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| Arsene Wenger |
A friend of mine who supports Arsenal recently suggested to
me to write about the struggles the Gunners are going through and whether the
club should bid adieu to Arsene Wenger. Most of the Arsenal fans I know and
most of the stuff I’ve seen online, suggests that more and more Arsenal fans
are ready for Wenger to leave and to start the next generation, despite the
fact that Wenger has had so much success at the club in his long reign.
As a neutral observer, it’s an issue I’ve been back and
forth on because I always respected the way Wenger was able to develop talent
and always keep his team competitive without spending the same amount as other
top teams. However the recent form (not including their most recent 5-2
victory) has really made it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel for
the current setup.
Arsenal has certainly had some hits and misses in their
transfer activity in recent years, but the same can be said for all the teams
fighting for Champions League spots. The problem is for clubs like Arsenal, as
well as Liverpool and Tottenham etc. is that they can’t just continue to buy
their way out of trouble the way Man City and Chelsea do. When money turns out
to have been wasted on guys like Marouane Chamakh, it is money that now can’t be
spent on someone else.
Historically the way Arsenal avoided this problem was they were better
than anyone at finding young talent around the world, usually from France or
Africa, and then developing them into world class players. Yes they still have
Jack Wilshere and others, but the depth of talent coming through simply isn’t
there anymore. The reason for this is that the rest of the clubs in the Premier
League and around Europe have caught up in terms of scouting and Wenger can’t
get the hidden gems he used to for such minimal fees. Buying young players is
still a valuable strategy, but the prices are now inflated even for youngsters
and it can only work in conjunction with a broader transfer strategy.
Another issue is that Arsenal under Wenger have always had to play this
great to watch style and end up passing the ball into the net after breaking
down the defence. For this reason I’ve always loved watching their games, but
realistically it’s not a strategy that will always work. There seems to be very
little Plan B when they can’t break down a defence. Not every team can be Barcelona
and when the talent isn’t quite what it used to be, the tactics need to adapt.
Nowadays the game adapts and changes year to year, if not even in the middle of
a season and if a manager gets too stubborn, it can undo a lot of hard work.
One manager will try something new and it works and very quickly
everyone is copying it. Eventually someone else figures out how to beat that
tactic or formation and everyone adapts again. Wenger still wants Arsenal to be
the team that went undefeated in 2003-04, but in all modern sport it is ‘adapt
or die’.
For that reason I think it’s time for Wenger to move on from a club
that he returned to glory. That being said, if I were the owner of another
lower EPL team looking for a new manager, I’d show up to his door with a truck
full of cash trying to entice him to do it all over again.
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