From Alan Jeffery : Just a thought
If you are Chris Smalling or Phil Jones, and Arsenal are in for you, offering to match or even beat a transfer fee/wages offered elsewhere, why would you sign?
Surely, these guys must think, “What the hell am I going to learn about defending from Wenger?”
“How am I going to improve and become the best defender I can be with a coach who doesn’t care about defending or know how to coach it?”
Surely, both these players could only have gone backwards at Arsenal right now?
Myles says :
We’ll never know, Alan.
Wenger regards a top English player as a yeoman, a stout-hearted spear carrier with limited technique. And that is true of most English footballers.
Watching those players every morning would not please him. He can only continue working if he enjoys his own training sessions every morning.
It’s all about him and his vision of how he wants his team to play. And it’s about Gilles Grimandi, who doesn’t scout Maidstone United. He scouts Marseilles and Lille and Bordeaux and Cannes.
Chris Smalling is big, strong Arsenal supporter who played for Maidstone. After nine games for Fulham, Manchester United signed him.
Obviously, I think Arsenal should sign some southern boys.
It’s harder to sign Northern boys and Phil Jones is a northern boy.
George Graham probably knew that he couldn’t sign Roy Keane from Nottingham Forest but he thought he had signed Chris Sutton from Norwich. Then Sutton joined Blackburn Rovers in 1994. Sutton was a talented target man and I was really hoping Arsenal would get him.
It’s hypothetical and I don’t normally spend much time on the hypothetical.
But if you twisted my arm, I’d tend to agree. Jones and Smalling could have gone backwards at Arsenal.
From Steve Son : Wenger and his ‘implosion’ in perspective.
Firstly, I have to say it is increasingly difficult to defend Wenger.
What he says but more pertinently, what he does.
I’m not going to list his faults, everyone knows them by now.
What I will say is that I do not doubt Wenger’s passion, his will to win, even as the empire is crumbling.
Tony Adams said something interesting towards the end of Graham’s reign – that he had almost given up, with regard to the European Super Cup against Milan in 1995. The fire had gone and so was George, soon after.
I have become more and more disillusioned with Wenger as time has passed.
From a demi-god, he has become a mortal and an extremely fallible one at that.
However, Wenger is still driven and whilst that drive remains I believe that we will always finish in the Champions League spots.
His desire to win the European Cup is so big, that he will not allow himself to not qualify. Everyone knows the importance of qualifying for the Champions League; the prestige, the money.
Changing manager can have great positive effects but it can also have catastrophic consequences. I have a feeling that keeping with Wenger and finishing 4th every year is less of a risk than replacing him with guy who may not make the Champions League. I know this point of view lacks ambition but it is also undeniably the most pragmatic move.
I rate Villas-Boas highly; I’m impressed with his bold high line, the pressing and the use of a proper centre forward.
However, he is only 33 and has never managed in the Champions League before. With key players as old as he is, there is no doubt that there is a huge risk of him failing badly.
Could anyone really sanction the sacking of Wenger and install someone like Villas-Boas?
It is easy to say Yes as a disgruntled fan, but if you are detached executive responsible for running the club then the answer HAS to be No.
Myles replies:
Don’t write off someone as ballsy as Villas-Boas before he has played one game, one month, one season.
Millions of people are scared to change their breakfast cereal, their car, their ISP, their phone contract.
I never make predictions in August. Never, never, never.
But I’m gonna make one in June : Chelsea will win a trophy next season.