Colin H, the Margate Gooner
Remember the moronic shouts after the first game last season: “Spend some f***ing money!”? Never mind who’s actually available on the transfer market, never mind that Arsene for some bizarre reason has never seen any point in buying players who weren’t actually better than those already in the squad. Just spend some f***ng money for the sake of spending some f***ng money. They’re the same people, I suspect, as those who insist Arsene Must Go, although any suggestions they then come up for replacing a man who is still internationally acclaimed as one of the greatest managers of all time are either ludicrously inadequate or are cloud cuckoo-land fantasies.
As it happens, soon after that defeat to Aston Villa, he did spend some money and bringing a world class player like Mesut Ozil to the club for an Arsenal record transfer fee certainly had a galvanising effect on the squad and fans alike. Together with this summer’s signings, the arrival of Ozil (and the wonderful Cazorla the previous year) confirmed that the long years of financial retrenchment following the move to the new stadium are finally over and Gooners at last can look to the future with some optimism.
So have we heard the last from the AMGs? I doubt it. “Fourth place again is just not good enough for a club like Arsenal.” Such mindless arrogance ignores all the positives and reasons to be cheerful to be taken from last season. Such as:
1. The long trophyless drought finally ended with our FA Cup success, and although our ties, by the luck of the draw, were all played at home, on the way to the final we beat three teams in the top six of the Premiership.
2. We led the league for longer than any other club, and I for one have little doubt we would have made a much more sustained challenge for the top spot if we hadn’t been plagued by the unprecedented number of serious long-term injuries, most of them to key, irreplaceable players.
3. When it looked as if our season was falling apart we still rallied and comfortably achieved a Champions League play off place for the 18th successive season.
4. After that first game, we were unbeaten at home for the rest of the season.
5. Games against Spurs – P3, W3, L0.
6. The nineteenth consecutive season we’ve finished above our North London would-be rivals.
7. We continued to watch what so often was sparkling football played in the best stadium in the country.
Any Arsenal fan whose memories go back as far as mine (I went to watch the great Wolves team for my first match at Highbury in 1956 but by the final whistle a lifelong Gooner had been born) will tell you that by the standards of our performances in the post war and pre-Wenger years 2013-2014 has to be judged a comparatively successful season. Let’s be honest. Arsene’s success in his first eight years in charge (three Premiership titles, which included the Invincibles season, four second places and three FA Cups) spoiled us. But don’t expect our Johnny-come-lately supporters to show any gratitude or appreciation of all that was achieved. Such is their absurdly unrealistic expectations, because we haven’t finished top since 2004 the last ten years are written off as unmitigated failure and the solution is obvious: “Arsene Must Go!”
No recognition, then, that for historical reasons Man U. have for more than 50 years had a wider fan base and stronger finances behind them than we could ever match, so for Arsenal to pip them for the top spot three times out of eight between 1998 and 2004 was a fantastic achievement that no other club came anywhere near matching. No recognition that from the 1950s to the late 1980s, in the national pecking order we were also behind Liverpool and Leeds and on a par with clubs like Everton and Spurs. Nor that the billionaires who took over Chelsea and Man City completely changed the face of football in this country. The unlimited funds at their disposal, funds which reflected their owners’ wealth rather than the clubs’ fan base and income from football sources, introduced an element of financial unreality – and irresponsibility - to the Premiership. In the climate they have created, neither we nor any other financially prudent club can hope to compete with the unrealistic transfer fees and the salaries they are prepared to pay to buy success. Inevitably, over the last decade they have recruited better players than we could afford, including poaching some of our own stars who doubled their salaries by moving north.
All this at a time when the purse strings were tightly tied as we made sacrifices to finance the move to the Emirates. Something else, incidentally, Arsene is still often blamed for by sentimentalists too blinkered to see that, given football’s changing financial climate, staying at Highbury in the medium to long term would have condemned us inevitably to mid-table mediocrity at best. Not least of Arsene’s gifts is his financial acumen; eight years on and the financing of the new stadium is under control (let’s see how long it takes Spurs to get to such an enviable position should their Walter Mittyish dreams for developing the Lane ever come to fruition!) Look how he has contributed to maximising our revenues:
• by creating a stadium where 60,000 fans flock to watch every home game;
• by maximising our TV receipts by producing entertaining teams people want to watch…
• and by taking us into the Champions League and then on to its knock out stage year after year;
• by his astute buying and careful development of young players while making huge profits on the players we have been forced to sell when their financial greed proved stronger than their loyalty. (No, that’s not fair. Which of us, let’s be honest, would turn down the opportunity to double our wages during the few years left of our careers?)
Here I’ll state a simple fact: Arsene is the greatest Arsenal manager ever. So we went a few years without winning a trophy. What’s new - it’s happened many times in our history. Nothing won at all until 1931. Eighteen years without a league championship between 1953 and 1971 with just an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup to put in the trophy cabinet in 1970. Then eighteen more years before our next title and just one FA and one League Cup to celebrate during that time. Georgie Graham, blessings upon him, then raised our expectations, but even he doesn’t come close to matching the consistency of Arsene’s record. Nor can any other manager, not even the legendary Herbert Chapman, who after his great success managing Huddersfield was in charge for five years before he led us to our first ever league title. Add up Arsenal’s final league position under each manager and divide by the number of years they were in charge and the calculation will give you the average position achieved under their stewardship. Here’s the table in reverse order of success:
12 Jack Crayston Average Position: 12
11 Billy Wright 10.4
10 George Swindin 9.25
9 Bertie Mee 8.3
8 Don Howe 6.66
7 Terry Neil 6
6 Herbert Chapman 5.4
5 Tom Whitaker 5.2
4 George Graham 5.1
3 Bruce Rioch 5
2 George Allison 4.83
1 Arsene Wenger 2.94
All the more astonishing: Arsene has achieved such consistency over a far longer reign than any of his predecessors (Tom Whitaker and Bertie Mee with 10 seasons apiece are our joint second longest serving managers). “Ah, yes, all very well,” reply the AMGs, “but what about the last ten years?” Answer: average position over that period: 3.5. I rest my case.
So let us give thanks for the admirable Arsene. His revolutionary methods transformed not only our own training regime and style of play (“Boring, boring Arsenal!” has become our own supporters’ ironic celebratory chant rather than mockery by our opponents’ fans), but have been widely copied both in England and abroad. This manager has brought us unprecedented footballing success and raised the profile and respect for our club throughout the world. His financial acumen, after moving us to one of the world’s finest football stadiums, has transformed us into the fifth most valuable football club in the world. Moreover, few managers have ever commanded the almost universal respect and affection of the players who have worked for him. When did an Arsene player do other than express gratitude for his guidance in improving his game or admiration of the man’s wisdom and personal integrity?
And let us also give thanks for the wisdom of the Arsenal board for their loyal support, for the trust they have so consistently shown in the manager’s vision and judgment, and not least for turning a deaf ear to the groundswell in recent seasons of anti-Arsene bleating. It emanates, I believe, from those most fickle of “fans”, the easily bored, the cravers of novelty for its own sake. The ones, in other words, who place no value either on stability or a consistent record of success. If that should happen to be your own mindset, you really would be much happier down the Lane. Twelve different managers during Arsene’s reign here, surely that should satisfy even the most voracious appetite for innovation. If you happen to be on speaking terms with a Spud, incidentally, ask him how he feels about the statistic!
