Arsene Wenger took charge of his final Arsenal game on May 13th 2018, a cool 16 months ago and you would have thought that is long enough for people to move on but nope, that is not the case for some.
Anyone checking the comments on here will see how regular Wenger’s name is raised, it is not always negative, some want him back but a fair chunk of it is negative.
It is not just the fans that cannot seem to shake off the Wenger era, former Gunner turned TV pundit Paul Merson, only last week was asking if Unai Emery is Wenger in disguise. I do wonder what Wenger that would be, the one that failed to evolve or the one that created a dynasty, that won the double and created the invincibles?
It is like an obsession that some are finding very difficult to let go, this Arsenal team is moving on significantly, fewer and fewer of Wengers players are around, the board has changed, there is a new backroom set up, new transfer policy and so on and yet, the name of Wenger is still there.
AFTV has a video up titled Emery or Wenger, in all fairness, it is about tactics but one has been in the job for one season the other for 22 years, hardly a balanced comparison.
Obviously, you cannot erase the memories of Wenger, overall he is a legend and he will always be remembered but this is a new era under a new manager and people really need to move on.
There is no way people will forget the man in a hurry. He stayed like forever and did so much for the club. He had his faults, no doubt, but I think he did well.
Some may not like him at all, they may splash mud in his name all they want. But the man laid a foundation for the club to build on. Players like Nelson, Nketiah and every player from our youth setup, has Wenger to thank.
It may take more than these slagging off by some to erase his legacy in the Arsenal.
I think most have moved on here ,only a few moaners still bringing his name up just using it as an a excuse for Emery’s shortcomings .
Wenger is highly respected for everything that he done for the club not just on the pitch and I think it’s disappointing that some fans still attack him 18 months on .
I find people slagging off Wenger very distasteful, that too 16 months after he left the club. His last two years were marked by backroom politics and struggles at the board level, but he remained a true gunner till the end. A legend doesn’t deserve the mouthing he gets in gunner forums.
Questioning his fotballing knowledge would be idiotic but on the economic side of things he was too dogmatic…If you dont spend you are left behind…Plain and simple
@pires
Spending big doesn’t always equate to success…
Touche. Leicester won EPL with a minimum budget, whereas Fulham got relegated despite spending more than 150 M last season
Whether we like Wenger or not, he is a legendary manager. If Real Madrid or Barcelona hire him next season, he can learn new ideas from their established system and would most likely get another major trophy
@gotanidea
Well put Gooner. Because if spending were the metric to go by, ManU should have won everything the past few seasons after dropping 400m on players… Wish AW all the best, hope you where ever he lands. I feel he did right by us.
Maybe, but am yet to hear of a big team that does not spend big. Manchester City, PSG, Barca, Atletico, R. Madrid, Juve and Bayern all spend big. Is it a coincidence they are always at the top of their leagues?
Wenger was great despite his faults. People remember him because Emery is not doing well.
@Maj
People will remember him regardless of how good or bad Emery does…
Liverpool 29 years, Arsenal 15 years and now Man Utd 7 years
continue to suffer PTTS Post Traumatic Title Syndrome.
‘Pool fans have never won the PL so for 3 decades hid behind the good old days of Dalgleish Rush and Grobbelaar
Man Utd PTTS sufferers presently hide behind memories of Keane Sir Alex, the 13 titles + the last minute CL heroics.
Arsenal fans spent 14 years hiding behind memories of the invincibles because on the field the team was being humiliated by United, Chelski Man Sheiki + banter FC Leicester
It is really bizarre that millions of Gooners loved 14 years of 4th is a trophy now want Emery sacked after just one term.
A case of dumb and dumber.
Agu, I repeat, 2 years Arsene did not get top 4, he parted company.Same yardstick to measure Unai.No top 4 for this year, he goes. Arsene worked on a budget,Unai has been given a lavish spread.
@Loose Cannon.
In Arsene’s early days the Premier league
English Clubs were owned by local yokels.
Managers were British and were mostly useless.
Teams had mostly useless British players.
Wenger was the first to bring in top, foreign
and often black talent.
White British mangers were uncomfortable with foreigners and with black hatred reaching its nadir White British managers just kept playing white British players no matter how bad they were.
Man Utd was Arsenals only serious competition.
Utd and Arsenal were thus in a field of two
and gutsed all the PL titles.
Wenger won all three of his PL titles in the field of two
against sides with mostly clumsy British players.
But in 2004 Mourinho arrived and the PL changed massively.
Mou was European as well and brought in his own
foreign legion including Blacks.
After that all the top teams recruited foreign Managers mostly from Europe and they too brought in foreign players many of whom were black.
So Mou in 2005/06 destroyed Wenger who because his early advantage had been greatly reduced never won the PL again.
Even in the field of three between ’04 and’10
(six seasons) Wenger could not win.
Man City made it a field of four from 2010.
This is the period when Arsenal transitioned from being a title aspirant to becoming a top four is a trophy club.
It also crucially coincides with the ownership of the club passing to the Kroeneke’s who were to become the only PL club owners to never spend money on their team.
In fact Stan Kroenke famously or infamously was quoted
as saying “I did not buy Arsenal to win trophies”.
In 2013 Man Utd imploded and the field was actually reduced to three but still Wenger could not win.
In 2015 Potch and 2016 Klopp made it a genuine top 5.
That was when Arsenal slid out of the top four.
So to compare Wenger and Emery accurately
we have to start in 2016 when the top 5 began.
Wenger failed to make top 4 in both his
two seasons in a genuine top 5 and Emery
failed in his one season in a genuine top 5.
So statistically If we use 2016 as our guide
then Emery is as good/bad as Wenger already.
Agu Emen, as you stated that you have been a supporter for 45 years, I believe that means you started watching from 1973.
In that time, you saw us win the premiership twice under five different managers and the fa cup twice… before AW took the reins over.
Since then, you have seen us win the premiership three times and the fa cup seven times, three doubles, The Invincibles, twenty consecutive years of CL football and twenty years of top four finishes ( 3x1st – 6x2nd – 5x3rd – 6x4th – 1x5th – 1x6th ).
During the 14 years you imply we finished 4th, we actually finished 2nd twice, 3rd four times and 4th six times and we finished 5th and 6th during his last two years…and that’s why he went… because he failed to bring us CL football two years in a row.
This was achieved, so we are led to believe, with “dross, weak, both mentally and physically players who couldn’t defend, weren’t told tactics and were bleeding the club dry”…THE MAN MUST BE A BL**DY GENIUS IF ALL THAT WAS TRUE, DON’T YOU THINK?
Mind you, £9,000,000 a year for doing nothing probably helped keep him at the club, poor old UE is only on £6,000,000.
In 2005, Abramovitch bought in his russian roubles by the billions amd in 2008 – city saw the oil rich sheiks money change the face of the premeirship for ever – united continued to spend as they always have and Leicester, of course, humiliated all the other premier league clubs and yet we beat them home and away and came second above all the teams you remember as humiliating us?
Do you see ANY reason why chelsea and city might have had an influence on our club, who during part of that time as you well know, were building a new stadium that they are still paying £15,000,000 a year in interest charges up and until 2030?
Or the fact that a certain Stanley Kronkie took over the club, lock, stock and barrel?
Or the fact that we had to sell our top players and were given peanuts to replace them?
Did none of the above facts actually figure in your PTTS examination as part of the reason we were getting humiliated by the very clubs you mention?
I think it is even more bizzare that you have not mentioned any of the above when giving your views on our ex manager, who you obviously followed during the times he became the most successful manager ever –
and as for finishing in the top four being a trophy, just ask chelsea, united, city, liverpool and the spud coaches/managers what their first, overiding priority is at the end of the season…being in the CL as they all have stated and that is what UE has been employed to do, with a two year contract and on an incentive of £6,000,000 a year.
When calling out millions of Arsenal fans (your figures not mine) for being dumb and dumber, please KNOW YOUR HISTORY from the 45 years of supporting the club.
Unless of course you think the days of Bertie Mee, Terry Neill, Don Howe, George Graham and Bruce Rioch (that all us older gooners sat through until Arsene Wenger changed our club), made the likes of you and me dumb and dumber?!?!
As a footnote, AW was not a saint, the arch angel, the next coming etc etc He was just a brilliant manager who made numerous mistakes but gave our club the glory we waited (at least in your case), 45 years for…move on, but please don’t forget!!!
What a magnificent response Ken. ??
Real talk!!!!!
Ken, I respect Arsene Wenger as I also respect all the Arsenal managers you mention. Bertie Mee achieved wonders, as did George Graham. Don Howe was a fantastic coach.
I will always rate Bruce Rioch for signing Dennis Bergkamp, who Stuart Pearce claimed would be a failure in England. We all know how that turned out. Arsene Wenger certainly benefited from the ground work Graham and Rioch put in.
Love that reply Ken, spot on!
OT.. So Watford have sacked their manager.. usually performances improve after doing this… our next game? Watford away…
Well at least Deeney is out ??♂️
?
It was time for wenger to go. He over stayed his welcome like everyone agrees. But the way some fans call him all sorts of names one would led to believe that he was the worst thing to have ever happened to our club in the whole of our history.
What is the harm in just stating your displeasure towards him in a mature manner other than calling him disrespectful names / swear / curse words?
And most of the people that curse every time they mention his name are the same fans that started following Arsenal due to wengers success in the 20 or so years he was with us.
As they say, “Some people just bite the hands that fed them”.
The man frustrated all of us but i just can’t take seriously so called Arsenal fans that curse at the mention of wengers name.
So the article is about moving on from Wenger…… does anyone see the irony in this? ?
So we say nothing about anything that we criticise, ok I get it
wenger was top manager in the world up to the time he began to lose his way. such a pity he tarnished his legacy at arsenal. he should have gone when things began to go sour.i guess no one will ever know the real reasons behind him staying and, untimately failing.
About £9m a year in salary might have been something to do with him staying dont you think ?
Phil, now if I was Jon, I would probably come straight back at you and say that is why Ozil is staying…£350,000 a week takes him past AW and you can add UE’s paltry £6,000,000 on to the £9,000,000 and it still doesn’t beat Ozil…but then I’m not Jon and this is about Aw’s legacy.
Ah but Ken that would be a cynical way of looking at things and I would then accuse you of dragging Ozil into a headline unnecessarily
Well Phil, it wouldn’t be a “justarsenal” response without mentioning Ozil would it?
I actually don’t want to say so much of what I would wish.
So my comment is a question, how do you forget a phenomenon so quickly. I mean the man change English football, not just Arsenal.
Lots of scenarios interfere with the coming in of Kroenke, probably the worst when he became sole holder, and Wenger’s contract was terminated.
I was critical of Wenger in his final years here,but He gave me the most enjoyable period of my life. As an Arsenal fan since i was seven, I am now over Sixty and truly grateful to Arsene for those stunning years of quality players and attacking football,I for one will never forget the man and what he did for this club so don’t ask me to, he deserves to be remembered alongside the likes of Adams,Henry and Bergkamp etc.