The international break really took the pressure off Wenger.
It may have saved his job.
His shabby “team” has not played since Saturday March 18th.
They gave a pitiful performance on that day, stopped trying, just collapsed.Gave up.
West Brom 3 Arsenal 1.
Arsene FC were utterly gutless and totally clueless at the Hawthorns.
Now comes the Manchester City game.
Arsenal’s first match in 15 days is at home to Citeh and it’s a big one.
And Wenger is very lucky because Gabriel Jesus and Gundogan were fit, Man City would hammer Arsenal 6-2.
Oxlade-Chamberlain was invisible for England against Lithuania. You would not have known he was on the pitch!
Why does Southgate pick Arsenal players when he knows their mentality is so weak?
Lee Dixon once said he didn’t think Wenger would have a clue about how to putting in a defensive training session.
Wenger inherited the best back five in Europe from George Graham, and inherited Bergkamp from David Dein, and yet he has never in 21 years mentioned the name of George Graham.
George gave him Dixon and Winterburn, plus Adams and Bould and Keown and Seaman! And he gave him Ray Parlour as well.
Those seven players, and the understandings between them, were a foundation on which the brilliant young Wenger built very cleverly and successfully.
George left Arsene two thirds of a great team.
But if this exhausted old dictator leaves this summer he will leave nothing for the next manager.
Because Sanchez will be gone and Bellerin might walk as well.
As you all know by now, Wenger’s uncanny instinct for power-grabs allowed him, year by year, to make himself unsackable.
He wielded far more power than Sir Alex Ferguson ever did. That was because Manchester United had a professional board of directors.
Pep Guardiola would never say that fourth is a trophy because he doesn’t believe that.
And neither do his employers.
So 21 years of The Professor has left your club with a demoralised squad and a desperate regime and King Wenger now raging against the dying of the light.
Despite all that, I’ve enjoyed the last two weeks.
But two things have upset me.
Seamus Coleman, Everton’s Irish right back, is one of my favourite players, had leg broken in two places by a bad tackle by a Wales midfielder.
The other thing I didn’t want to see was on Twitter, posted by Martin Wengrow, an alarming comment by the wife Wenger never married.
In 2015, Annie told L’Equipe, “It wasn’t about affairs, he’s become a different person, I’m afraid of him.”
I’ve met the gracious Annie, who deserves much better treatment.