me an FA Cup win in May would finally lay the bogey that has hovered over the club since we moved to Ashburton Grove.
As the 1000th game approaches I believe all Arsenal fans should acknowledge a figure almost without parallel in our history who has created teams with a style of play that has radically altered the perception of the club throughout the world. I don't think I could ever be prouder of my club than when we completed the Invincible season, Many great players delivered that success but the primary architect was Wenger. Let us hope that if there is a third era he is willing to undo the purse strings that have restricted the last nine years of his reign and that our club can give him and us the glory that we all crave. Congratulations Arsene!
