James Goyder
Arsenal’s defensive capitulation at the Britannia Stadium was hardly unexpected but this latest setback leaves Arsene Wenger in a hole which he is going to have serious difficulty digging his way out of.
Wenger’s feat in securing Arsenal’s long term financial future by keeping the club permanently in the top four while operating on a significantly smaller budget than any of his rivals was remarkable, let’s not forget that.
But this year expectations have changed. Arsenal are no longer handicapped by an inability to compete in the transfer market and the moment which Wenger has been building towards since the day he first began selling players to help finance a new stadium and training ground has finally arrived.
With an FA Cup in the trophy cabinet and a transfer budget big enough to take the team from being perennial Champions League qualifiers to mounting a genuine title challenge this should have been the season which Wenger had been dreaming of during all those years of financial abstinence.
Instead it has turned into the stuff of nightmares and in many ways Wenger has no-one to blame but himself because Arsenal’s shortcomings are nothing if not predictable and, most frustratingly of all for fans, could so easily have been addressed during a summer which promised so much.
Were Wenger to have succeeded with a strategy that looked completely counterintuitive, putting together a squad stacked with attack minded players but containing only two established centre backs, he would have looked like a genius but these decisions have backfired badly and the backlash is understandably brutal.
Going into the summer the average fan probably had a list of prospective signings which consisted of a first choice defensive midfielder, a first choice right back, a fourth choice centre back, a second choice goalkeeper and a striker capable of providing serious competition for Olivier Giroud.
As always the manager had slightly different ideas and spent the bulk of his budget on Alexis Sanchez. In many ways it was a typical Wenger gambit, finding the one skilful attacker who could somehow improve the options of a squad already overloaded with players at their best in exactly that role.
Sanchez has arguably made a more immediate impact than any signing in Arsenal history but while the signing (for the same price as Erik Lamela…) was a stroke of genius which demonstrated the things that Wenger still does brilliantly it has also served to starkly underline his shortcomings.
Despite long term injuries to the likes of Mezut Ozil, Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott and Serge Gnabry the squad still contains an abundance of experienced, not to mention well paid, attacking players who have barely got a look in while there is an unprecedented paucity of defensive options.
Thomas Vermaelen has yet to make his Barcelona debut so the decision to sell him was sound while few Arsenal fans could have any qualms about the business conducted in shipping out Bacary Sagna (who Wenger was powerless to prevent leaving) and Carl Jenkinson to bring in both Matthieu Debuchy and Calum Chambers.
But failing to replace Vermalaen was a decision for which some will never forgive Wenger because it was so obviously idiotic. Going into a season with three established centre backs in the squad would have been a gamble, trying to survive with just two was akin to managerial suicide.
That Chambers and Monreal have both put in relatively solid performances in the position is no excuse. They are the second choice full backs, that is the primary function which both players perform in the squad and they should never have been required to slot into the heart of the defence with such alarming regularity.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that, while Arsenal are frequently unable to find a single fit defender to sit on the substitutes bench, the likes of Joel Campbell, Lukas Podolski and Tomas Rosicky have been more or less surplus to requirements, last gasp Anderlecht winners aside.
In the manager’s defence, while many of these problems were predictable it is not fair to suggest that they were inevitable. Mertesacker and Koscielny somehow managed to stay fit for almost an entire season last time around and with another stroke of luck like that Wenger might just have got away with it.
This season fortune has deserted the longest serving manager in the Premier League. Koscielny, Debuchy, Chambers, Gibbs and Monreal have between them missed multiple games due to either injury or suspension and as a result the lopsided composition of the current squad has been horribly exposed.
Where does that leave Wenger? This season was supposed to be about progress, about building on a fourth place finish and an FA Cup win but it has begun so disastrously that it looks increasingly impossible for the club to even match last year’s achievements, let alone improve on them.
The only way for Wenger to silence his detractors would be by either mounting a serious title challenge or reaching the final four of the Champions League. The former ambition already looks completely out of reach while the latter is far fetched given Arsenal’s recent record against the top teams in Europe.
Even if Arsenal hit top form during December and finish the season on a high very few supporters are going to be placated with even a third place finish. This campaign promised so much but it already looks as if Wenger has not managed to assemble a squad capable of living up to the lofty expectations.
It’s undeniably been a massive disappointment but the idea that the manager should leave now is too ridiculous to even merit serious discussion. If the season is now about the race for a top four finish (and let’s face it, it is) who better to mastermind that than the man who has managed it 15 years in a row?
