Ian Tredgett
I’m finishing this just after the defeat at Brighton, and therefore shortly after a series of four defeats in eleven days. There’s been so much written and said about the malaise surrounding the team and our manager’s future that it’s hard to be original. However, having had the dubious pleasure of turning 50 a few months ago, and realising there aren’t many advantages to being in one’s sixth decade, I do at least feel I have some experience in the fortunes of Arsenal Football Club.
For around 45 of my 50 years I’ve had a love, or unhealthy obsession (depending on your viewpoint), with all things Arsenal. Looking back does give a sense of perspective on the current predicament; we have been lower and recovered. Finishing 16th and 17th in the old first division, as we did in 1975 and 1976, now that was a crisis; it didn’t need Sky Sports, TalkSport, websites or social media to turn it into one. Looking back, you can see parallels and turning-points with previous managers, and also lessons learnt in other sports that Mr Kroenke and our board would do well to observe.
My other sporting love is cricket. The recent Ashes defeat hasn’t offered any consolation for Arsenal’s woes, alas. In cricket, it’s widely regarded that one of the skills a good captain needs is to know when to make bowling changes. One aspect of this will be to remove a bowler from the attack before a batsman has the measure of him and to replace him with another more likely to cause problems for the opposition. The warning signs are often there; for example, overs become more ‘expensive’ as the bowler delivers more bad balls and even the good balls cause the batsman less difficulty. Persisting with the same bowler, confidence dropping as the runs per over rate increases, is almost certainly not the path to success. Knowing the precise moment for this change in tactics is what sets the good captains apart.
Experience of how bowlers, and opposing batsmen, have reacted in the past often helps a captain decide the most opportune moment to make such tactical switches. Often the change in bowling is communicated to the hapless bowler with a polite “Thanks, take a rest” from the captain when what he really means is “We can’t afford to carry on like this any longer, we’re haemorrhaging runs and you’re going to cost us the game and with it my credibility as a leader unless we make a change now”. You’d like to think the board are adopting the same approach with the manager. He’s come up short against the opposition too often in the past (three away wins in six seasons at our main five rivals). After four defeats in eleven days, it feels like the footballing equivalent of being hit for four consecutive sixes, having already bowled some expensive overs, and the captain looking round the field and seeing nobody warming up ready to take the next over.
The Double of 1971 was widely regarded as the club’s finest hour, at least before the early part of Wenger’s tenure (more of that later). For the next 15 years, there was a continuity with that team, through players that remained for the seasons that followed (Rice and Nelson for example stayed until the early 80s) and the management (Neill, who left the club the year before the Double season and Howe who left in the summer of 1971 and returned in 1977, staying nine years as first team coach, assistant manager and manager). George Graham’s arrival in the summer of 1986, 15 years after the Double, represented something of a clean break. The years since 1971 had seen one cup win and four final defeats. Although part of the Double side, he continued his career as player and manager elsewhere before returning to Highbury. History tells us his return coincided with an upturn in our fortunes. A second-place finish in 1973 apart, we never got close to competing for the title. Arguably, the unbeaten season of 2004 surpassed 1971 as the season in Arsenal’s history and now, 14 years later, other than perhaps in 2008, we haven’t really challenged for the title since, though seven cup-final appearances have yielded three wins.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but there have to be some advantages to being my age! Looking back at the tenures of Mee, Neill, Howe and Graham, their stewardships are characterised by good starts and turning-points in their tenure from which the team, despite showing periodic good form after, never really recovered. For Mee, the spring of 1973 saw a cup semi-final defeat and a second-place finish in the league. A second Double in three years was close but not attainable; he remained for three more seasons, but a tenth-place finish in 1974 and an FA Cup quarter-final in 1975 were as good as it got.
For Neill, the promise of his early years was confined to cup runs (often marathons) but the sale of Stapleton in the summer of 1981, a year after Brady’s exit, and then starting the 1981/82 season with early-season defeats to Ipswich, Notts County, Stoke and Swansea were ominous signs. Even the latter two conquerors have a haunting familiarity. Neill remained a couple more years and oversaw two domestic cup runs culminating in semi-final defeats to Manchester United the following season.
Howe’s tenure started well, the team topping the league by four points in late October 1984. Another period of three consecutive defeats in a week in late October/early November 1984 (at West Ham, Oxford and Man United) saw us knocked off the first position and exit the League Cup. Thereafter, results were largely mixed, and Howe left around 18 months later. The last weeks of the 1986 season had an ‘end of days’ feel about it. Under the threat of being replaced by Terry Venables, Don Howe quit in late March, and the following weekend we lost three consecutive games, two of which were to the same opponents. Sounds familiar? The second of these games, on Easter Monday at home to Watford, was followed by a protest in Avenell Road outside the main stand. As I recall, the crowd were angry over the treatment of Howe and chanting against Hill-Wood and Dein.
Results didn’t really improve under caretaker Steve Burtenshaw for the remainder of the season, and the crowds were worse - less than 15,000 saw a draw with already-relegated West Brom and only 24,000 the visit of Chelsea in the last home match of the season. The latter game had a rousing rendition of “Donny Howe and his Red and White Army” from the North Bank that seemed to go on for ever, halted only by the cheers when Nicholas scored the second goal. It seemed like the crowd saying “thank you” to a man who had done so much for the club but had reached the end of the line; he was being overtaken by younger managers and was unable to take the team any further. Sounds familiar?
Graham’s early years were hugely successful - two championship wins, a League Cup win and another final appearance in five seasons. The turning point was perhaps the defeat to Benfica and, shortly after that, the cup exit to Wrexham in late 1991/early 1992. League form at the same time included a run of seven games without a win, in which only two goals were scored. Despite good cup runs after that, the team never got close to challenging for the league; Graham had undoubtedly set a high bar that the team could never really reach again.
Wenger of course has been afforded much longer than any of his predecessors, due no doubt to his excellent record in the early part of his time at the helm. However, looking back, I believe snatching a draw from the jaws of victory at Birmingham in February 2008 was the beginning of the end. A run of one win in eight league games followed, and with it any hopes of the title disappeared. Immediately before the draw at St Andrews was a 4-0 FA Cup defeat at Old Trafford and the loss of a Champions League semi-final place to Liverpool in the final five minutes at Anfield fell at the end of this dismal sequence of league games. Cup success has followed in subsequent seasons, but no credible challenges for the title.
Returning to the cricket analogy, I think most of us would like Wenger to take his sweater and ‘have a rest’ now. Most of us would clap him from the field at the end of the day’s play in memory of his achievements early in his spell. If he keeps on begging his captain for ‘one more over’ it will do irreparable damage, to his and the team’s reputation and dig a bigger hole from which, ultimately, his successor will have to dig us out.
