1. Ivan Gazidis told the AST in May that Arsenal fans would decide Wenger’s future.
2. Fabregas was sold back to Barcelona
3. Wenger signed more kids (AOC, Joel Campbell and Carl Jenkinson) and prepared to embark on Project Youth 2
4. Arsenal crashed 8-2 at Manchester United.
5. Wenger lost control of transfers.
The BBC blog by Dan Roan described the scene at Highbury house at 9pm on deadline day :
In the chief executive’s office, Ivan Gazidis had spent the day making phone calls to agents and officials at other clubs as he tried desperately to complete the spending spree that the summer sales of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri had enabled and which the humiliating 8-2 defeat by Manchester United had subsequently made a necessity. A few yards away, club secretary David Miles, chief accountant Stuart Wisely and head lawyer Svenja Geissmar were working furiously, filling out registration documents and ensuring they were emailed to the Premier League. In all, 20 officials from the club’s finance and legal departments were working harder than they could remember.
They were frantically trying to move players in and out, and acquire some experienced first team players. Gazidis was in contact with Wenger in Switzerland.
What? Wenger was at a coaching conference? Once a teacher, always a teacher? Was he giving a tutorial on how to lose 8-2? Why was he at a Uefa coaching conference when he badly needed to sign some experienced players?
He wasn\’t at Highbury! He wasn’t working alongside the club staff.
Why was he away at such a vital time? Did they have to ring him every ten minutes for 12 hours?
My view? As Gazidis and two other directors left Old Trafford in the 87th minute, they had already decided that enough was enough.
They realised : Project Youth 2 will get Arsenal relegated ! This guy is gonna take us all down with him. Another two months of this and we can never work in football again !
So Andre Santos, Arteta, Mersacker and Park were signed very late.
AND WENGER WASN’T THERE! Not there, not his signings.
He’s been a control-freak for 15 years, making all the decisions, and now control of transfers has been taken away from him. He would never give a four-year contract to Arteta, who is 29 and had a cruciate injury a year ago.
Having dithered all summer, and maintained a posture of denial about the departure of Nasri, and totally bungled this window, Wenger was desperately trying to sign one of Europe\’s hottest kids!
He wanted Eden Hazard, 20, the Belgian wonderboy, and when he could not get Hazard he apparently bid £35m for Mario Gotze, the 19-year old German wonderboy.
Why would French champions Lille sell Hazard to Arsenal after they have just kidnapped Park of Monaco from his hotel, after he has completed Stage 1 of their medical ?
And why would Borussia Dortmund flog Gotze to Arsenal when they are in Arsenal’s Champions League group? How would that go down with their supporters?
Would Joachim Low, the national coach, want to see Gotze leave the Bundesliga nine months before Euro 2012, a tournament Germany have a good chance of winning? It looks as if Wenger\’s deadline day efforts were as sensible as the side he sent out to be slaughtered eight days ago.
CONCLUSION : Wenger had to allow this to keep his job.
Benayoun on loan is OK, even if he is a Chelsea reject and a crock.
Park is OK because he will sell shirts in Asia and make runs into the box, wanting the ball. Park is better than Chamakh or Bendtner because any striker is better than those two . Park will make runs into scoring positions and Arshavin and Wilshere will see him and find him with a pass.
Mertesacker says : I agreed personal terms in June. Why did it take so long?
Andre Santos didn’t make the Brazil 23 for South Africa and he reportedly had weight problems in Turkey last season. Fenerbahce need cash, as they are about to be relegated.
DEADLINE DAY was make-or- break for Gazidis. He told his staff : they’re gonna lynch us if we dont buy some experienced players and some leaders.
Bottom line, Wenger wasn’t there. He dithered all summer. He couldn\’t make up his mind. He wanted to buy late because he was scared of being gazumped.
But if he had moved early, he could have signed Mata, a player far more suited to Arsenal’s style of play than Chelsea\’s.
On August 7th, Ivan G told a hundred AISA members : We have the young players, we just need some experienced players to bring them on.
Gazidis also said : I’m not as pessimistic as you lot.
But Wenger didn’t sign any experienced players or leaders.
So Gazidis signed three captains : the former captain of Germany, the captain of South Korea, and the current captain of Israel.
Arsenal could soon have eleven competent players who care and really want to be there.
That would be mega ! A huge step forward.
Mertsesacker & Vermaelen would not have let that ball bounce for Danny Welbeck to head in from four yards. Djourou was 100% pathetic on that goal. You never do that in any game, home or away.
Gazidis did not need to see the other seven goals by United. He didn’t need to see Robin van Persie bottle that penalty, miskicking the ball. Robin took a silly run-up and scuffed it. What a tosser! Captain of Arsenal? Why is RVP, a flaky striker, the captain?
No wonder the fans despair. No wonder they\’ve hired a £700 billboard near the ground.
We cannot know the future.
But the new Arsenal might be pretty good.
When Jack Wilshere comes back in two months time, the team will have more steel : Szczesny, Mertesacker and Wilshere, a proper spine, plus Park, a warrior who will race into the penalty area and score Ian Wright goals. Park won’t be like Chamakh, gliding into the six-yard box and passing sideways.
We might find that Mr W. actually likes having a team with some nous and steel.
Gazidis didn’t just sign 4 players – he signed 4 opinions. A football team needs more than one opinion.
However, we don’t know if Wenger will pick the new players.
We have to wait and see what he does.
Watch what he does, not what he says.
We can, of course, guess what he will say because he has been the most resourceful spin-doctor football has ever known. He rewrote history as he went along and did that more plausibly than anybody we\’ve ever seen.
But not recently. In 2011, nothing Wenger has said or done has made much sense.
If he picks the new players, fine. If he doesn’t, pay off his contract, hire Carlo Ancelotti and Martin Keown and get on with it.
There’s plenty of money in the bank.
Gazidis will be very relieved that Wenger didn’t sign a £35m wonderboy. Because Arsenal had £80m to spend and he wanted to keep £50m for the next manager.