Graham Perry
Ed’s Note - Before we begin, a quick mention for the recording this evening of the January edition of the Gooner podcast. Marc Ollington will be hosting a panel of myself (Kevin Whitcher), Steve Ashford (The Highbury Spy) and Mike Francis (the founder, original editor and publisher of The Gooner). Please tweet any questions / topics to @goonerpodcast or email them to [email protected].
The Editor’s piece on Saturday’s Cup win against Sunderland was excellent – comprehensive and perceptive. It also prompted many responses so no need for me to go over the same ground. Just a couple of points – still unsure why Ospina did not play – maybe it is a reported thigh strain. Ox missed when he hit the post but his pass to Bellerin which led to the third goal was top class. There is much more to come from him and Wenger is showing faith as Ox plays his way through an uncertain period. Finally Chambers – views are spilt. “He is the product - He isn’t the product”. He works hard. He takes responsibility. He wants to succeed. The problem for him is to get a run of matches. When you are in one day and out the next you snatch at chances when they come. An article on Eddie Kelly in a recent programme rings a bell here. Early on in his career at Highbury he was called in by Bertie Mee and told he was being given a run of eight matches. He knew he could make mistakes and still be selected for the next match. It worked and all of us remember Eddie for the Wembley goal but more so for the first goal against Anderlecht in April 1970. Forty five years ago it may be but clear as can be today.
Did you listen in to 606 and to Ian Wright and Piers Morgan? Let me make a comment about context. It is a word that has got me into trouble with some online gooners but when looking at anything the whole picture and not just part of the picture is essential. Echoes of “The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth”. Getting the complete story. OK now back to Morgan. He loves insults. He loves being the bête-noir. He is a newspaper man. He has a reputation to maintain. He needs to be controversial. Remember he failed in USA as successor to Larry King. A big blow to his ambitions, to his self-esteem, to his reputation. So what do you do in that situation? You bounce back and fast. You build yourself up, keep yourself in the public eye and start saying and doing things that enable you to replace the failure with something new and arresting. David Mellor was the same and he re-packaged himself as an expert on classical music and columnist on politics. Morgan uses Wenger to keep his name in front of the public and to remove the smell of the Larry King failure which make no mistake was a personal setback of considerable proportions.
Morgan has always been an Arsenal man and he has always been having a pop at Wenger and putting him on 606 gave him the platform he wanted. An opportunity to repeat his highly misleading arguments and keep himself at the fore of any Arsenal discussion.
His argument is that any manager that has failed to win a title/cup from 2005 to 2014 should have been fired. And he has a point. If you manage a top team and there are inevitable aspirations to win Cups and Leagues and you don’t have any success then questions have to be asked about whether you are the right man for the job. But is that the whole story or just half the story? He focuses on the nine year period and criticises the Arsenal Board for not sacking Wenger. Echoes here of Mourinho’s smear that Wenger is a “Specialist in Failure”. The nine barren years – that is it. The man has had his chance. He has failed. He has not got it. He has to go. Let someone else try.
This is why I say this is sleight of hand. This is misleading. It is not the whole story and when that happens the argument amounts to a distortion and that is what Morgan is guilty of. The whole picture is so important but just a part of the picture is so misleading.
Many of us who support Wenger know the whole story. We faced big problems at Highbury. The size of the crowd limited the size of the finances. If Arsenal wanted to compete at the highest level they had to make a big change and that had to mean a sugar daddy or a new stadium. We went for the latter option – the best option – the soundest option. We had a financial model and we had a business plan (it may mean that season tickets are too expensive but that is for another article). We could see a future. It was in the distance but it was realisable. Wenger was wedded to change. He knew the way the football world was going. He knew Arsenal wanted to compete. He bought into the grand plan knowing for sure that it meant financial stringency. Wenger’s eyes were wide open. If Arsenal were to be a top club with a secure financial base in the long term there had to be financial restraint in the short term and the short term continued until he bought Ozil. That was the statement. That was the announcement that Arsenal had made the change – not completed it but well on the way.
But what of the intervening years. How did cope? How did he manage to keep us as a top four club and occasionally in contention for top place. There was only one way – Arsenal had to become a selling Club. We had to take one step backwards in order to take two steps forward. We sold Henry, Toure, Nasri, Adebayor, Fabregas, Clichy and Van Persie. All of these players were offered better terms elsewhere by Clubs with more money than Arsenal. They took the money. They were entitled to take the money. They were top players. Their careers are short. They want to play at the highest level. Arsenal could not offer them the prospect of top salaries and bonuses. They left and they left a hole. But not once did we flirt with relegation. Not once did we become mid-table. Despite the handcuffs on funds and some unsuccessful purchases – Senderos, Denilson, Bendtner, Almunia, Silvestre even Arshavin – he managed to compete at the highest level. It is such an achievement.
And yet to Morgan it is such a failure. And that is why I have no time for the man. He maintains a public profile by trading on half truths. But he is a newspaper man. He has a platform. He is a capable performer but he never tells the whole story. I was lined up in a queue last night to go on to 606. I wanted to confront him. He needs to be exposed. We need to write history as it is and not how some with an agenda want us to see it. A famous historian, the late Professor EH Carr wrote a famous book called What Is History? A slim volume but indispensible to anyone who wants to read History and in one of his lectures on this subject he advised his students to study the historian before you study his history. Know where the historian is coming from and know what his agendas are. Good advice for an Arsenal supporter.
On to Anfield.
* You can follow my tweets @arsenalcircular
