CanadaGooner
(Ed’s note – Piece submitted shortly before last Wednesday’s Champions League match.) Regardless of what happens against Borussia Dortmund, I am penning this article now, from what I hope most people would agree to be a very balanced perspective. I can see things from the AKB’s fairy-tale perspective (and morbid fear of what could happen if Wenger leaves, especially after what we’ve seen with Man Utd recently) and from the AMG/WOB perspective, which dreads what will happen when Wenger leaves but still hangs about on the board and stubbornly continue to attempt to pull the strings. What is sanely clear, is that we have gone from being a club on the ascendancy, with piles of promise, to a club that is wallowing in stagnation and perhaps even on a downward spiral.
Some months back, the newspapers had a caption: “Wally without a Brolly” with a soaked and confused-looking Wenger after one of the now all too familiar maulings by our supposed competitors. I was incensed when I read that article in the newspapers, no doubt written by a bunch of half-baked journalists with no footballing experience (one of Wenger’s popular defensive statements) who are more interested in the glamorous side of football than anything else. I posted an article on onlinegooner in staunch defence of OGL, which I felt very needful (and I still do), for all the good he has done at Arsenal, particularly in his first 10 years in-charge.
I am not a big fan of Mourinho, but he is a manager who is probably as stubborn as Wenger, and if he does not have his own way, he sulks and moves on to another club BUT most importantly, his methods work, and he continues to win. Wenger had several chances to move on to manage other clubs, on the back of his first successful years at Arsenal, but he chose to stay, because he cannot fathom the changes to his style and the rigors that will be required to be successful at those clubs, and most importantly, he knows there isn’t another club out there that would allow him to go eight years without a trophy. I am also not sure there are any sets of fans out there, who would still worship him as some of our fans do, after eight years of zero trophies (prior to the latest FA Cup win).
I have upmost respect for Wenger and what he did in his first nine years at Arsenal and it is with great sadness that I read some of the things now being said about him, and it will only get worse. He is almost like a third-world dictator, who will hang on there regardless of public opinion or the obvious decline. Even when we had a brilliant team under Wenger, in those early years, we still failed to push on to win back to back Premiership titles (because we were told by Wenger that the Champions League meant more) and failed to win the Champions League when we had our chances. But most importantly, we could have had a massive haul of League Cup trophies, but he p***ed it all away with project youth and giving young players a chance! Only for them to all walk away anyway, or spend months on the injury list. Almost every decent team in the Premier League has an ex-Arsenal player as part of their core team! So, where did project youth get us? We became a feeder team!
Even if we win v Dortmund, does anyone think we will win the Champions League?
I dread to watch the post-match interviews these days and cringe even more, ahead of pre-match interviews, as you can almost expect the same choice words from Wenger. He has become so self-important and delusional, that the embarrassment for our club, with each mauling we receive from the same teams season in, season out, has become nothing short of bizarre! When every team in the land was stuffing it to Man Utd last season, we were the only top side to go and lose there. Followed by what has now become a very regular drubbing by Man City, Chelsea and even Liverpool are now chipping in, and don’t forget the usual Wenger favourites like Swansea, who now wish they can play us every Saturday: we dominate, pile forward, and they get the clinching goals. Almost now a Wenger legacy.
I will end this article by saying to those Wenger-worshippers out there; we were all in your shoes some years back, and YES, we all still have a massive amount of respect for Wenger for what he did in his first few years at Arsenal, BUT it is no longer working. All the teams have woken up to him; he has become the most predictable commodity in modern day football and the teams he sends out there have become the most predictable teams in top tier football, so, TIME TO MOVE ON PLEASE. It’s a no brainer.
