It’s easy to be upset, even angry with someone or something. It takes a lot more to fall out of love with it. That would be caused by years of frustration, unhappiness, and feeling that nothing will change.

It would be extremely naïve and wrong to say that Arsene Wenger was deservedly held in anything other something extremely close to God-like status during the first ten years with Arsenal. He changed the football club, from new players, diets, training grounds, to simply a new way of thinking. Patrick Vieria, Thierry Henry and Robert Pires would unlikely have come near us without him.

And while he came across as the quiet, deep thinking manager, under the surface Arsenal had a hardened winner leading them into the most exciting few years in their history. He absolutely loved the battles with Sir Alex Ferguson, that everyone was desperate to beat his team, he loved that his team scrapped for every point when they couldn’t play the perfect football he expected.

e loved being the best. Dare I say it, but Arsene in the late 90’s/ early noughties had elements of Mourinho and Simeone hidden beneath him. Two doubles, and the Invincible Season are all the evidence you need.

Something changed. While everyone’s least favourite Portuguese manager began winning everything whilst upsetting everyone, his Arsenal were in steady decline. And by the time we had lost the2006 European Cup Final, we were saying goodbye to Highbury, and moving to Emirates Stadium, with a young team and huge debt to pay. For many, this is the biggest reason for our decline during the last decade. Highbury was smaller, tighter, a “classic football ground.”

Away teams were scared of coming to Highbury and from what I can gather speaking to fans of other teams, they didn’t enjoy it. They were crammed into the corner of the Clock End, all but out of sight on the TV cameras, and they often went home pointless.

Switch views to the Emirates. Even before away fans are in, they are greeted by an embarrassing “Arsenal Football Club welcomes…” banner. That is one of mine and my brother’s pet hates when we go up there. Then they enter the ground, the bowl’s main speaker then “extends a warm and sporting welcome” to the supporters, and they go on to have the time of their lives in that bottom corner of the Emirates, often making more noise than our fans (they’re not told to sit down by stewards…), and this weird atmosphere often transfers itself to the pitch and the players. I will never understand why the away fans aren’t put right upstairs, why its not 15 quid to get in to the North Bank or the Clock End to create an actual home end, the silly welcome banners are torn down, and flags/banners are welcomed. Make those changes and I’m sure that our atmosphere in our insipid home ground would change.

Now I’ve got my Emirates rant out of the way, returning to Wenger. The first few years at the Emirates were, rightly or wrongly, seen as a few free years for the manager. He was working on an extremely tight budget, with a very young team. To get them in the top four was fantastic, and most Arsenal fans were patient, if not slightly frustrated through these times, “for everything he’s done, he deserves time to rebuild a new team” was the general consensus.

However, the year where his halo slipped was 2011. February, we did the most Arsenal thing possible and blew four competitions within three weeks. A fairly standard league collapse, an even more familiar defeat to Barcelona, knocked out of the FA to Manchester United, and the disastrous defeat to Birmingham. Fast forward a few months. Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri have left. Wenger put out a side made largely of young players and understudies at Old Trafford, because he had failed to spend money during another summer of player sales. As the 8th goal went in, the camera cut to Wenger. He looked old, pale and frail. It was the first time I thought “you don’t need this mate, and possibly we don’t either.”

The last few seasons for Wenger since can be summed up as: Fans know a we need a player, Wenger doesn’t buy a player, defends his record, gets a couple of big injuries, states players missing will be like new signings, says 4th is a trophy, sees team capitalise on Spurs’ useless ability to finish a job and catch them, then repeat. I should say in there we also won two FA cups and community shields. But it’s not enough. We’ve rarely looked likely to win the league because we have a squad, and more importantly a manager that make the same mistakes again and again.

Maybe we were spoilt by his first ten years. Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Tottenham, Liverpool, West Ham have all changed their manager over the last years. Not all successfully, but there is such a fear amongst so many that changing the manager would be negative because the grass isn’t always greener. But sometimes it is. City sacked Mancini, first to win the league in years and got an upgrade in Pellegrini. The same with them this summer. West Ham and Spurs have improved since changing their manager.

There are many that have said Arsenal have become Arsene’s play thing. Last year, I wonder if he thought “Arteta and Flamini will give me 25 games each, we’ll win the league and I’ll be seen as a genius.” Football has changed. Gilberto for 3 million doesn’t exist anymore, nor does Edu for 6 million. You want top quality, 9/10 you need to pay top money. If this is his last season, he needs to ensure he makes it one to remember. Liverpool at home had the stench of “here we go again” around it.

I’ve prepared myself for his departure, and I’m beginning to wonder if he has too. Many fans are falling out of love with the club, and unfortunately the staleness, acceptance that this level is fine, the feeling that nothing will change stems from the most powerful person at Arsenal Football Club. And due to his previous record, that person, the person I’ve given up on, is Arsene Wenger.

Up the Arsenal.

Joe
Follow @joe_hurd93

“We paid for a lack of experience at the back and the fact some players are not ready physically to compete at this level.”

So in short, Arsene Wenger is saying that we were unprepared and understaffed for the opening Premier League game against Liverpool. And there is only one person to blame. Arsene Wenger.

Unprepared

By now we have all ready the statistic. Arsenal have lost 3 of their last 4 opening day games. And that took a 91^st minute winner by Aaron Ramsey against Crystal Palace.

That victory against Crystal Palace is our only victory in 7 opening day games.

“We are not ready. Physically we are not ready.”

Wenger go’s on to blame the Euro’s. Stating that he could rush players back, and risk injury, like what happened with Aaron Ramsey or “give them a rest and you start the season without many of your players”.

This catch 22 situation I do understand. Last season we were moaning in October when Alexis Sanchez picked him an injury against Norwich. Despite the injury being caused by an impact, many blamed him being rushed back from the Confederations Cup. Not being given a proper summer rest was also blamed for his early season lack of form.

Fast forward 12 months and we are demanding that the likes of Mesut Ozil, Olivier Giroud and Laurent Koscielny should be rushed back.

But the argument over a summer tournament is made completely redundant what you look at the form in the last 7 seasons. 1 win, 3 draws, 3 defeats. There has not been a major tournament every one of those years.

The lack of preparation is down to one man.

Like many things Arsenal, and Arsene, form can be split into two parts. Highbury & Emirates;

Highbury: DWWLWWWWW – 22 from 27
Emirates: DWWWDDDLWLL – 16 from 33

So why this massive drop off in form? Is it because we now chase the $$$ around the globe? Rather than concentrate on preparing in Austria like we used to, we now play friendly’s in America, Singapore, Australia, Norway & more.

But then every club does these now? So why do we start off so badly, every season?

Arsene Wenger’s pre season preparation is clearly the problem.

Understaffed

Before last season ended, the consensus on what we needed was a centre back, a central midfielder, and an attacker. We now sit here after the first game of the season with just the central midfielder. It is simply not good enough.

And like the lack of preparation, this is not the first time under Arsene Wenger that we have started a league campaign without the players we need to start a title challenge. We have a history of not making senior (over 21) transfers before the 2st day of the season:

Again, there is a clear split between Highbury and the Emirates.

We make nearly 50% of our transfers after the 1^st game of the season. This shows a clear problem with our summer transfer planning.

It is almost as if Arsene Wenger planning is that he gets the current crop of players back into pre season training, see how they develop, before making any moves in the transfer market.

It leaves us short every single season.

I would not be surprised if we go out this week and buy an attacker and a defender, but once again it is too little too late.

We have already lost 1 game, and it will take a few weeks for the new signings to settle at the club, in the team, in the Premier League, in England.

Often sides do start slowly. They scrape scrappy wins. Like Man City at the weekend. That is part of a team settling. But their players will be more settled by the time the international break comes round in. Ours will take longer. By which time we could be out of the title race.

Unsurprising

And ultimately it comes down to a defeat on the first day of the season. And none of us were surprised. It was underwhelming.

Yesterday there was none of the vitriol of previous 1^st day defeats. The odd dissenting voice. The odd “WENGER OUT”. A couple of the free programmes thrown on the pitch. The single man with a sign. But it was not like previous where you have had 60,000 people singing spend some f***ing money.

It is like we now suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.

We have been mistreated by the club for so long that we are now indifferent to the poor treatments. Whilst we do not accept it, we do now expect it. Yesterdays failure came as no surprise. Rather than turn anger at the management, we turned round to those we sit near and simply muttered oh well! Here we go again.

 

Wenger is a man who always has his excuses ready. Any office manager will know the sort of employee that Wenger is.

You pull an underperformer into a meeting, they spill out all the excuses under the sun for the reason they have not met the expectations. When the reality is they have just not performed well enough.

They refuse to accept anything is their fault. Always something or someone else to blame.

The systems were a little slow, a couple of days off sick, the bloke I sit next too is a little noisy, not enough merchandise to hand it. The reality is they are just pre-prepared excuses. The reality is the individual has not worked hard enough, has not done what was asked of them, has not followed the instructions or advice given by management.

We lose against Leicester; Wenger will once more roll out the excuses. None of them will be his fault. It will be players still returning. New players settling, the injury list. He will absolve himself of any blame, even though he can control all of these things.

Once against we are entering a league campaign underprepared, understaffed, and we are just unsurprised.

Keenos
Follow @KeenosAFC