From ANR reader :
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
So goes the Greek proverb.
We all know Wenger’s legacy was going to be the stadium and the way he gave the best years of his career to oversee that masterplan, whilst tinkering around on the training ground pondering as to whether he could exact the game to his will, a trench coat King Knut trying to turn back the tide of the Drogba’s, Mourinho’s et al.
From Jim Johnson:You created these monster’s Arsene, because along with Sir Alex, you made the Premiership the go to place to watch big powerful players playing the game at high speed.
But when you realised you couldn’t compete with them financially, you should have recognised this and forced the board’s hand into getting proper investment into the club in an era that you were the chief architect of.
Instead you settled for a team of underachievers and players not fit to follow in the footsteps of James, Mercer and Armstrong.
There’s the other proverb about standing on the shoulders of giants. Gervinho? Chamakh? Coquelin? Please…
How many of this current crop are worthy of ‘Arsenalisation’ round the perimeter of the Emirates? Alexis might have got into the Invincibles side, but I’ve yet to find a Gooner who’d exchange him for any of that front six. And for all Alexis’s natural talent, I’d swap Freddie’s clever runs and his engine in that 2004 vintage any day.
Pace. Power. Serial Winners. Words once synonymous Adams, Keown, Campbell, Bergkamp, Vieira and Pires. Now we associate the words winner with Man City and Chelsea.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Myles says ;
His legacy is the stadium?
His legacy is irrelevant until he goes.
And his legacy will be : he didn’t know when to call it a day, so he drifted on for years after his sell-by date.
King Wenger will never abdicate.
His legacy might be: he died with his boots on.
I’ve been telling Sir Chips for years that the world is full of football coaches.
Ivan must know that Europe is full of good coaches who do a job for three years and move on.
Some do a job for six years and move on.
Only KIng Wenger stays for 21 years and plans to stay indefinitely.
The absentee owner allows this absurd situation to go on and on and on and on.
Kroenke, you are shameless and negligent.