Wenger is considering his future?
Don’t make me laugh.
He will be Arsenal’s manager next season, don’t worry about that.
Yes, I had heard, months ago, from an impeccable source that this will be his last season.
Here and there he’s been hinting at leaving .
Having hired Gazidis, he now barely speaks to him, or so I\’ve often been told. For me, all dictatorships become dysfunctional. No wonder the club hasn\’t won anything for six years.
Myself, I still think Wenger wants to stay at Arsenal for as long as he can because he has made it it his French club, made it a vehicle for his ideas, made it a place where he can toughen up youngish French players for the national team.
He’d love to interview the next CEO, having already interviewed Ivan Gazidis to work under him.
Clearly, Wenger is past his best but he will never walk. He built his place of work and he loves it there. He’s a media-manipulator who’s now talking to the owner and the board through L’Equipe.
He knows he’s more vulnerable than ever before, he knows the board is divided on keeping him, but, in truth, he\’s as defiant as always.
He\’s saying to them: See if you can do without me.
Why does he do this interview now? Because he knows Kroenke will keep him. He says that the interview was done three weeks ago and, in that context, the timing makes sense because that was just after that was when he got a ringing endorsement from the American owner, who insists that AW is his man.
He’s had a run of wins against Sunderland, Marseilles, West Brom, Stoke, Bolton and Norwich, and a big win at Chelsea side that’s in meltdown, and he thinks he\’s Mr Indispensable.
Forgive me for not believing that the greatest spin-doctor in the history of oraganised sport has bared his soul to a French sports paper.
He;s been saying that he’s come back from hell this season. If it was hell, if he got smashed by Manchester United, and even beaten by relegation candidates Blackburn, it was because if his culture and his denial. He refused to believe that both Fabregas and Nasri woudl leave, he dithered in the transfer market, and ended up grabbing a handful of experiences players in the last three days of the window. Arsenal’s summer was a shambles and that was down to Wenger His dictatorship has made Arsenal stale.
His Youth Project failed, his current style of football is one-dimensional because the team lacks power, so the club badly needs a change, a different culture, some British players that fans can identify with, not disloyal mercenaries who walk on when more money is on offer elsewhere.
Just wish some of my readers could have been at Alex Fynn’s talk last Thursday night. Some were, actually, and introduced themselves.
One theme was : Board should challenge Wenger more. Most Gooners think the team shouldn’t have the same coach and same assistant manager for 16 years. Even Wenger loyalists who follow the messiah’s every utterance now admit he constantly contradicts himself. I don’t follow his utterances. But some are relayed to me by phone, and others emailed by friends and readers.
On Sunday afternoon, a phone call : “Your mate Philippe Auclair was on talkSport from Stamford Bridge and said there’s a widening gap between Wenger and the board.” My friend mentioned that Wenger had said Bolton were greedy.
Other friends were taken aback by that too. Why say Bolton were greedy on the Gary Cahill fee. Greedy? Every smaller club is greedy when richer clubs come in for their best players.
How can he make insulting bids for good players and then not sign them and then, three months, later call Bolton greedy? Was Oxlade-Chamberlain worth £12m now and £3m more later? Nobody can tell how teenage footballers will develop, as characters or as players.
I like AOC a lot, as we all do. But AOC is a gamble. The future for AOC is an uncertain one . All we know is that he is, like thousands of other teenagers, a very promising footballer who might, if he’s lucky, go all the way Bottom line, AW wants to be known as a talent-spotter, wants the glory of developing them into stars, so that other kids will want to join him, so he can go on selling the future to gullible media and gullible punters.
His mistake lies in thinking the best of his young players will stay long enough to become champions, as happened with Vieira and Henry.
Fabregas and Nasri left him in 2011. Is Wenger going to cry about that for the rest of his life? Will he always moan that his grand project was wrecked by the departure of Fabregas and Nasri?
I’ve read and digested all Wenger’s quotes but I’m not gonna discuss them one by one. There’s no point in analysing the spiel of a spin-doctor.
My view is that great managers have to be pragmatic, not theoretical and strategic. Deal with now, win now, the future will take care of itself. Football is about the next match, the next trophy. Liverpool think like that, Manchester United the same.
Norwich was another win that keeps a good sequence going. I backed Arsenal to win but, when the match started, I couldn’t get into it. The team looked clunky, even Van Persie looked clunky, they took time to find their rhythm and touch Mertesacker looked a bundle of nerves against a promoted team who gave Arsenal far too much time and space. Arsenal’s predictable 2-1 victory was a bit like Manchester United’s performance at Swansea, another promoted team. United and Arsenal both lacked fluency because of the two-week break.
Arsenal’s quick-passing style is high-maintenance. It needs to be fine-tuned and practiced every day. Gervinho was rubbish at Norwich, a dribbler whose finishing lacks conviction., Ramsey was absolutely average, while Walcott was OK against a very slow left back.
Song did well and supplied the pass for the winning goal Story of the game : Arsenal conceded a silly goal, levelled, then slackened off, went ahead, slackened off again, and almost allowed Norwich an equaliser.
Van Persie scored both goals. He’s authoritative now. His first touch is very, very good now.
But early in this game the whole team was dodgy. That’s down to lack of practice, and also the mentality of a Eurocentric squad. who know they can’t win the Premier League and only care about the Champions League anyway.