Tag Archives: Arsène Wenger

2 more years of Arsene Wenger – what does it really mean?

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• 2 more years of only aiming for the minimum
• 2 more years of tactical naivety
• 2 more years of failing to prepare for the opposition
• 2 more years of embarrassing performances
• 2 more years of heavy defeats in important matches
• 2 more years of playing with the handbrake on
• 2 more years of lucrative contracts to substandard players
• 2 more years of substandard deals offered to world class players
• 2 more years of vanity projects
• 2 more years of poor coaching
• 2 more years of inadequate fitness and recovery programmes
• 2 more years of half the squad being injured
• 2 more years of dithering over transfers
• 2 more years of penny pinching on transfers
• 2 more years of embarrassing press conferences
• 2 more years of cringe worthy excuses
• 2 more years of someone with “complete control” blaming everyone but himself
• 2 more years of that coat zip
• 2 more years of a deluded, senile, washed up has been
• 2 more years of Arsene Wenger…

Wenger Out
Wenger Still Out
Wenger Always Out

EM

Can the FA Cup save our season?

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It has been a horrible season. On and off the pitch.

From finishing below Spurs to plane wars in the skies of Birmingham. Massive defeats to Bayern Munich, to that period from January to April where we won 2 games from 8, including embarrassing defeats at home to Watford, and then on our travels to WBA and Crystal Palace.

It has not been a great season for Arsenal, as we slipped out of the top 4 for the first time this century.

After Manchester United’s victory in the Europa League, we are the only side in the top 6 of the Premier League to not be in the Champions League next year.

The infighting over Arsene Wenger has grown, embarrassing actions by people in the ground, and online, from both sides of the narrative. There was a point this season where going to football was simply not enjoyable anymore.

But then we come to the last weekend of the Bank Holiday Weekend. A Sunny Afternoon.

Tomorrow we will all be getting up ,getting ready, cafe, breakfast, pub, boots for some sun tan lotion for the bald heads, more beer, then Wembley. Wembley. We are the famous Arsenal and we are going to Wembley.

No matter what has happened this season, what we as fans and a football club have been through, we have a trip to Wembley to get up for tomorrow. One last game of the season. A chance for a real trophy. A chance for some success. And a chance to save our season.

Ultimately, when it comes down to it, top 4 does not matter, finishing above your rivals does not matter, having players winning individual awards does not matter. What matters is the team winning trophies.

In 1993, who finished top 4? Who was top scorer? What team scored the most goals? Which side conceded the least? Who was PFA Young Player of the Year? You can not answer any of these. But you know who won the FA Cup.

In fact, I could probably name the side that won the FA Cup every year since 1990. Even with my drinking now giving me short term memory loss, I still remember the FA Cup winners. I could also name the league winners in those years, and could probably name 90% of League Cup winners.

You see, winning trophies at what people remember. That is a true barometer of success. Not finishing top 4. Not finishing above your rivals.

Take Liverpool and Manchester United this season. The media (and Liverpool fans) have pretended that Liverpool have had a great season this year. One outlet described Liverpool has getting tremendous points haul this season – it was just one more point that Arsenal.

Jurgen Klopp has been celebrated as a genius. Taking Liverpool back into the Champions League for the 2nd time in 8 years. But ultimately, Liverpool won nothing. There 5th consecutive year without a trophy. A single League Cup in 11 years of football.

Meanwhile over in Manchester, they have had a crisis season. An awful season. Jose Mourinho has been exposed as a fraud. As inferior to Jurgen Klopp. Yet Manchester United have won 2 trophies this season – the Europa League and League Cup.

2016/17 will not be remember by Liverpool fans, it is just another season of failure. Meanwhile Manchester United, despite finishing 6th and below their Scouse cousins, will remember another successful trip to Wembley, and another European trophy and great trip to Sweden.

Add in the FA Cup, Manchester United, a club on the slide, have won 3 trophies in a 12 month period (I do not include the Community Shield with that). Liverpool, a club on the up, have won nothing.

Arsenal have a similar scenario with their little sisters up the road, Tottenham Hotspur.

Over the last 4 years, Spurs have made gigantic strides forward. Over that time, Arsenal have lunged from crisis to crisis, slipped down the table. Whilst Spurs have put the pressure on in the last two title races, Arsenal have been nowhere to be seen,

Yet despite the two clubs relative differences in performances over the last 4 years, Arsenal have won 2 FA Cups in that time. Spurs are now 9 years into a trophy drought. 2 league cups in 26 years. Not much is written about their lack of real success. Finishing above Arsenal, putting the pressure on and a new stadium has papered over the massive cracks at the under achieving club.

So back to Arsenal. We have a chance to win the FA Cup on Saturday. A chance for a major honour. A chance to lift silverware. A chance to make it 3 FA Cups in 4 years – and a record 13th. And Arsene Wenger, for all the criticism he has rightly deserved, not just this year but over the last 10 years, has a chance to become the most successful FA Cup winning manager of all time. Not bad for a man who some claim “doesn’t take the completion seriously.”

Would winning the FA Cup make 2016/17 a successful season. YES. But Arsene Wenger should still leave.

Keenos

Arsenal Need Evolution, Not Revolution

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So, here I am. A 36-year old bloke who really should be revising for a couple of university exams in the next ten days, and instead I’m sat here wondering just why I think so differently to a great many other Arsenal fans, and on a great many things….

Thursday Night Paranoia

Ok, so we’ve now got to play in the Europa League, and that means Thursday night games and the resulting inevitable panic over a new schedule. But why? Thursdays are a day like any other, and it’s still 11 men against 11, and it’s still 90 minutes, so why all the fuss? I just don’t get it.

Every Thursday, followed by every Sunday. Unconventional, granted, but there’s no reason at all why supposedly professional players should suddenly find themselves unable to cope with it. If anything, the fixture schedule is actually better than any we’ve had while playing in the Champions League, when half the matches were on a Tuesday, half on a Wednesday, and the weekend league game getting shunted into any one of half-a-dozen different slots over three days, all at the whim of the TV people.

No more Napoli away on a Wednesday, then Liverpool away on a Saturday lunchtime, and people panic about Thursday-Sunday-Thursday? Behave.

Director of Football = Magical Solution / “Bring Back David Dein!”

Now this is one I really struggle with.

Sure, we’ve been an abject shambles in the transfer market ever since he left in 2007, but would bringing back a 73-year old man who hasn’t worked in club football for a decade really solve all of our transfer issues? (And that’s quite apart from the role his agent son, Darren, played in ripping the heart out of that team with the transfers of Fabregas, Clichy, Nasri and Van Persie).

The other, similar, call is that the club should appoint a Director of Football to oversee all transfers and contracts, but – apart from Wenger’s oft-stated refusal to work in such a model – what is the point of someone else getting it right off of the pitch only for Wenger’s outdated training methods getting them injured, tactical nativity failing to get the best from them, or, as with Lucas Perez this season, simply leaving a proven talent to rot in the reserves because Wenger’s ego was deemed to be more important than the interests of Arsenal Football Club.

I personally believe that the one man in sole charge is still the best model for a successful football blub. For example, Liverpool’s insistence on everything going through their own ‘transfer committee’ is partially to blame for their recent struggles under Klopp and his predecessors of the last few years.

If everything was going right, would people still be calling for a total restructuring of the way the club operates? Of course not. What we actually need is a CEO to take the financial and paperwork jobs off of the manager, so all they have to do is give a list of players he wants to sign/keep, and then everything happens without them, leaving them to concentrate on getting things right on the training ground and pitch. What we need is Ivan to step up and start doing his job.

Blame the Board!

Stan Kroenke is not a bad chairman. There, I’ve said it.

The only thing that you can criticise him for is the £3million he has laundered out of the club in each of the last two seasons, but considering the money that the previous board, under Sir Peter Hill-Wood, Danny Fiszman, Dein and Ken Friar paid themselves in wages, “expenses”, 5-star travel and accommodation to away and European games and even in using the club’s facilities for their own business deals, Stan’s “consultation fee” is probably less of a percentage of the club’s income than that lost to anyone else ten or twenty years ago.

In fact, the only thing which you can blame him for is his hands-off approach and lack of pressure he puts on those he employs. Although he certainly lives up to his ‘Silent’ nickname with his hands-off approach, is that also in itself a bad thing? Would we rather instead have an egotistical chairmen treating the club like his own toy and constantly meddling in everything? Not only would none of this be a problem if we were top of the league and everything else was fine, but there’s plenty of fans from other clubs out there who would love to have him at theirs.

Both the lack of a Director of Football and the owner’s hands-off approach would not be a problem if the team was playing well, being run well, competing in Europe and winning league titles at home. As with everything else at the club, its failures belong to one man and one man alone. The man with “complete control of the football side of the business”. Arsene Wenger.

EM