From Peter Le Beau :Wenger et al
Myles,
You get a much better class of debate on ANR than most of the websites and I always read your comments with a mixture of interest and wry amusement.
You have one big difference from most of the people who read you, in that you are not a fan, your involvement is cerebral, not visceral, and your life is not ruined by a declining Arsenal team.
But your anger towards a man who provided you with enough material for an interesting book (which I read) seems very strong.
Surprisingly so for a non-supporter.
Why is this? Could it be you are really a closet Gooner or is it just that you feel, particularly intensely,the frustration of what might have been?
This season has the feeling of a watershed.
Usually you make this sort of assessment retrospectively but I think Arsenal fans (and many others) saw this season as a potential bonus when , notwithstanding the mistakes Wenger has made, we still might have had enough to win the Premiership before United strengthen,Chelsea recover, City build still further and Liverpool are resurrected.
It was always going to be very hard to win the Champions League,but if United do it next week it might indicate it was not beyond us, despite being outclassed in the Nou Camp.
Many people have used the Groundhog Day analogy to describe the perpetual failure of Wenger’s third creation. It is an apt one because in three of the last four seasons the situation has looked set fair for Arsenal only for them to implode under pressure.
But we all know this, Arsenal bloggers and journalists trot this out day after day.
The question is what needs to be done by the Board and if he survives,Wenger himself?
It would have been fanciful to talk about Wenger’s demise even two seasons ago, although my neighbour at the Emirates turned his season ticket over to me at that time because he was sick of the team’s inadequacies and the limited vision that Wenger displayed in trying to solve them.
At the time people thought he was mad but gradually many are coming round to his way of thinking. I joined them at half-time in the recent game against Stoke.
I was disgusted by Arshavin’s laziness and stupidity, by the tactical inflexibility and lack of invention (yes Arsenal do lack invention if they stray from the old Plan A) and by the sheer physical cowardice of members of this team.
Of course we all know Wenger won’t go. The Board won’t sanction it and although he is under more pressure than ever before, everyone knows his many allies would point out the folly of sacking one of the most successful managers we have seen in the modern era.
Kroenke would see it as way too rash.He’s made an investment and Wenger has delivered a return on that investment over the last 15 years. A new coach would help but the real change needs to be made above Wenger. This is his fiefdom and his power is almost absolute.
Only David Dein is likely to have the balls and the passion for the club to challenge Wenger and know that the Frenchman would take him seriously. I,along with many others have bemoaned the naive and grimace-inducing interventions of Peter Hill-Wood.
Even following the untimely death of Danny Fiszman who was the real power broker at the club ,it is highly unlikely that Dein could return as Chairman.
But Kroenke can invite him onto the Board because he is a fixer and a fan.
Usmanov would also be an interesting addition but that is highly unlikely.Dein needs to show Wenger what is wrong and hope that for once he listens. Yes, we do need a strong nucleus of experienced players,yes Scott Parker would seem an ideal signing, and we need at least one more World-Class striker but above all we need to broaden the style of play, make ourselves harder to play against in the way that Barca are (and Arsenal are not),create more width in our attacking play and inject the sort of pace that made his first two sides so electric.
We also need to drill the defence to do the simple things well and this means getting the players with the right stuff into a squad that oozes steel and combativeness not marshmallow softness under pressure.
In other words, Ivan Gazidis and Stan Kroenke need to find a way to provide a wake-up call for Arsene before his reign ends in an atmosphere of recriminations and unfulfilled potential.
I don’t believe in him anymore but there just might be a chance to help him drive the team back to the top.
You are a betting man, Myles and I am not but even if I was I wouldn’t venture very much on any of this happening.
We’re after the watershed and things that are much less pleasant start to occur then.
Myles says :
My friend Mitch is a Gooner with hundreds of Gooner friends, of whom I have met quite a few over the past 25 years.
After a couple of games at the Emirates one phoned him and said, “It’s not football as we know it, Mitch.”
That was in autumn 2006.
Why do I now loathe and detest Wenger?
Many reasons but here’s one I’ve never mentioned in 13 years of blogging. Since I’m about to be called downstairs to dinner by my sister-in-law, a Texan computer scientist, I’m gonna keep this “real short”, as she would say.
You, Peter, obviously follow the spin-broadcasts of Wenger more closely than I have ever done.
Please answer this question:
Have you ever, since 1996, heard Wenger mention George Graham?
The guy who gave him Tony Adams, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Steve Bould, David Seaman, Martin Keown and Ray Parlour ?