Peter Le Beau
Three weeks to the new season and it appears that expectation or dread appears in equal measure among Gooners everywhere. After being able to shake off the stigma of not having won a trophy for nine years we went into the close season with a sense of optimism fuelled by the once familiar glint of silverware. Well to be honest a lot of Gooners did while others felt a sense of foreboding as it was confirmed that Arsene was to be with us for another three years.
There can be no major football club on earth whose supporters are so conflicted about the abilities of our manager. One reason of course is that there are very few football managers who have been in position for eighteen years. By the time his next contract is up he will have been in charge for over twenty years - and there is no guarantee that if he believes he is doing a good job he won't extend even further!
There has been massive debate, some of it highly acrimonious about Wenger and the ownership regime at the club. I have been very critical of our major shareholder, Stan Kroenke. I sensed too much complacency about a very lucrative investment that required little servicing and which was seeing us pay the highest admission prices in world football. A world-class stadium was nowhere near matched by the quality of the side. But I sense a difference in approach this close season. Is this post Cup Final reverie or something more substantial? Are we seeing the beginning of the fulfilment of the dream Ivan Gazidis has been pitching to us for years or will we continue to be seemingly happy to compete for the much derided (but extremely lucrative) fourth place trophy?
I am conscious I have begun an article on the current state of the club with a series of questions That is perhaps indicative of the uncertainty around our club. What I will attempt to do is give my interpretation of events as a supporter of fifty five years standing and a season- ticket holder for over twenty.
There is no doubt that we have gone through some incredibly frustrating years since the incredible 'Invincible' season in 2004. It was hard to comprehend what an incredible feat that team achieved and how brilliant it was. It is important to remember that Arsene Wenger created that team. All of that side were put in place by Wenger and not only were they unbeatable in league terms but they also played stunning football as well.
Some non-Arsenal fans cannot believe what they see as the ingratitude of Arsenal fans towards Wenger given what he has achieved for the club. I will never regard Ashburton Grove with the affection that I did Highbury but it has to be recognised that what Arsenal have done in building a stadium of that quality whilst still managing to qualify for the Champions League EVERY season is a remarkable achievement.
Nevertheless across the Gooner kingdom there are many who see the last ten years as years of underachievement bookended by two FA Cups but falling short of the standards set by more ambitious clubs. Perhaps a better word for ambitious would be wealthy because there is no doubt that the emergence of first Chelsea and then Manchester City has ramped up the level of competition and forced any club hoping to compete with them to invest very heavily as well.
Sit in any part of the stadium and on one side you will find a Wenger loyalist (AKBs as their detractors call them) whilst on the other you will find someone who believes we need a new manager, and most probably a new Board and a new vision. It's an astonishing situation and it has arisen partly because of Wenger's unwillingness to pass the buck onto a Board that has undoubtedly tied his hands financially just at the time when finances were exploding all over the world of football. Can you imagine Harry Redknapp or his ilk being prepared to face the opprobrium of the supporters and a large dose of cynicism and ridicule in the media without passing the blame, possibly quite justifiably onto the people in the Boardroom? No, me neither.
It is a matter of irrelevance to me that each day the leading sports radio station ridicule Arsenal. That a supporter of Peterborough United who occupies in terms of intellect and journalistic ability the same place as his team do in the football firmament should lead that ridicule is bizarre and yet many supporters feel it is Arsenal's own fault that they attract such criticism. Were Arsenal to adopt a more genuinely open culture, one where they communicate in a way that gives deeper answers to the questions so many supporters have, they might find their fans cut them considerably more slack. I can still recall the sheer terror in Sir Chips Keswick's eyes when I encountered him at the supporters Christmas function last year. Looking for a friendly face he entreated me, 'You're not going to ask me any difficult questions are you?' By difficult he of course meant was I going to grill him about our intentions in the transfer market.
A better indication of the culture that underpins the club at Boardroom level is the AGM and the rather condescending approach to ordinary shareholders. This has been a concern for many longstanding supporters who feel ostracised by a club that they love. Slick marketing can never replace real genuine desire to communicate openly and Arsenal's culture of shrouding everything in carefully cloaked legalese - players are signed on long- term contracts for undisclosed fees - has developed a sense of opacity in Arsenal's dealings with its fan base. Of course running a football club in 2014 without the input of a sugar daddy is a balancing act. The Puma deal which has released extra funds for our transfer activity will be financed by selling three new kits each season to already heavily committed supporters.
But the main bone of contention is Wenger. Is he an old reactionary, tactically incapable of taking on the loathsome but streetwise Mourinho and co? Is he too easily satisfied with a place in the Champions League and a healthy profit rather than using a reputed £100 million in cash reserves to build a team that can go those few steps further?
I must make my position clear. Arsene Wenger is a legend at the club and in years to come we will wonder why we were ever dissatisfied with a manager with his track record of consistent achievement. But I don't think with him in charge we will ever win a League title again or a Champions League. And that underlines the enormous conundrum facing the club.
This close season has suggested the appetite for building a squad able to sustain a true title challenge might be back. I applaud the moves we have made in the transfer market and hope there will be more. It will be enormously hard to scale the summit in Europe given the enormous investment being made by the mega-clubs. In a sense Wenger's problem is of his own making in that he gave us a glimpse of the stars and now many feel he has lost his mojo. After all they point out Arsenal have the fourth highest wage bill in the Premier League. Is it any huge feat then to finish fourth?
It is becoming a cliché to point to Old Trafford and catalogue their disastrous attempt to replace Ferguson. But in their struggle there are lessons for us to heed. We have a superbly stable financial position and a very good squad. Wenger will never splash the cash like some of the more profligate managers but he is clearly being encouraged to do so by his management team, the Board and not least his own players. Nobody should ever forget what he has done for this club but there will always be a sense that he is unable to take us back to the summit of English football and to win the Champions League. That frustration will always fuel the criticisms of his many detractors but we could be an awful lot worse off - and if Wenger had never arrived at the club we might find ourselves scrabbling around with Everton, Spurs and Manchester United (I couldn't resist that!) hoping to secure a place in the Europa League.
