Mark Halfpenny
Ed’s note – It should be remembered that The Gooner and onlinegooner.com exist to provide an open platform for views across the Arsenal spectrum. Individuals have their opinions, but the fact is that we don't get too many contributions in favour of the way things are at the club these days. When we do, we publish them. The sentiments that follow are more representative of what we receive for publication these days.
If you love Arsenal Football Club, but despair at our soft centre and the Groundhog Day culture of complacency at our great Club – put 7th March 2017 in your diary. Before the Bayern Munich match, Arsenal fans intend to hold a peaceful, respectful march and protest, to insist that Arsène Wenger does not sign a new contract and that he leaves at the end of this season.
It has become a standing joke in football, that any of Wenger’s teams will look good for a while before collapsing like a wet cardboard box as soon as they are put under pressure. Once again this season, Spring arrives and for the umpteenth time, we sit in 4th place (don’t we always?) and we have had to endure what has become an annual humbling at the hands of a top European team.
This isn’t what we were promised. In 2012, Ivan Gazidis said "As we look to the next two, three years we will have an outstanding platform on which to compete with any club in the world".
Hollow words Ivan, because for 7 years in a row, we have been eliminated in the Last 16 of the Champions League (i.e. as soon as we play a decent team). In addition, since we won the League in 2004, the points difference between us and the Champions has been: - 12, 24, 21, 4, 18, 11, 12, 19, 16, 7, 12, 10 and we are currently 13 points behind Chelsea.
For a very large number of Arsenal fans, the root cause of all these problems is quite simple – Arsène Wenger. He has far too much power at Arsenal; is incredibly arrogant; is answerable to nobody: employs totally outdated methods and has been left way behind by ruthless managers like Antonio Conte, Pep Guardiola, Diego Simeone, Massimiliano Allegri and others.
Wenger’s achievements at Arsenal are legendary. Arriving as an unknown, he built on George Graham’s immense foundations and created a team better than anything we had seen before. He was fresh, innovative, far sighted and successful and we loved him. Sadly that is all in the distant past and his achievements are now ancient history.
Since 2004, Wenger has shown time and time again that he is completely unable to replicate his previous successes. He has been a top manager (nobody could argue that he hasn’t) but football has moved on whilst Wenger has stood still. Other managers haven’t just caught up with him, they have overtaken him and left him floundering in their wake. It has become desperately sad to watch him berating yet another hapless 4th official whilst his teams are out-thought, out-fought and out-classed all over the pitch.
This season it was Bayern Munich’s turn to thrash us, following on from maulings by Barcelona, AC Milan, Monaco and others. Furthermore, after the debacle in Munich, only one player could be bothered to walk across to the away fans after the match. That might not seem important, but those most loyal of supporters had paid at least £400 and travelled for two days to be there. The culture at our great Club is now so complacent, so rotten, so detached from reality, that the supporters are routinely ignored.
In addition, hearing him say things like “If you offer me 2nd place for 20 years, I will sign for that” is beyond depressing. It sets the tone that Arsenal are content to be “also-rans” – happy to lose so long as the money keeps rolling in. And it is nauseating to hear his continual excuses and self justification, such as “Trophies are one way to judge a club”.
This won’t be the first occasion that Wenger has been asked politely to call time. Previously we have been called “Idiots” by Gary Neville; “Disgustingly Disrespectful” by Gary Lineker; told to be “Careful what we wish for” by the great Thierry Henry and told to be “Patient” by several people, including Ray Parlour. The trouble is – we have been very, very patient because Thierry Henry told us to be “Careful” in 2014 and Ray Parlour told us to be “Patient” in 2011.
Neville, Lineker, Henry and Parlour have all made (and continue to make) a fantastic living out of football. We don’t! Whilst they get paid handsomely every time they set foot inside a football stadium, we have to pay ever increasing amounts to watch our team.
Our perspective comes from shelling out thousands of pounds a season to watch our club. Perhaps they could try 13 seasons in our shoes and see just how demoralising this has become. I would love to ask Neville, “How long would Ferguson have put up with these continual collapses?”
And for those telling us to “Be careful what we wish for”. How pessimistic to think that we can’t improve on a manager that presides over a total collapse every season; that hasn’t won the League in 13 years and has never won a European trophy.
Chelsea were awful but they got in a new manager and now they sit 10 points clear at the top of the Premier League. The England Rugby team were awful but they brought in Eddie Jones, who has presided over 17 consecutive victories and now they seem capable of beating anybody.
We respect what Arsène Wenger has done for our Club but there are numerous managers out there that are more than capable of improving Arsenal, making us a force to be reckoned with again and perhaps more importantly, restoring our pride. We don’t expect to win silverware every season – we are just sick to death of seeing our team waving the white flag.
We are not part of any fans’ group; we are not giving ourselves a name; we are just Arsenal fans that have become fed up with paying stupid amounts of money to watch a limp-wristed stagnation under Arsène Wenger’s mismanagement.
If you feel the same way, please join us just after 6pm on 7th March 2017, outside Highbury’s old East Stand, from where we intend to walk together to the Armoury at the new stadium and make the point, as loudly as possible, that Arsène Wenger should not be offered a new contract and that he should leave at the end of this season.
That way, we can remember him as the visionary he was, not the also-ran that he has become.
There is further discussion of the march on the Gooner Forum and another article about the planned march by Mark King on Gunners Town
