John Evans
There is an old saying that you get out of life what you deserve. After the final whistle blew at the end of the semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid that old saying came to my mind. Arsene Wenger should have left Arsenal Football Club a long time ago, a minimum of five to six seasons ago in my opinion. Did he deserve to now go out on a high and leave the club back in the Champions League for next season?
There are two reasons why he didn’t. Firstly the man himself, too stubborn for his own good and allowed over time to become full of his own self-importance. Arsene was either blind to the damage he was doing to the club or more interested in his own ego/bank balance to care. With any real level of self-awareness the man himself would have walked at the absolute latest in 2014 after finally ending the trophy wait against the might of Hull City. The level of complete power and control he has ‘enjoyed’ at AFC pretty much since the turn of the century has sadly meant that any self-awareness the man once had has long since disappeared.
Make no mistake about it Arsene has been asked to leave. If it was up to him he would continue on and on. Would he even decide to step down of his own back if the club were relegated? I would certainly question if he would have, given the chance to stay on. Then you have to come to the realisation of how and why this has been allowed to happen and the answer to that question comes from above Arsene and the board of directors at the club.
The very fact that Arsene has been allowed to continue for this long is a massive indication of just how low on-field success is in the minds of the entire board of directors. Let us not beat around the bush here Arsene would have been fired long ago at any other club in world football that genuinely puts onf-ield success even close to the top of their own agenda. That it has been allowed to drag on until 2018 before anyone took the decision out of Arsene’s hands is a total disgrace.
Not winning the title? Don’t worry about it better luck next time. No longer even competing for the title now? Don’t’ worry about it better luck next time, here’s to another wage rise! Struggling to make the top four? Don’t worry about it the bank balance still looks rosy. Out of the top four and well below Spurs? No biggie we all have bad luck some times. 15 Points off the top four and struggling to finish in sixth place above the might of Burnley? No real issue there.
It really has only come to a head because 20,000 fans have started to not turn up to games on a regular basis which in turn opens the whole worlds eyes to the fact that our club has become a total joke. Panic stations everybody. The club has taken an age to make change happen not because they want on-field success but purely because the bottom line has started to take a hit with the lack of Champions League revenue and in stadium match day revenue. It looks bad on TV to the commercial partners and that is why they have let Arsene go.
It begs the question if this wasn’t the case and we were still in the same league position when would they have taken the same course of action? My guess is Arsene would have left in a box. The man himself lost my own respect long ago and I feel absolutely no need to start singing his name again just because the club have relieved him from his duties.
There has been a lot in the press of late about the first seven years or so of Arsene’s tenure and asking people to show him the respect he deserves. Not for me I am afraid. He lost the right to that show of respect when he started earning £8m a year in return for total on-field mediocrity. The last five years of my Arsenal supporting life have been by far the worst. It for me has turned into some kind of perverse endurance test of what fan takes the longest to snap.
To sum up what Arsene staying far too long has done to this club both myself and my father have been wanting Arsenal to lose all season long in Europe in the hope that Arsene gets fired at the end of the season. The Atletico tie was the first one in which I wanted Arsenal to win all season as Arsene is going now anyway.
I have supported Arsenal since the age of six and have been a season ticket holder for many years at Highbury and my Dad has supported the club for over 60 years now. We used to be the kind of Arsenal fans that if we lost on a Saturday the whole weekend would be ruined. Arsene has literally stank the place out for so long that I no longer get that bothered about the results even in North London derbies which used to feel like life or death at times!
I personally lost any faith in Arsene many years ago. Certainly since before I met my current wife - and we now have a seven year old son together. I have felt strongly that he has been the wrong manager for us for a number of years. No passion, no energy, no defensive awareness or tactics of any kind. I for one do not have any confidence at all in the board to make the right kind of appointment as far as the next manager is concerned. The reason being that they clearly do not put any real value in on-field success and that is all I care about as a fan.
I am not bothered about bank balances and revenue enhancing marketing strategies. I simply want my club to do the best it can on the field of play and show some passion every time they pull on the shirt. My guess is that the current board will make an appointment which enables them to have total control of everything apart from coaching. They will decide who we buy and how much we pay etc. If someone makes noises that they want a large transfer budget they will not be hired. Expect someone under the age of 50 and someone who will feel lucky to be manager of Arsenal Football Club.
I therefore can’t see an Allegri type or even an Ancelotti getting the call. It would not overly surprised me if we do end up with an Arteta or Vieira type appointment as they would be easier to appease with a smaller budget than your more experienced successful managers, and they would also themselves command a lower annual wage.
The one hope I have for whoever the new man ends up being is the simple fact that in my own opinion things like motivation, tactics and defensive discipline simply can’t be any worst than what they already are. Any new manager should get an extra 10-15% out of the current squad just from doing the basics right and allowing other coaches to coach. The sad thing is if you did combine that with an experienced manager with a proven track record of delivering success that 10-15% would probably be more like 25-30% and then you would have a genuine chance of starting to compete again. We need an Allegri type with a budget big enough to deliver him a new goalkeeper, centre half and a mobile defensive minded midfield player. My fear is we will most probably end up with an Arteta type with a budget only big enough for one of those new additions.
Either way we will improve, but by how much? It’s over to the board of directors to decide.
