Kevin Whitcher
For some reason, I can’t get the song ‘How Long’ by 1970’s pop combo Ace out of my head as I write about the game at Bournemouth. Why this tune has permeated my mind, I cannot be certain. Maybe it’s being used for an advert on the TV or something. Anyway, the chorus begins ‘How long has this been going on?’
And with Arsenal, it's a pertinent question when it comes to disappointing away performances against supposedly lesser sides. Because the Gunners made a pretty poor Bournemouth team look good yesterday afternoon. The Cherries recent home results have been as follows, the most recent first…
Wigan (FA Cup) 2-2 draw
Everton 2-1 win
West Ham 3-3 draw
Liverpool 0-4 defeat
Southampton 1-1 draw
Burnley 1-2 defeat
It’s not exactly Fortress Vitality Stadium we are talking about here. No Britannia Stadium (or whatever it’s called now), no Reebok (ditto). In an email exchange with one of our proofers, Mike Preston, he wrote, ‘Being muscled off the ball by Bournemouth is like being mugged by your grandma’.
Alexis Sanchez, still on the payroll, was left out of the travelling squad, no great surprise given it’s just a matter of time before his departure is announced. Mesut Ozil has an unwritten agreement that he will get a winter break, so there is always some kind of convenient injury at this time of year, which no-one can actually say how he picked up. And it is the Ozil absence that is most damning, a symbol of the culture of complacency, the comfort bubble that Wenger has allowed to develop at an underachieving (given its resources) football club.
We see it on the pitch all too frequently as well. Jack Wilshere was the only player in an Arsenal shirt that did himself justice at Bournemouth. He, at least, put a shift in. The front three of Welbeck, Lackofthreat and Iwobi were largely nullified and, having construed to go a goal up, the defence was not up to the job of keeping a clean sheet.
The Arsenal goal gave hope. A fine through ball by Iwobi to Bellerin exposed a high Bournemouth defensive line that could not retreat in time, and the Spaniard’s shot was helped on into the net by keeper Begovic’s attempted block. All well and good, but the visitors were unable to take the sting out of the game, and Eddie Howe’s team, who had demonstrated greater attacking threat, responded with two goals of their own, both of which exposed the lack of defensive ability by an Arsenal side that is on course to concede 50 plus goals in the league this season.
Aaron Ramsey (at 1-1) and Theo Walcott (after Bournemouth’s second) came on to try and rescue the situation. The latter probably knocked a bit off his transfer valuation such was the paucity of his contribution and I can’t say Ramsey made any impression either. It was generally a nothingy kind of display, the type of which we are seeing more and more often. I’m assuming Arsene Wenger did not complain about refereeing decisions after yesterday’s match. Certainly Alex Iwobi got away with an obvious handball in his own area. There were no excuses. Arsenal, even without Ozil and Sanchez, should have had enough about them to take three points yesterday. Last season in the same fixture, they were fortunate to salvage a point. There is no question we are witnessing a team in the process of gradual decline.
Still, some good news followed. A Liverpool side including a rejuvenated Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain at least gave Gooners the pleasure of being able to celebrate ‘Invincibles Day’ by ending Manchester City’s unbeaten run. But that was about it for the positives, unless Theo’s departure to Everton has been confirmed and I’ve missed it.
As for Arsenal, assuming Carlo Ancelotti is lined-up to take over in the summer, the real question is why bother waiting ‘til then? The Italian is ready to start now and a new manager in the dugout effect is probably the Gunners’ best chance of getting back into the top four and strengthening their hand in player recruitment over the summer. Are we allowing Arsene Wenger to continue for fear of not embarrassing him? You set yourself up for that kind of thing when you start erecting busts of your current first team coach and celebrating him in your stadium with the likes of hanging chain divides in Club Level with his head on putting him on a par with Herbert Chapman (a man who won three titles in a row at one club and started an identical sequence at Arsenal before dying halfway through the job, at a time when the top flight was far more competitive).
However, I cannot see one good reason not to sack Arsene Wenger now, get in a replacement to freshen things up and get the team playing with some kind of purpose again. What is the point in delaying? Wenger was given this season to prove 2016-17’s poor Premier League campaign was a blip. Yet without the first team needing to exert any of their precious energy in the Champions League they are doing worse than this season. They are about to lose their best player for peanuts, and can’t even motivate their other superstar to play half the time when the weather turns a bit nippy.
Arsenal Football Club has been allowed to go rotten. Change is going to happen and the reason to delay it disappeared with the defeats away at Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth. The writing’s on the wall, it reads ‘Time for Change’ in big letters. So let’s bite the bullet, say goodbye to the Wenger era and get on with it.
Arsène – Thanks for the memories, but it's time to say Goodbye. Now sling your hook and let us have our Arsenal back. ‘I love this club’, my arse. He would have gone long ago if that were the truth, for example when Pep Guardiola was waiting to take the job. What he loves is his bulging bank account, funded by years of Arsenal fans putting up with mediocrity because they are too polite to call out that the emperor has no clothes. Do the crowd need to turn against him at the Emirates before the board get the message? No-one wants it to come to that, but if this is allowed to drag on much longer, it just might. ‘Judge Me In May?’ It’s a foregone conclusion.
Arsenal have won one of their last seven matches.
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