Gary Thwaites
In an unprecedented development before the Sutton game, I actually found myself agreeing with Alan Shearer - when he expressed surprise at the amount of media commentary there had been about our manager’s future following the debacle in Munich. As the Geordie elbow-delivery-system pointed out, our current situation is no different now than it has been for years. We are scrapping for a top 4 finish, have little prospect of winning the league and will fail to progress past the first knockout round of the Champions League.
Some have suggested this year is different because of the manner of defeat in Germany or because the tie is over as a contest before the second leg. Not so. We were beaten by exactly the same score in Munich last season and were equally outclassed by Barca in the last 16, when we lost the first leg at home by two goals for the fourth year in a row. The year before that run started, we were humped 4-0 away by Milan in the first leg. That means, a couple of spirited but ultimately futile comebacks notwithstanding, that we have not gone into the second leg of a last 16 tie with any reasonable hope of progressing since 2011 (with the benefit of hindsight, I am not sure how reasonable our hope was even after beating Barca 2-1 at home, but I did think we had a chance at the time).
Others have suggested the change is because the Munich result followed so closely after a domestic collapse in form. There is perhaps a little more truth in this, but not much. Our domestic form in the build up to all of the above losses was not great and it was arguably worse last season, when in the three league games before Barca we took only one point and lost at home to Swansea, one of our worst ever performances at the Emirates.
Some journalists seem to think that the fans have only turned on the manager this year. Again, not so, although perhaps we are a little less divided than before. I recall the reaction to my first two articles in ‘The Gooner’. The first was shortly after the sale of Vieira, when I sounded a note of concern about the direction the board was taking the club. The second was shortly after the sale of Henry, for which I blamed the manager. Many agreed even then, but I was also roundly slated (perhaps fairly, but I must mention someone called “Southampton Gooner”, whose “star letter” in the next edition published after one article – I forget which – basically called me a whinging idiot and prophesied more league titles in the near future, now of course the distant past).
However, social media aside, I cannot remember the last time I heard a serious long term Arsenal fan advocating for the status quo. When Shearer followed up his rare moment of insight by suggesting that us fans are split 50/50 on the Wenger issue, I can only assume that either he was just trying to reassure the viewing public that he was still full of bollocks after all or that half the Arsenal fans he comes into contact with are a combination of ex-players that owe Wenger their careers and the prawn sandwich brigade, who have no sense of our history.
So, if nothing has changed with the manager or the club, why the increased discussion about their futures? Well, I actually don’t think there has been that much more speculation this year than there was in the final year of Wenger’s last contract – at which time he had not won a trophy for approaching a decade. There was a lot of coverage of the “Wenger Out” sign held up at Chelsea, but only because Neville overstepped a line in calling the instigator an idiot on live television. Let’s not forget that, at home to Norwich last season, there was an organised protest with hundreds of banners of a similar sentiment, if a less personal phrasing.
If the tenor of the debate has deteriorated, which it probably has, that is in large part because the mainstream press has only just caught up to what the closest Arsenal watchers (i.e. the fans) have known for a long time. The club is stagnating under its current leadership and will continue to do so until there is a change at the top. While the press remain mostly respectful in tone, the fact that they are voicing negative opinions at all gives a greater licence for others to ratchet up the vitriol.
There is also, of course, the growing desperation which comes from so many years of raging against the Wenger machine without making any impact. Anyone who feels impotent to effect change in something they care deeply about is going to be frustrated and angry. Fans often loudly protest that this is “our club”, but that is not entirely true. Yes, Arsenal is my club, like London is my city and even like my family is my family. However, that doesn’t mean that I get to ride a jet ski down the Thames or tell my brother what to have for breakfast. It is a fantasy that major football clubs were ever run by or for “the fans”. It just seemed that way because the individuals who actually did run the clubs, before the big foreign money came in, also happened to be fans themselves.
So, we come to my point, insofar as I have one. I could write many pages on how Wenger has had more bad years than good or about his failure to address long term technical and psychological deficiencies in our squad, but many others have already done that. What I want to do is appeal for some calm, before the atmosphere around the club becomes so poisonous that it takes a generation to fully repair.
Despite every spittle inflected rant at the nearest camera phone, every all caps tweet or every banner promoting the virtues of a quiet retirement on the French Riviera, nothing is going to change in the short, or perhaps even medium, term.
First of all, it is simply fanciful to expect Wenger to step down. Not because of the money, although that can’t hurt, but because of his arrogance. Don’t get me wrong, this is not necessarily a criticism. To be a great manager, as he once was, you need to be at least a little arrogant – think Ferguson, Clough and Mourinho. Of course Wenger wants the club to achieve major success again and to suggest otherwise is absurd. The problem is that he still believes he is the best man to achieve it and is too close to the situation to see that a change is needed. That is why it should not be his job, it should be down to the board.
Anyone who actually thinks that our board cares remotely enough to change anything should seek professional help. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the definition of insanity is watching the same thing happen over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Kroenke owns six sports teams and they have won only two titles in a combined 73 seasons under his stewardship. The last 11 years ago in lacrosse. Plainly his only concern is the bottom line and, given the Premier League TV deal, Arsenal will still make a healthy profit even if we drop out of the top four.
Indeed, so unengaged is Kroenke with the running of the club that he allowed Wenger to effectively appoint his own boss. In Gazidis, a man with no personal affinity to Arsenal or prior experience running a football club, he chose someone who would never challenge his absolute authority in the way that even his great ally, David Dein, would surely have done by now. I am sure Wenger thought it best not to appoint someone who would interfere with the project he still thinks will succeed, but it left a power vacuum at the top and nobody willing or able to take action now that it has so clearly failed.
Wenger will be our manager next season and beyond. He basically confirmed as much when saying he will stay in management. Whatever the few remaining AKBs might think, no major club is going to offer him a job at his age and after so many years without winning the title, much less the Champions League. The board will offer him a new contract, or rather keep the one they have already offered him on the table. He will sign it, probably in the build up to an FA Cup Semi-Final (assuming Lincoln do not pull off the greatest FA Cup upset of all time).
With all this in mind, why expend any emotional energy protesting or venting anymore? Why fall out with each other about something none of us control? I absolutely acknowledge that every fan has a right to voice his or her opinion, it is just that the tone of it all is so depressing of late. That was best demonstrated by the outrage recently expressed at the very notion that someone could both think that we need a new manager (as I do) and also find the idea of a banner celebrating Atom and Humber to be funny enough to chip in a fiver towards printing costs (as I did).
The world has, in so many more important ways, gone a long way to utter sh*t in recent years. If you want to protest something, you have plenty of choice, regardless of your social or political leaning. Football is meant to be a source of enjoyment and escapism. Arsenal was around and winning titles long before Wenger. One day he will leave and sometime after that we will win another title. How long that gap will be remains to be seen, as does how tarnished Wenger is prepared to allow his legacy to become before he finally calls it a day. I just hope it is not so long that we can barely remember the success he bought to the club in his early years.
For me, for now, I am just going to relax a little, enjoy the games we win, laugh at Spurs whenever the opportunity arises (including, hopefully, on St Totteringham’s Day after their form implodes at the business end of the season again) and try avoid twitter as much as possible. Others will continue to voice their dissent, which is fine. Some will even stop going to games, which is also fine. Personally, I have loved going to the Arsenal since I was a very little kid. I don’t plan to deprive myself of that pleasure and don’t see why the experience need be all about anger and discord. Given that we have no reasonable expectation of change, I may as well just get on with it. Next up, Liverpool away and Bayern Munich again. Should be fun.
