From Aidan Corcoran : Nigel’s piece
By far & way the best piece ever written on ANR.
From Billy Dainton : Why Wenger must stay, by Nigel Bidmead
Love the article. And we should we not forget that, with everything that is happening in the world at the moment, IT IS ONLY FOOTBALL.
From Guy DeRosa : Nigel Bidmead, Why Wenger must stay…
Fantastic read and inspirational. Many thanks for posting.
From Chris Zych: Brilliant !
Brilliant – finally a blogger with some sense. We support Arsenal, so let’s ‘support’ Arsenal.
From Ted The Cabbie : AW
Well someone knows what he is talking about at last. All you so called hangers-on who want AW out, please support Spurs next year and I will pay for the first 10 season ticket.I think you can get them for £3.50 each
From Xavier : Wenger change or go
Nigel Bidmead realises the problems but does not call for any improvement.
He is basically the type of person who would not tell the king he is naked. People are not calling for Wenger to leave, people are calling for Wenger to get back to the job, his job is not fundamentally to develop players, it is to win trophies, that’s what his peers set out to do.
Wenger needs to go back to the formula that worked, and not perservere with this strategy.This is blatantly doing nothing. He has become too stubborn, bigger than the club, untouchable and complacent. Because of guys like Nigel Bidmead.
From Alexander Tovey :Sorry Nige, you’re right but you’re wrong.
Having read your Wenger must stay argument, I found myself shaking my head in disagreement. Wenger must stay. Yes, it’s true.
Because if he suddenly goes that pile of rubbish that we call a squad will be exposed as being as bad as they are.
Wenger’s best skill has been keeping this squad in the mix and has them achieving well above their sum-total of skills.
The glory has been great. Invincibles were amazing, etc etc but if there is one thing I will remember that will tarnish my memories of the Wenger Era is that only a few small details would have caused a huge change, and pushed our club into the very very top flight of football.
Sensible signings, learning from mistakes, some defensive training.
These small actions would have meant that we won three Premier League titles in a row and possible put an end to Ferguson’s time at the club.
They would have meant that we would not have continued to throw away leads. It would give the team breathing space. We always fall foul of the dodgy decisions/handballs/own goals/defensive howlers etc. The reason why is because we always stay within touching distance of our opponents.
No professional team does this. They pull away, close out matches, use tactics that result in a win. Then the small margins by which we lose games are made redundant.
Arsenal need to manage Wenger out of the club slowly, so we don’t do a Liverpool.
From Carlos Zaccarini : response to Nigel
Dear Nigel,
I agree with a great deal of what you say, but ask yourself : Do you think Wenger will address the shortcomings which are obvious in his squad?
If the answer is “no”, how can you defend his staying as manager?
From Chris Cotton: Immediate response
Myles,
Your friend Nigel presents a compelling case for persevering with Arsene.
However, what he and other defenders of the faith fail to recognise is that being almost there is meaningless if you never arrive.
The question that needs answering is, ‘Can Arsene take the team further?’
Not, ‘How far have we travelled?’