Ernesto Garvey
I used to frequently write in articles as far back as 2008, as a contribution to this site but I have become so disillusioned, so disenchanted and utterly bored sick of the repetitive Groundhog Day farce that Arsene Wenger, in collusion with the repugnant Stan Kroenke has served up, that I no longer even have the motivation to pass comment on Arsenal-related matters. However there are extenuating circumstances this year, and it is one of the most abhorrent for any Arsenal fan: Tottenham Hotspur are realistic contenders to win the Premier League title.
Now just to put into context how scandalous this is, Spurs spend less than half of what Arsenal do in wages. Wenger, who has for so long bored us about his “English core” (one that has proven to be hilariously inept from Walcott, to Oxlade, to Jenkinson, to Gibbs) has sat back and watched Spurs compete for a league title with Dele Alli, Dier and Kane. The three players I’ve just mentioned collectively earn less in a week than Theo “how do you control this round thing” Walcott. For years we were told by Wenger and his dwindling army of apologists that building a new stadium meant it was impossible to compete – the fact the Spuds are doing the same as we speak, is shocking.
The only upside to this compelling Premier League season is that it has ultimately exposed Arsene Wenger for what he truly is: a deeply mediocre manager who is stuck in the dark ages, and ran out of ideas over a decade ago. Some people would be willing to cut Wenger more slack were it not for his breathtaking arrogance and his disrespectful lack of accountability. On the rare occasions he is questioned by the media about insufficient performance, he bristles with withering contempt and demeans and belittles the journalist. Who could ever forget his disgraceful condescending response to the BBC’s Jacqui Oatley asking him perfectly valid questions?
The other thing this season has done is to expose the several years of lies Wenger, Gazidis et al have concocted. You CAN compete with oil money or with clubs that make more money than you. There seems to be a clutch of Arsenal “followers” who have attached themselves to the Cult of Wenger so closely you’d think it was North Korea. If they knew anything about Arsenal outside Wenger though, they’d realise that managers like George Graham competed with far richer teams and succeeded. Diego Simeone in Spain has beaten Real Madrid for three consecutive years in the Bernabeu and is again competing for the league despite having his best players tapped up and sold year after year. According to Wenger’s latest excuse, Arsenal have failed to win league titles as his players were “being tapped up”. Of course, Diego Costa hadn’t already signed for Chelski in the year Atletico beat Barca and Madrid to the Liga title eh? And Ronaldo hadn’t already been tapped up by Madrid in his final season at Man United, where he again won the league with them. Right? The best managers find a way and scout better, motivate better, implement innovative tactics.
What sub-standard managers do is to lie down, wave the white flag and pre-empt the excuses by claiming they “cannot compete”. Something we have seen an example of with a Wenger protégé like Remi Garde oddly enough. That is a pathetic mentality that demeans the history of a great club and that has sadly filtered down to a number of Wenger’s chums that populate the Emirates. If Arsenal’s former managers had a similar approach to Wenger, you could strike out at least 5 of our 13 league titles, as these were achieved against far wealthier clubs.
What is particularly galling to me, is Wenger’s absolute lack of accountability and loath as I am to agree with Mourinho, he nailed it on that lack of accountability. This is the first time in living memory I recall the press beginning to get the knives out for Wenger and it took an unacceptable performance against Man United’s under 15s for this to happen. Wenger’s response after one of the worst performances of any Arsenal manager, was typically graceless, artless and gutless – referring to Man United “spending a lot of money”. Of course, everyone remembers young Marcus Rashford’s medical after his £76million transfer from Barcelona right? Of course, whenever Wenger scrapes a win at home to Burnley, Sunderland or Villa, he never mentions the fact that Sanchez probably cost more than half their teams. The fact that Ozil cost more than the entire Leicester first-choice 11 is never mentioned by Wenger’s apologists.
One of the most insulting things however, is how the club tends to react after unacceptable results and scrutiny. It’s similar to how communist regimes used to “spread” information after a scandal. As sure as night followed day, the classic Wenger-Gazidis distraction technique was used the day after the Man United inquest, with various club leaks in the papers claiming Wenger “will spend £115m renovating squad”. They really must think Arsenal fans are the dumbest fans around. The obvious retort to this is: last summer, Wenger had £100m. Apparently, there weren’t any players in all Europe better than the ones he had already, so why would that change next summer then? He did not sign a single outfield player in the whole summer window, when there were no international tournaments on to “inflate prices”. In January, with Arsenal in a prime position to win the league, Wenger achieved the amazing feat of finding a player as mediocre as Mattieu Flamini (his name is El-Neny) – despite having millions, he did not even look for a quality striker, a quality holding midfielder or a centre-back that can combine running at pace with bravery and talent. The horse has bolted and Pep Guardiola will eat up the league next season, whilst Everton will now splash the cash. Chelsea have Conte and of course we all know how well Arsene Wenger performs against Jose Mourinho. Just how stupid do Wenger and Gazidis think Arsenal fans are?
To conclude this let us cut to the chase. If Leicester or Tottenham finish above Arsenal, Arsene Wenger cannot remain and it is the duty of every Arsenal fan to ensure this. Every day he remains after that would be a stain on Arsenal’s great name and this board and CEO will go down as the biggest collection of ingrates in the history of this club. It shall be noted. People like to talk about the board a lot as a distraction to take away from Wenger’s ineptitude and whilst Kroenke’s complete acceptance of mediocrity and refusal to sack Wenger should be noted – on the pitch, there is only one man responsible. Arsenal fans have been far too tolerant of mediocrity for far too long. Arsene Wenger has frequently disrespected the club and its history. He reminds us we were “nowhere” in the CL before he turned up. The comedy of this is, if you look at the past 6 years, APOEL Nicosia, Monaco and Marseille are outperforming Wenger. Arsene Wenger has publicly involved himself in matters that are none of his business, such as ticket pricing: he openly declared that fans shouldn’t expect prices to come down as a result of the new tv deal. He is the only Premier League manager who defended this greedy model when asked – no other manager did it, conscious of how arduous the prices are for fans. Wenger showed a total lack of empathy – which is easy to do when you earn £8.5m per year for sitting motionless on a bench for 85 minutes whilst you spend the other 10 minutes abusing the fourth official. This behaviour from Wenger is even more grating when you witness what he does. Arsene Wenger has systematically removed strong personalities from Arsenal because he wants a team of choir boys who will not question his methods, this is obvious. It makes his life “easier” to not have competition for places, so when the opportunity to sign Higuain was there he refused to execute it as poor Ollie Giroud might have had to up his game and may have sulked a bit. Thankfully, that decision has been vindicated by us witnessing Giroud failing to score for over 500 minutes at the business end of the season whilst suffering the ultimate insult of having to watch Walcott start crunch games in Manchester ahead of him.
This means “nice boys” like Theo Walcott can remain at Arsenal for a decade and barely understand how to kick a ball but pick up a fortune. Denilson, Diaby, Bendtner, Arteta, Flamini, Almunia, Squillaci, Chamakh, Sanogo, Park – sure, every manager makes dud signings but Wenger is the only one arrogant enough to continually renew these players and give them the sort of money nobody else would dare give them – all the whilst telling the fans to stop complaining about expensive tickets. Wenger has been given over a decade to win a league title, which is unheard of in the pressure-intensive world of football. Arsenal fans have been remarkably patient about this and yet that patience is taken for granted, Wenger swanning off to chill with the Pope on deadline day as Arsenal’s rivals strengthen. Wenger treats the fans as peasantry akin to King Louis 16th in serfdom France. The general attitude of the Arsenal players is shocking, how many times have you seen Theo Walcott or Giroud give loudmouth interviews in the press? What have they achieved? How many more times do Arsenal fans have to watch a collection of multi-millionaires refuse to run, to press or to work? The biggest giveaway is that when Arsenal played Barcelona at home in the CL, we saw the team press, work and run better than we ever had for 70 minutes. If such application was a weekly worth ethic in the league, Arsenal would have at least three extra league titles. However, it’s obvious that Lord Wenger sees domestic opponents as “beneath” him.
Arsenal’s constant bottling and choking is now the stuff of parody and the worst would be to come if Spurs – who have always been the perennial chokers – demonstrate the kind of bottle that used to be associated with Arsenal, but that has now been eroded by Wenger’s ineptitude, excuse making and arrogance.
Make no mistake. Arsene Wenger has been given more than enough time, more than enough money and more than enough grace. Arsenal are stacked with cash and even though people are begging Wenger to “splash the cash” they seem to be missing the issue. Wenger managed to sign someone like Mesut Ozil and demotivate him to the extent that it’s looking obvious Ozil will soon ask to leave. He “managed” to mismanage Sanchez with his injuries to the extent he has not been the same player since. Wenger is spending a lot of money, and is being given a lesson in management from errrr…Claudio Ranieri and Mauricio Pochettino. This is unacceptable.
The FA Cup? Nice to have, but I suspect it’s the level of expectation for clubs like Martinez’ Wigan (who won it beating a big team in the final). Wenger has had his day and any apologist asking the “who could you replace him with” question needs a history lesson, because Wenger was a nobody managing in Japan when Arsenal came in for him. He had previously been sacked from Monaco for, you guessed it, underachievement and tampering / “experimenting” with mediocre players. Arsenal have done a lot for Arsene Wenger and if anything, he owes the club – which other club would accept mediocrity for so long? I’ve always maintained that the AKBs who continually talk about how Arsene “can’t compete” unless he has stacks of cash to match up to the “oil money” clubs ; don’t realise that they are inadvertently admitting that Wenger is so mediocre that the only way he can compete with a wealthier club is by having lots more money! We’ve seen Mourinho win a CL with Porto, we’ve seen Klopp win Doubles in the past five years with a Dortmund side that couldn’t approach QPR’s wealth let alone Bayern’s, we have seen Simeone shake up Spanish football, we’ve seen Allegri of Juve almost win the CL with a Juve squad that’s worth far less than Arsenal’s etc…
Football is full of young, fresh managers and the Arsenal board’s incompetence has cost the club a shot at Guardiola, at Klopp or at Ancelotti. All is not lost but it’s now up to the fans to force the situation. It is not up to fans to “name a replacement” as that’s what Gazidis is paid £2m a year for I presume. If Microsoft needed to sack an inept director would it be a consumer’s job to name a replacement? Don’t be ridiculous. If it is going to take Leicester or Tottenham to force Arsenal fans into action, then sad as it is, that will be the reality. Liverpool fans mobilized to force greedy American owners Hicks and Gillett out. They forced Hodgson out. The only time I have known Arsenal fans to show serious discontent was when Villa turned up and thrashed us 3-1 in the summer. What happened a few days later? Ozil signed for £42m. Funny that eh? Alternatively, our fans could continue to make excuses, renew their Season Tickets and let Kroenke watch the cash stream in with no consequences. Wenger can get a new deal, and we can watch Spurs, West Ham and moneyed-up Everton overtake us too. Right?
I will leave you with this: all of my Spurs-supporting mates have almost all said that the only downside of them potentially winning the title would be that Wenger would almost certainly have to leave. Arsene Wenger’s biggest advocates can now be found at White Hart Lane, Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford. All these fans know that the minute he leaves, Arsenal can become competitive again. So if you want Wenger to remain at Arsenal, congratulations, you have plenty in common with Spurs fans.
