The Arsene Wenger Conundrum:

Sometimes the unpalatable needs to be acknowledged and faced, to the despair of some and the delight of others – but faced it must be.

All fans live in the here and now, that’s life as we know it, and we tend to think we are the only ones in history to experience tremendous football highs and also the corresponding dispiriting lows – but that is not the case is it?

Our parents and their parents and so on, back into the dim and distant past no doubt also ran the gamut of life’s ups and downs, and saw unpleasantness between the feuding doubters and the believers back in their era. So we are not too different.

Why am I pointing out the bleeding obvious?
Well it is because it seems to be readily forgotten that modern day professional football managers are not immune to this irrefutable law of life, and are subject to its intense stresses and strains, however well remunerated they might be, and so it has been from the mid-nineteenth century when football first became organised.

In other words, there comes a time in all our lives, and specifically in the career of every football manager’s life, however humble or exalted he/she maybe, when his problem becomes the team’s problem and, by the nature of these things, also the fans problem, as a consequence.

In essence, at some point in his career, the manager can become the problem and not the solution.

There is a clear cycle to the careers of all managers.

Initially the appointment of a new manager leads to the dead cat bounce of instant improvements in the results of the club, and the appointment soon proves popular with the fans, and things look up for the club— the manager is acclaimed for the personnel changes he makes; things go well; results are satisfactory; the club starts to look a good contender for the higher echelons of the league; attendances rise in proportion to the success; there is a feel good factor for the fans; and progress is tangible.
Who knows, maybe there are honours that will be won; a title will become a possibility; a nice Cup win or two, maybe, and everyone will be deliriously happy! What could go wrong, baby?

But there will come a time when, insidiously, things start to wobble, hiccups occur and dissatisfaction begins to creep in when the expected, nay demanded, progress stalls.

The causes can be manifold – maybe an important player, or two, leaves to pursue wealth and trophies elsewhere. Maybe there are too many injuries for the team to cope with. Maybe the club still cannot compete financially, despite raising their commercial game.
Possibly behind the scenes there are secret disagreements between the manager and the board. Maybe the players begin to ‘cock a deaf un’ to coaching instructions they once heard loud and clear. Maybe they become too casual, lack discipline, or become too arrogant? Who knows? – maybe all of these, or just some – but once started the rot is there and hard to eradicate.

Eventually, the recognition by the board, and the fans, is that the stardust, the magic, has gone and that things have become the same old, same old, and the slippery slope leads in an overwhelmingly irresistible downwards spiral to the inevitable conclusion.
Bye! See ya!

This process is compounded, inevitably, by some managers being limited in that they find it hard to maintain success, and their shelf life, or sell by date, whatever, is only possible for two or three years, at most, and then they are gone – to spend more time with their families, or to milk another club, who have more money than sense, and who think they can revive their fortunes with a new man at the helm.

And then? …. Then there is Arsene!
This paragon – This dedicated, wonderful Arsenal manager who clearly loves the role more than his own marriage, it seems. What of him?

The glorious early years of ‘Arsene Who?’ as he was first known, majestically set the template for the Arse and all the other clubs in the Premiership with his critically successful years covering the end of the old century and the beginning of the new, with a Double here and a Double there, and the occasional Cup trophy thrown in for good measure, and all that made possible by an intense and special relationship with his players based on mutual loyalty and continued ‘Invincible’ achievements. [OK, I admit it – a little poetic licence there!]

This relationship somehow survived the deep lying strains placed upon it by the emotional and stressful move from the much loved Highbury to the, as yet, so-so Emirates Stadium, and the outside pressures of ‘no-where’ clubs suddenly coming back to life with the injection of astounding monetary investments hurled them to unexpected trophy success. Bastards!

This incredible relationship between manager, club, team and fans, has been nurtured by the sometimes reluctant recognition that Wenger has laboured under self imposed, severe financial restrictions for many years compared with the other top clubs, and yet … and yet …

It has been universally recognised that, despite those restrictions, and despite the vast financial advantages of Arsenal’s rivals, Wenger brilliantly and adroitly has kept the Gunners in the mix, fighting the seemingly impossible fight for annual CL qualification and enabling the team to punch well above their weight for the Premiership title and CL qualification throughout those seemingly sterile years.

Without him things could have turned out very differently, and Arsenal could, for example, have had the woeful plodding undistinguished, dis-spiriting history that has befallen our neighbours, Tottering Hotspurs, over the past two decades and shown the Cockerel lovers for what they are — that they do indeed behave like vainglorious cocks of the walk.

Instead it is Arsenal who have remained the real footballing powerhouse in North London, famous worldwide for the wonderful, free-flowing football that all fans of the beautiful game love.

But —- and this pains me to say — have many fans now decided that the time has come, at last, for the Arsenal family as a whole to face head on what they see as the truth that Arsene is in the process, after all these years, of slowly, slowly declining and becoming himself the problem and not the solver of problems as far as the lack of advancement of the Arsenal project is concerned?

For how many seasons have many of the more vocal fans lamented Arsenal’s failure to mount a prolonged and successful challenge for the EPL title, or ever more disappointingly failed to get past the group stages of the CL, by losing to supposedly weaker teams?

Over the past two years the unrest has subsided to a degree with the protests becoming less vitriolic, as we have seen the increase in the money available to the club for transfers enabling all fans to live in hope that a ‘great’ player will be purchased to take us on to greater glory.

Sadly the (2 : 3) loss to Olympiacos recently, coupled with the lack of spending in the transfer window last summer, with seemingly adverse effects in key areas, deemed to be weak, are symptomatic of the fans newly awakened frustration and anger with the manager.

On the other side of the coin, many of us do not want to consider the possibility that we are in the end game of Arsene’s incredible Arsenal career, because we know how much we owe this fantastic manager.

We also know that all the other clubs in the Premier League owe him thanks for revolutionising the training regimes and the diet regimes and the life style regimes of the modern player, that are now de rigueur.

Let’s face it, the man built the modern Arsenal. He is, without doubt, one of the greatest figures ever seen in the game in this country.

And yet, — and yet — there is a malaise gripping Arsenal and its fans — there are some world class players in the first team squad, and we are brimming with superb young talent coming through the enhanced youth system, and yet – and yet —-many fans look at the poor CL games which seem to be re-runs of the poor CL games seen last season, and the season before that, and wonder.
As regards the Premier League, very few fans are now surprised when we are beaten by ‘lesser’ teams, and look, somehow, just as hopeless in certain areas of the team as we have ever done.

It is claimed by many pundits, including ex-Arsenal players, that we need a new super-duper centre-forward in order to progress, and so too by the fans, as well as by Arsene himself who has admitted as much, before adding the addendum, ‘there is no one available to sign’ which is sometimes taken as code for ‘he is too expensive’. Or is that just becoming folklore?

Over the years we have come within an inch of attaining trophies, while just needing one or two more top, top players to clinch them, only to see that another top, top player we already had has been sold instead, and that became yet another problem to fix before we could achieve the craved for success.

One step forward, and two back, on a regular basis – it seems to some.

That feeling of magic, that symbolised the early Wenger years, of constant progress onward and upward, has now, in the eyes of some, sadly flickered and almost gone out.

The magic seems to have been replaced, instead, by a reluctant acceptance, possibly even by those of us who love and respect Arsene, and who admire his great achievements, and for what he once brought to the club, and also into our lives as devoted Gooners, but not necessarily for what he may yet still achieve, as hope begins to flutter and fade.

It seems that a majority of red blooded Arsenal fans, perhaps with an element of personal guilt involved, think that this dying of the Arsene magic is the reality, and many long for a managerial change, despite not wanting to openly say so, because everyone wishes it could be otherwise.

All of us have our time in the sun, but, deep down, all of us also know that we eventually have to accept that our day is done because of our declining physical and mental strength and need to face up to life’s changes, and say a fond farewell to our friends, our colleagues and our jobs, and sashay quietly into the sunset.

I hope Arsene, a man I revere for what he has done for us — manages to climb the last summit and wins the Premier League and also wins the Champions League before his personal day is done.

That is the Arsene conundrum — will he stay to prove his doubters wrong, or will they get their way and see off a great man.

Be careful what you wish for — a truly great manager like Arsene comes around but once in a lifetime!

Written by RA