Tag Archives: Arsène Wenger

What is Arsene Wenger’s “legacy”?

3 Replies

He has ruined his legacy
His legacy is now taking a team from top to 6th
He has no legacy

That is 3 examples of what I have seen in the last 48 hours when it comes to discussing what Arsene Wenger’s legacy is.

Alongside the usual his legacy is not going unbeaten, that was George Graham’s team – ignoring the fact that Graham had been gone 9 years, leaving a team in 14th, and David Seaman, Lee Dixon, Steve Bould and Tony Adams were long retired. A load of rubbish is often spouted, often emotionally.

Wenger needs to go this summer. I have spoken before about how 2014 should have been the time he should have gone.

Having just won the FA Cup, his time was naturally up. He was already running out of ideas and had sailed The HMS Arsenal through the rocky waters of the early new stadium financial constraints years.

The summer of 2013 was the first summer we had real money to spend. We failed to spend it – only signing Mesut Ozil. It was the summer of Luis Saurez & Gonzalo Higuain. Wenger had shown a reluctance to spend. At the end of that year he should have stood aside and let someone else come in with fresh ideas, someone who would spend the available money. Jurgen Klopp. Pep Guardiola.

Instead, he stayed. And whilst a further 2 FA Cups have been won since, it certainly feels like he has now outstayed his welcome.

So what is his legacy?

Like many, he will be judged greater once time has past. Once the wounds are heeled. And time will heel them.

Wenger is the man who took us unbeaten. This had not been done since Preston North End in 1888. Anyone who pretends this is not one of the greatest achievements in the modern game, anyone who says that his recent performances mean that the Arsenal invincibles of 2004 are meaningless, it a bellend.

To act like what we did in 2004 is not special is childish. I actually feel for fans who have that opinion,. So bent up with bitterness and rage that they refuse to embrace going unbeaten as one of the greatest achievements in football history.

Wenger also won the Double Double.

The Double has only been done 11 times in history. Wenger accounts for two of them. Only Sir Alex Ferguson (with 3) have achieved it more.

To put it into perspective, Wenger has as many Double’s as Tottenham have league titles.

Despite Jose Mourinho’s greatness at Chelsea, the double always alluded him. Manchester City have spent £1b on players, they have never won the double. George Graham got close in 1991, but ultimately fell short.

And then we have the FA Cup.

Wenger broke a 97 year record when he led Arsenal to his 7th FA Cup. It is a record that will never be broken. 7 FA Cups for a single team, in an era where managers barely last beyond 7 months.

And it is the records that will define Wenger.

Those FA Cups
That unbeaten season
The 49 games undeafeted

This is Wenger’s legacy. You might not respect him now, but respect him for what he did.

But for me, his ultimate legacy is the bar he has raised. The standard he has set.

This season, we will finish 6th. We would have made a League Cup Final and a Europa League semi-final. Even if we win the Europa League, my opinion will not change, he has to go. And that is his legacy.

He has made it that finishing 6th is not acceptable for an Arsenal manager. Making finals and winning trophies no longer enough to keep the job.

Back in the 70s and 80s, we were starved of success. The 1987 League Cup success for George Graham trigged a 20 year golden period for Arsenal.

Arsenal finished 4th that year and it was considered a successful season. Due to Graham, and then followed by Wenger, a repeat of the 1987 season would now be seen as a failure.

A run of 10 games without winning. 5 wins in the last 18 games. Imagine that now?

For me, Wenger’s legacy is that the bar of what is now considered a failure is now much higher than it was 30 years ago.

Wenger Out, no matter what, but lets remember he was an Arsenal great.

Keenos

The Myth of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

8 Replies

Last night Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored his 1st goal in 12 games for club and country.

Since joining Liverpool, he has played less than 50% of the available minutes. Let’s stop pretending that he is anything but an average, inconsistent footballer.

It almost feels with Oxlade-Chamberlain that there are multiple agendas at work.

Firstly you have the media. Every time he has a good game, they bash on about how much he has improved since leaving Arsenal for Liverpool – even though he hasn’t. This suits their duel agenda of bashing Arsenal and praising Liverpool.

Then we have The Arsenal fans, who blamed Oxlade-Chamberlain’s lack of progression on Arsene Wenger.

Now whenever Oxlade-Chamberlain has a good game, they use it as a way to bash the Frenchman. To highlight how much a player can improve under a “proper coach” like Jürgen Klopp. There are plenty of things to criticise Wenger for, but Oxlade-Chamberlain’s lack of drive to improve himself is not one.

The reality is Oxlade-Chamberlain has not improved. He is still the same inconsistent ball of frustration he was at Arsenal.

Capable of moments of brilliance, such as his goal last night against Manchester City, and then weeks and weeks of dross and poor performances and miss placed passes.

He will stick one in the top corner (every 10-15 games) then spend put 4 crosses in a row over the bar. Or over hit half a dozen cross field balls. Or run with his head down until he is suddenly over the by-line.

The only difference now, for Arsenal fans, is we do not notice the average 10 performances in between two great games because we no longer watch him every week.

We see him when he scores a screamer, like against Manchester City, and think “gosh hasn’t he improved”, forgetting that his last decent game – also against Manchester City – was a dozen games ago.

The fact that in a fully fit midfield, he does not start for Liverpool. That he has started less than 50% of the league games under Jürgen Klopp. Averages 46 minutes a game in the Premier League (which drops below 40 minutes when you add Champions League and the cups) shows that even Klopp does not trust him.

He was fantastic last night. As were Liverpool. No one saw them beating Manchester City, and he was key in that. But that is the point.

Sandwiched between his 2 9 out of 10 performances against Manchester City, he went missing against Swansea, WBA and Southampton. And barely got off the bench against Huddersfield, Tottenham and Watford.

Since joining Liverpool, he has played 90 minutes just 8 times. He is often the first man taken off when he starts.

Liverpool fans would agree that he has been a flop, that he has been average. The only reason they do not is because they do not want to admit Arsenal got one over them, that he was not a waste of £40m. Their fans are deluded that everything Jurgen Klopp is great – even though this will be his 3rd season without a trophy.

Last night was his 5th goal of the season. Not exactly Ballon D’or worthy is it? In fact, he has now drawn level with Arsenal left back Nacho Monreal.

He is not exactly doing what Mo Salah is doing for Liverpool, or what Raheen Sterling is doing for Manchester City. He isn’t even out performing Aaron Ramsey at Arsenal.

Let’s call a spade a spade. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is still the frustratingly inconsistent player that many fans called “dead wood” and were happy to get £40m for.

And no amount of Nivea will change that.

Keenos

Just how broken and divided is Arsenal?

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The divisions with Arsenal are deep, very deep.

We saw a glimpse of it when many of Arsenal’s outfield players failed to celebrate Alexis Sanchez’s opener against Crystal Palace, prompting Thierry Henry to claim of a rift in the dressing room.

Leaks from the dressing room were that Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey did not see eye to eye, and that this was creating divisions within the squad.

Hector Bellerin hinted at further issues with Sanchez when he suggested that Sanchez often “demanded too much” from other players, even when they were already giving 100%.

With Sanchez gone, it seemed like the divisions on the pitch might disappear. But further leaks from the dressing room indicate more divisions within the squad.

Firstly on the leaks. Things are never good when a player (or member of coaching staff) is leaking arguments and disagreements to the media. It creates an atmosphere of mistrust, that the dressing room is not sacred, and can actually lead to further divisions as finger pointing begins.

The Arsenal dressing room seems to be split. There have been divisions before.

In Arsene Wenger’s early days, there was a French clique, due to the amount of French players at in the squad. There was even rumours that French was the official language within the dressing room. These were dismissed, and ultimately Arsenal being successful ensured any disagreements did not grow further.

As Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole showed at Manchester United, players hating each other does not really matter when the team are winning trophies.

The biggest clique at Arsenal seems to be the Bundesliga / German clique. It contains the likes of Mesut Ozil, Granit Xhaka, Shkdoran Mustafi and Sead Kolašinac.

New signings Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre Emerick Aubameyang have also reportedly joined this clique.

The issue seems to be is that this group of players contains the highest paid players in the club, those that cost the club the most. It also has some of the clubs biggest underperformers.

Granit Xhaka and Shkdoran Mustafi cost over £70m between them. They are arguably the two worst players in our starting XI. It is a struggle to name worse Arsenal signings, taking into account cost and that they were expected to come in and solve a lot of Arsenal’s problems.

Sead Kolašinac came to the club on a free transfer in the summer, immediately taking the place of the popular Nacho Monreal.

Due to it being a free transfer, he was amongst the highest earners at the club, reportedly on £120,000 a week. At the time, only Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette were on more.

When you consider that he is on twice as much as Monreal, who is popular and hard working, and has out performed Kolašinac, it is not hard to see why an eye of jealousy has been cast.

And the you have Mesut Ozil. £300,000 a week. And yet seems to have a soft underbelly and a tendency to go missing when the going gets tough.

When players are rolling up their socks and digging deep, and look across at Ozil swaning around the park, it must be frustrating knowing that he is on 3 times your salary.

Salary is probably part of the issue.

With Jack Wilshere currently in negations with the club who are trying to reduce his salary, and Aaron Ramsey also set for a new contract, they must wonder why their decade of service is being disregarded for these new signings. Who are performing worse than them.

The fact that the underperformers are players that came in for big money and on high salaries are part of the same clique exabarates the situation further.

There also seems to be jealousy throughout the club.

Reports a few weeks ago were that Aaron Ramsey had become jealous of Jack Wilshere.

He was frustrated that the injury prone Englishman got so much praise from the fans, whilst he was often criticised. Even though he outperforms Wilshere.

Now whilst this is just rumours, I can see the situation being true, not just with Ramsey and Wilshere, but with a lot of other players and Wilshere.

No other player at the minute gets their song sung other than Wilshere. And he seems to be immune to criticism.

Despite poor performances, Arsenal fans demand the club pay him what he wants ands go above and beyond when defending him. I imagine Ramsey is not the only one who gets frustrated with constant criticise of themselves, whilst Wilshere gets praised.

Wilshere can also be petulant and arrogant. I imagine in an argument, he uses the fact that he is a fans favourite.

You then have Hector Bellerin.

He wanted away in the summer, and up until the Brighton game had played every single minute in the Premier League. He was told 2 hours before kick off that he would not be playing.

Before then, he was untouchable. Performing poorly, whilst speaking out against fans. The fans that Wilshere loves.

It was interesting to see Jack Wilshire completely contradict Bellerin in an interview a few days after the fall-out of Hector’s Oxford Q&A. Further proof that the dressing room is divided.

You have to wonder what affect some players who have left had.

The likes of Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott and the injured Santi Cazorla. Big, popular characters within the squad. None of whom are around anymore.

Losing these big characters diminished the French and English cliques, as they were allegedly the “leaders” and most popular in those cliques. The alpha males, perhaps.

By losing such big characters, it created a power vacuum which, alongside Ozil’s new contract, made the Bundesliga / German clique the most powerful in the club. And it seems to be those players who are getting the blame for our poor performances.

It is not just on the pitch there are divisions, however. It is off the pitch as well.

This time last year, it is documented that Ivan Gazidis wanted change.

Arsene Wenger’s contract was coming to an end, and he wanted to explore other options. He also wanted to look at bringing in a Director of Football to reduce Wenger’s power on the club.

A Director of Football was logical.

As CEO, Gazidis runs the business side of the club. Arsene Wenger ran the football side, he was king maker. Bringing in a Director of Football would leave Wenger managing the team, whilst the new man would oversee the development of the entire club, from youth systems to scouting to contracts.

Wenger put his foot down and fell out with Gazidis over his desire to hire a Director of Football.

Ultimately it fell to the board to make a decision on the future of the club. The old boys Keswick and Harris could not be awoken from their slumber to make a decision, leaving it to majority share holder Stan Kroenke.

Eventually he sided with Wenger, giving the Frenchman a new 2 year deal.

With Wenger and Kroenke on one side and Gazidis on the other, the club was pulling in different directions. Then up stepped Josh Kroenke.

It is rumoured that the younger Kroenke agreed with Ivan Gazidis’ view on how the club should be run. And with him taking more of an interest in many of his fathers sports investments, was able to back up Gazidis in his catalyst of change.

Despite getting a new contract, in came Sven Mislintat, Raul Sanllehi and Huss Fahmy. These are Gazidis’ men.

So there are now clear divisions. Stan Kroenke, Wenger and his yes men on the training ground, then Gazidis and his employees who were bought in above and alongside the manager to work with him.

With so many disagreements off the training ground and in the boardroom, it is no surprise that on the pitch players are unable to show a united front.

The obvious step is to remove Wenger and his coaching set up.

Let Sanllehi and Gazidis bring in the man they want, and unit behind him as manager (or head coach). And then let that manager, with an iron fist, break the cliques that Wenger has allowed to form.

With Wenger still at the helm, Arsenal will remain a broken unit on and off the pitch.

Keenos