Dear Arsene,

I find myself writing this letter not out of anger but out of frustration. As a fan (not customer, fan) of the Arsenal I find it hard to get angry with the team’s performances these days because to be frank, nothing surprises me anymore. I have seen it all before. Arsenal are, to some extent, masters of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

So why am I writing this? As I have touched upon above, it is a letter borne out of frustration. Frustration that the club, run by you Mr Wenger is in a never ending cycle of mediocrity when things can be so much better given the resources at our disposal. If you love Arsenal as much as you say you do, please do the best for the club and accept you have taken it as far as you can, resign and allow another manager to take the club forward. You can enjoy your legacy of revolutionising English Football and enjoy the fact you had a hugely successful first 10 years at Arsenal.

No doubt you will read this and think “what does he know? he hasn’t worked 2 minutes in football or won the FA cup” and you are quite right, I haven’t. That doesn’t make my opinion any less valid, nor does it prevent me from having one. I am a pragmatist, to me, to flourish is to adapt, to be questioned, to be challenged and in top level sport, to win.

Since you have managed the club your style and philosophy hasn’t changed, hasn’t evolved but English Football has. Failure to adapt is costing us dear. Failure to address obvious weaknesses within the squad, the failure to bring in adequate or superior replacements for those players departing. Failure to address the lack of discipline in the team, not from a fouling perspective but from a tactical one, 3-2 up at home and we have 5 players in an advanced position against a team who by your own admission are excellent on the counter attack.

It isn’t just this week’s capitulation against Anderlecht that prompts this letter it is a culmination of events throughout your tenure. The team do not learn lessons; the defence still make elementary mistakes. Blaming the players is the easy option but was the back four the same as last night when we conceded 4 against Newcastle at St James Park, 8 against Manchester United, 6 against Manchester City, 4 against Tottenham at home in 2008. No they weren’t, was the manager the same. Yes. That isn’t bad luck; it’s a trend, one you haven’t addressed over the years.

There is no doubt you are stubborn, can that work to one’s advantage? Absolutely but it can also be detrimental if left unchecked, unfortunately it seems the latter is true. So you won’t resign, what is next? How do we change things? How can we ensure mistakes are not repeated? May I suggest the following?

* If Steve Bould isn’t coaching the defence, let him, if he is then perhaps it’s time to delegate that away from him or bring in some ex-players who know a thing or two about defending, Messer’s Keown & Adams would be a good starting point.

* Address the team’s obvious defensive weaknesses, accept the Wenger way may not be what’s best for Arsenal FC, not Arsene FC and purchase accordingly. There is a good reason the saying “you get what you pay for” exists and in most cases, rings true. There are some excellent defenders in the Premiership who would love to represent such a prestigious club like the Arsenal. Winston Reid was a good example.

* Bring in a tactician who can be a pragmatist as an assistant manager, someone who can offer a different opinion, challenge you and can set up a team according to the opponent. That’s not to say attacking football to which we are known for is compromised, it’s a pragmatic approach to ensure a good solid defensive foundation is built enabling the attacking players to express themselves.

* Bring in an external party to evaluate the training methods & playing surfaces in order to better understand why so many of the players suffer muscular injuries. Shad Forsythe is an excellent addition; let’s focus on prevention rather than cure / rehabilitation.

* Play players in their natural position, this sounds simple and it is, a number 10 (Ozil) is played as a number 10, not as a winger players who aren’t performing are taken out of the limelight to regain form (Ramsey) and players who are in form are played regularly not because they are a favourite of the manager. (Sanogo over Joel Campbell / Lukas Podolski) Now that may not be the case, but looking from the outside in, that’s the impression we get.

* Make substitutions based on the needs of the game. If a player isn’t performing, be a manager, break your loyalty to that player and take him off at half time rather than the 70th minute. Be pragmatic, again, using Anderlecht as an example, if we are 3-2 up, don’t bring on attacking players, get on the touch line, organise 2 banks of 4 and if you absolutely have to have an attacking player on, use Walcott to hit them on the break and / or run into the channels to hold the ball up and keep possession.

* Have a plan and listen to counsel – Identify the teams weaknesses, identify replacements and start doing the ground work as much as you can (within the rules of course) before the transfer window opens. Pay the asking price, using the Arsenal brand to sell to the player, get the deal done, the player settled well in time for pre-season as Manchester City & Chelsea have done in the past to their benefit. As a manager it is your job to identify the players you and your coaching staff think we need, not to negotiate fee’s or argue on what you think a player is worth. That is for the Chief Executive and Finance Director to worry about.

I have decided not to mention the issues at board level, I wanted this letter to focus on what can be changed on the field and training pitches. This is not a personal attack; it is to raise concerns, to point out flaws, offer constructive solutions. It may not always seem obvious but the fans criticise because they care. We like you Arsene, love Arsenal FC. Let’s either see a change of manager or a change in approach. Being challenged and admitting mistakes isn’t a weakness it’s a sign you are prepared to change, prepared to evolve and hopefully be as successful as you were in the first 10 years as manager of this great club.

Yours,

Paul G

Follow @paulgardinerdj


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Arsene Wenger and pragmatism. There you go, one of the very few times you’ll ever see it in the same sentence. Cast your minds back to 2005 & the FA Cup Final in Cardiff. What do you remember?

Thierry was injured, so we played Dennis up front as a lone striker; it’s actually quite funny when you think of it. We went 4-5-1 and stunk the place out. Utd battered us, but poor finishing, resolute defending, luck and good keeping saw us nick the cup when 4 came up as the last number in the penalty lotto.

Did we celebrate? Of course we did, we ended a 12 month trophy drought and beat our deadliest rivals. Very soon after though, you realised it was a smash & grab victory. We more or less played Liverpool off the park in 01, only for little Billy Elliot to ruin it at the end. That must have been how Utd felt that day.

Compare it to 03. A remarkably boring final against a team we should easily beat, eventually won by Super Rob. 2002? Huge pressure game for us, challenging for the double & played before the end of the season (how fucked up is that!). A very tight game, decided by 2 pieces of individual brilliance; who could forget “It’s only Ray Parlour”, Freddie leaving JT on his arse and Dixon celebrating behind the goal before the ball had even crossed the line. 1998 was pretty easy really. I remember Tony Adams saying that he wished NUFC had at least pulled 1 back to make it interesting. Not sure I can concur with TA6 on that but I can see where he’s coming from.

Finals can be boring, rarely do you get a 79 or 14 and even 93 was a turgid affair only saved by Andy Linghan’s broken nose breaking Sheffield hearts. The result means so much more than the performance, so I guess it’s hardly surprising that 2005 seems to be the only sighting of the Lesser Spotted Alsace Pragmatist.

So, last night and the capitulation of a 3-0 lead in 30 minutes to those giants of European football Anderlecht. Shit weather seemed to mean a low attendance. I had a spare I tried to get rid of all day for just £35, but no takers. Atmosphere in the ground was pretty quiet as we settled in to watch us ease into normal home game format with lots of possession and passing. Early on they looked threatening on the break, better passing or decision making could have seen them nick a lead. As it was, a very clumsy looking challenge gifted us a pen and so it was 1-0. Alexis took a shite free kick, hitting the wall point blank, however the ball spun up nicely and he leathered it through the now broken wall and past the keeper, 2-0.

I had spotted that Arteta had been stretching his hamstring for quite a while in the 2nd half. So does he tell the bench early, so Flamini can get warmed up? Seemingly not as by this point I think we already had Theo, Podolski & Tomas warming up. Great goal by Ox for 3-0 and it was cruise control now. Unfortunately this seemed to be the point where Arteta could not go on, yet still no Matty Flame warm up. Does our captain do the smart thing to break up the game and go down to receive treatment, allowing MF to have a little jog and then come on as he limps off the pitch? No, he hobbles around for a few more minutes, basically putting us down to 10 men and Anderlecht pull one back. Eventually he drags his sorry arse off the pitch. Where is the professionalism? Or did he think at 3-0 it was no bother. You wouldn’t get that in Sunday League.

Offside goal? Definitely. Shit happens, a lot to us it seems, but how did they get in the position to play the ball across is the question. Dubious penalty? Haven’t seen it other than live, looked clumsy, but again, why is our CB wrong side of his man. The 3rd goal, well Podolski, on for Welbeck or ‘God knows why’ depending on how you view our little SM darling, gave their player time & space to look for options. Having got out a protractor, sextant, wind sock etc, the guy whipped in a peach of a cross and their sub gets across Per (again) to glance a diving header in. 3-3.

My how we laughed.

We’ll still qualify in 2nd place, mainly because I can’t see Anderlecht winning in Dortmund last game, although that could depend on how many players Klopp rests given their poor league form and guaranteed top spot already. So we’ll get another 2 games at least in a competition we cannot currently hope to win. Why do we put so much store in being in it then? Well, 14 million to 1 are the odds of me winning the lottery & yet I still buy a ticket each week. Of course the real reason is that we cannot afford and yes I literally mean this, not to be in it.

I caught Merson’s rant. Here is an ex pro, ex Arsenal, not dressing it up as anything other than poor play & tactics. To the delight of many, they can try to belittle what he says by accusing him of being ineloquent, even seen some Gooners sink so low as to mention other factors in his struggle to sometimes put his passion into words. Well shame on them. Bet they weren’t digging him out when he was MOTM in 93 LCF or when he more or less won us the league with the goal at Anfield in 91. He is right with what he said. We are clueless. There is no leadership on the pitch and I worry at the lack of it in the dugout. Why is no-one saying to the team at 3-1 to hold what we have, keep the ball, push them back and don’t give them another sniff. Why is Theo not brought on for Santi for last 15/20 minutes to push them back in fear of his pace? Why is Sanogo not brought on to hold the ball up and give us an outlet instead of Szczesny going long to Santi and Alexis? When you need resolve, why bring on Podolski?

At one point last night, 3-2 up and 90 minutes on the clock, we gave away a free kick 25 yards from their goal and we had 5 of our players nearer their goal than the ball! What the fuck is going on in their heads and that of their manager. Merson is right, clueless!

But never fear, because Arsene is angry. Well I don’t know about you, but I would not want to be in Per or Nacho’s boots right now. Angry eh. Well what I saw last night was a lot of anger from the fans, but even more worryingly, a lack of shock. A sense of being resigned to the fact that we are more than capable of clusterfucks like last night. Groundhog day fellas.

Why should we be too surprised, this is the team who when 4-2 up at home to spurs with 5 minutes to play conspired to let them nick a 4 all draw, which was as bad as a defeat when it’s them involved. Are we above taking the ball in the corner to waste time, because I believe if we did that sometimes rather than always looking to add an unnecessary goal, some of these situations could be avoided.

So back to that 2005 final, bag of shite that it may have been, the result is what mattered. I wouldn’t want us to play like that often and wouldn’t expect Wenger to betray his principles that much but perhaps he could consider this when a match situation dictates and try to use it in his in game management. After all, this is the man who saw fit to start both Flamini & Arteta at home v the bottom club in the league.

I’m not suggesting we park the bus for entire games, but maybe we could stop trying to drive it to Berlin on half a tank of petrol.

Mark

Follow @mzk90

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Wenger: “We gave a poor defensive performance from the first to the last. We never felt comfortable. There was a bit of bad luck because the first [Anderlecht] goal was offside but our defensive performance was not good enough. Across the pitch defensively, we were very, very poor.”

The world and their dog knew that without reinforcing the defence this summer,every now and then this season we would get shown our arse and last night in the space of 30 minutes Anderlecht managed to score 3 against us at our home.

This type of result was coming and no-one should be shocked, but to put the blame the players solely is unfair.

Nacho Monreal is an average Left Back at best. He has been shifted into CentreBack as our 3rd choice Centreback, whose only 19 was shifted to Right Back, due to our 2nd choice Right Back from last season being on loan at West ham. Meanwhile, last seasons 3rd choice CentreBack and captain was sold and not replaced.

We only had 2 defenders not fit and that resulted in 2 players being played out of position due to lack of cover.

Wenger said should Vermaelen leave, the club will find a replacement because the Belgian is “an important player in our squad”.

Now the draw last night isn’t the end of the world, we need 1 point from the last 2 games to get the money spinning last 16 games and either way we would’ve finished 2nd in the Group.

Jurgen Klopp could pick 11 players off the pitches at Market Road and still get a draw against us. It begs belief that with 30 minutes left last night we go from having the job done and being able to rest players in the last 2 games to 2 tricky final games.

Arsene Wenger has blamed “Fatigue” after just 18 games (including last night) of this season, but to be fair we have looked poor all season.

Wenger: “I think when we lost Mikel Arteta we lost out because he was one of the few who defended well. That didn’t help”.

Mikel Arteta is as much a Defensive Midfielder as Theo Walcott is. It’s not his natural position and when he was in his prime at Everton he played in an advanced position. Wenger even bought him to replace Cesc Fabregas, who is obliviously not known for his defensive capabilities.

Matheiu Flamini is our only real Defensive minded midfielder and he came on for Arteta for the last 30 minutes, just in time to be on the pitch whilst the wheels fell off.

Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey have been poor all season. It did not come as much of a shock they stumbled and faulted for most of the game. But to be fair neither of them will ever be the best at tracking back, again like Arteta it’s not there natural position. Never has Gilberto been so missed as this current squad.

With 10 minutes to go and with the score at 3-2, Wenger bought on Tomas Rosicky and Lukas Podolski in an attempt to kill the game. The former lost the ball with his 1st touch, the later is not known for his ball retention skills. Between them, they made 2 successful passes.

The greatest shame about last nights game (apart from half the ‘fans’ in the East Stand deciding a train home at 3-2 was better than supporting the team when they most needed it) is we should be now falling over each other to declare undying love for Alexis Sanchez who was head and shoulders above everyone on the pitch.

Not only was he our best attacking player he was also our best midfielder and to quote @husaby1 from twitter “Shame he wasn’t in goal for the penalty”.

Alexis had a hand in all our goals, He was tigerish in tracking back, he ran at them with strength and control, he threaded balls with precision and accuracy and his goal was instinctive. It was like watching and I don’t say this lightly a mix of Dennis Bergkamp and Rocky Rocastle, pure class. Maybe instead of singing ‘he scores when he likes’ we should sing ‘He carries our team’.

Our majority shareholder, who has as much a clue clue about ‘soccer’ as he does for discreet hair pieces must know where we are going wrong. But does he care as long as we win the 4th place cup and get into the last 16 of the Champions League? probably not.

Ambition at anything in life must come from the person in charge, be it a company or a ‘sporting franchise’. As a club we are constantly going 3 steps forward and then 3 steps back. We resolve our forward lineup in the summer, only to weaken our back line and for too long under Stan and Wenger we have been 2 or 3 players short every season.

A strong owner would put pressure on his manager to gather together the best players he could with the money available, apart from us, we prefer to show off how much is in the bank.

A change is needed desperately at the club and has been for a number of years now. Giving Wenger a 3 year deal as manager in the summer was a huge mistake, he wont change. He will continue to be tactically naive in today’s game, he will continue to under spend the resources he has, he will continue to buy too many players who just are not leaders on the pitch, he will continue to play players out of their natural position, he will continue to  make daft substitutions, Welbeck and Ox for Podolski and Rosicky last night is a shocking example.

Wenger really needs to sit down today and listen back to what he himself said after the game, look himself in the mirror and then do the right thing ask Stan to find a new manager.

Gav

Follow @shewore

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