Robert Gregory
Ed’s note – I’ll post the latest World Cup diary installment later today, but in the meantime, here’s a piece that was submitted just before the tournament kicked off, on the subject of what this website is supposed to be about!
It was a transformational moment. But then Arsene Wenger was a transformational Manager. I was sitting in front of my MacBook, when a text came in, right on 10.00 am on April 20th, from a friend - ‘Your Manager is standing down…’ I was shocked, surprised, - and when I checked and it was so - relieved, and reflective on the passing of a - mostly - great era. And all those sentiments came in a two second rush.
I had been of the view that Arsene was leading Arsenal round in circles for some time. I used to be a ST holder but I stopped going way back in 2010. It was partly for financial reasons. But equally, it was because I was no longer enjoying it. Arsenal had become an obligation. Not a pleasure, as it should be. And I was disillusioned by both Wenger and the Board. I felt the Club wasn’t a part of me in the way it used to be. And the e mails that I received about my commitment to “the match day experience” left me increasingly cold. I was missing Highbury. I still do. But the new setup had gone sour for me. So I confined my support to watching on Sky.
Nothing I was seeing was inducing me to change my mind. I got so annoyed with some of the (non) performances - both individual and team - that I felt the Manager should go, several seasons before the ‘Wenger Out’ protests began in earnest in the wake of the utterly abject 2 - 10 aggregate thrashing, by Bayern in the CL. It reached the stage where I was convinced that Wenger, distilled in hubris, thought he had a job for life. Arsenal was the test tube and he was the increasingly crazy scientist, giving it a shake or a rub each season but essentially doing the same thing, utterly convinced that this time, he would get it right.
And yet in those first dozen years, it had been the very opposite. Daring, innovative; sometimes wrong but always interesting ; Wenger took on forces far more powerful than us - notably but not only Man Utd, - and he often won. True, he never cracked success in Europe. But the two doubles; the unbeaten season; the FA Cups; the sheer panache of what he did, was thrilling. I really admired him. I really liked him. And a side of me still does.
I think three things came in quick succession to discombobulate him. And he never really recovered. The stadium move was entirely of our (his) own making. But the arrival of Abramovich at Chelsea, was a game changer. Dein’s famous quote about Russian tanks firing £50 notes at us, on our own lawn, was so true. It still is. Which brings us to Dein’s departure. He wasn’t irreplaceable. Few, if any, are. But he wasn’t replaced. And the combination of those three events, in quick succession, left Wenger marooned. He was never the same again.
If I met him and had the chance to ask a couple of searching questions, I would wonder why the great game changer became ‘Captain Cautious’? Why did he give stellar contracts to unproven players in the expectation of their success, only to plead poverty in the Transfer Market otherwise, whilst those players let him (us) down? Why was he so insistent on keeping the same staff around him at all times? We were, at a time, the only Club in English Football, not to have changed their coaching staff in five years!
In the season we signed Cech, we were the only team in England not to sign a single outfield player in that summer’s transfer window. How were we supposed to win the title - or even make a fist of competing, under those circumstances?
This brings us back to his departure. It was obviously a complete surprise. He was distilled in his own hubris and convinced that he had a job as long as he wanted. Maybe - just maybe - the arrival of Mislintat and Sanhelli had un-nerved him? But I suspect he still thought of himself as bulletproof. He’d lost sight of the fact that the Club comes first and foremost. And for all his achievements he was an employee - not a demi-God.
His bizarre cult followers, of course, saw it the other way around. And proving Wenger’s infallibility after every performance - win, lose or draw - had become a cause celebre for a (shrinking) segment of the Arsenal fan base, that had transformed itself into a personality cult, that would have looked naff in a Third World Dictatorship. A brief foray into the world of ‘Twitter’ can unearth some truly startling characters. And the variants of ‘One Arsene Wenger’ shows what happens when an understandable admiration, morphs into a fanatical insistence on one person’s utter infallibility, to the point where those holding it completely lose sight of the Club itself. I have even heard it said, that if Emery fails, Wenger will return. There is as much chance of that happening, as Sir Alex Ferguson going back to manage Utd. It simply won’t happen. There are few certainties in football. But there’s two for you. And Wenger’s crazy cultists really need to return to earth.
There’s a final irony in all this. Despite the noises off and the raucous and sometimes violent confrontations between the ‘Wenger Must Go’ and the ‘Wenger Must Stay’ factions, it was the deafening silence of rows and rows of empty seats, that finally tipped Kroenke to act. There’s a message there for all future occupants of the managerial ‘hot seat'.
A brief word about the new man. I know very little of him beyond the obvious. He’s clearly a thorough individual, who prepares meticulously. Good! He has plenty of experience. Good! I would have backed Arteta all the way, as I will Unai. But it would have been one heck of a gamble. The man from PSG is the better bet, in my eyes. And I think most other fans’ eyes, as well.
But the change has happened. And Arsenal has become interesting again. New signings are on the way. A much needed defensive improvement is coming. 2018/19 will see a Manager and his coaches on the edge of their technical area, urging the players on, rather than sitting solemnly in their seats, giving the impression they would like to be somewhere else. When Arsene returns, probably in the 19/20 season, for the naming of the West Stand, as the ‘Arsene Wenger Stand’ and / or the unveiling of his statue outside the ground, I hope he will find a Club and a team once more on the up. As well as a fanbase a little more unified than of late.
