Arsenal fans should be careful what they wish for….

As a huge number of fans are turning on our current manager Arsene Wenger, there is the need to bring light to some of the realities that exist with football and our club in general.

I bring Liverpool to you as the prime example of a club who have gone a long time without the Premier League title (26 years in fact), but are still considered a so called ‘big club’ with a huge fan base.

Our league rivals appear to be on the upturn having brought in the German maestro Jurgen Klopp as manager, but the reality is that they have changed charge 10 times since last winning the league in 1990, and have been in and out of the top four ever since.

It is easy to claim that Arsenal ‘used to win things before Wenger and will after’ but the reality is that football has changed hugely since he was brought in. Despite a huge shift in transfer fees, player power and the general state of the game, our manager has stayed consistent and kept us in the top four of the league every year since joining.

People can claim that Chelsea have at least won trophies, but their youth academy has suffered because the lack of consistency in the backroom has made it extremely difficult to promote the youths into the first-team.

You only need to look at Manchester United to see that a big club can falter quickly following the exit of a long-term boss, and they have spent millions in trying to rectify that. Do you really believe a new manager would be given the funds to fix any initial errors the way they have?

What we all want is a club who wins things as often as possible, promotes young stars into the first-team like Iwobi and Bellerin, guarantees Champions League football, and brings in a big player every summer, but none of the top clubs can boast a full sweep of those things.

Wanting Wenger gone is simple minded, he is doing the best he can with what he has, and nothing bar a new chairman who is willing to plough millions and millions into the club is going to change that. I still believe Wenger has what it takes to guide us to glory in the league, maybe with a little luck on the injury front.

Do we really want 26 years of hurt like Liverpool? Or to be that club with no policy on youth progression and no continuity?

Tags Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool Wenger

36 Comments

  1. OT and I’m not a Wenger basher nor lover, but I’ve read that a lot of top players are not attracted by Wenger anymore but more so if the came to Arsenal it would be based on money and location. Don’t know if this is true but if there is any truth to this then we wouldn’t have helped this situation with performances of this season…

    1. If you were a top player would you

      Play for a club that hasn’t won the league in 12 years or never won the UCL?

      Would you play for a manager who is known for failure?

      Money and location, tick the boxes
      But there are other places that have both these things plus (still a huge motivating factor for top players) the club they join being a winning side (now and in the past) So that they have more chance of winning things themselves.

      Makes sense.

    2. I doubt Silent Stan saying publicly that he isn’t in this for championships is helping any…

      I wonder what Ozil and Alexis must think about this?

        1. you know how to make a grown man cry… lol
          I do fear that, we all know that players will be sold if a big enough bid come in and yet I also fear the ‘big’ price wouldn’t be a Bale figure…

    3. They talk about Liverpool’s 26 year epl drought. We are now 12 and counting. Why are you trying to mortigage this club to 1 a single person? Used to think football is bigger than individuals. That is why players/managers (matter how good) comes and go, but the club and it’s supporters stays. I for one don’t hate Wenger, he has done great for this club (in the past) but he can’t do more now. The football of his era is gone for good, frozen in statues at the emirates!

    4. Oh absolutely – Sanchez would’ve gone to Liverpool if it wasn’t for his wife(?) wanting to live in London. He must’ve lured Özil with promises of buying world class players every year as the club no longer is under economical shackles. As for Cech -maybe he also wanted to keep living in London, who knows…

  2. As for the article:

    To summarise: We should all be happy with wenger because it could be worse.

    Well it could also be a lot better. Personally I don’t enjoy the team being run by suits and a manager who hasn’t delivered in 12 years so I’m open to change and a new hope.

    Not they grey, predictable, uninspiring nonsense of a club we have now and for too long a time.

    Things stagnate it they stay the same for too long. Never more evident than at AFC.

    1. its bcoz the fans like the author wenger has survived these many years…to b very frank liverpool and manu has won many more titles then us
      wenger has done nothing what he could have done..
      i m totally fed up with his attitude and being content with mediocrity…

      1. “liverpool and manu has won many more titles then us”

        How many EPL titles does Liverpool have compared to Arsenal?

        1. v r also talking abt past only .. v have also not won title in 12 years epl or not liverpool in the past have many more thn us and lets not forget in between these years they won Champions league

  3. All you have to do is ask if you would swap places with a Liverpool fan at the moment! They are a mighty club the same as Arsenal, but look atthe potential their season still holds. Would you swap places with a Leicester fane! Look at the potential thier season holds. Same goes for Man City, even Spurs who have a chance.
    Where is our season, same old same. Enough of cash cows get rid start a new or Arsenal will become redindent as a football club.

    1. Exactly…

      They have 5 European Cups/Champs Leagues if I remember rightly, an intelligent footballing coach as No.1 who looks lik he will spread his magic with again and the chance to win a trophy this season resulting in automatic entry into the champions league.

      Do.you think there are many of them or at any other ‘big’ club who wishes they were in our shoes.

      I know that’s a big no, as you only have to read what is written. Laughing stock comes to mind.:(

      1. Another thought to add to what you said AOT…

        “Do.you think there are many of them or at any other ‘big’ club who wishes they were in our shoes.”

        Some managers could be in our shoes if they was hired and how many of them would want to manage us?

      2. I know there are many greedy managers and owners who would love to be in the position Wenger and Kroenke are in.

  4. Wenger can’t turn this team anymore. He’s 65 and he’s not Ferguson either. No FA darling either. Time to turn the page guys. Obviously, not much will change in the next season but the club needs a shock. And Wenger is easiest to dispose off. There, I said it. Everything will be more obvious in the weeks to come. We play teams which are not going to stand aside and look as we go past them. We play Sunderland, fighting for relegation. We play City fighting for UCL. We play Bournemouth and even Villa having absolutely nothing to lose. I am not an AOB or an AKB, you all know my stance. Change has to happen and I f@cking hate to see Gazidis surviving Wenger but at this stage I don’t think it matters. Fans want something different. I feel extremely sorry for Wenger that it had to end like this. Betrayed by his loyalty to players not deserving it, betrayed by playing one tune only over the last 20 years, betrayed by the very board he made them rich. If they can’t convince Wenger to step down then we know what kind of executives we have and also know how things will go from now on. But you know, the irony of the situation would be to hear Gazidis (should we finish out of top 4) saying well peeps, is the first time in so many years, $hit happens all the time and we trust Wenger can turn it around on the football side (because we know that financially he delivers). And don’t underestimate the fact that Wenger would want another crack at it and also the fact that Kroenke will loathe to pay 8 millions for someone not working. OK, I am not angry, I am just depressed and realistic. I don’t know what can be done to turn this team around. I am dedicated to Arsenal but I will not let it run my life anymore. Alright, this should be my last comment for a while as I am in no mood to discuss this heartless team and to analyze the total collapse this year. Will lurk around to laugh at the hate consuming some. I have a new job and should focus on that for a while. Have a good one, ya’ll.

    1. “Alright, this should be my last comment for a while as I am in no mood to discuss this heartless team and to analyze the total collapse this year”

      Ok! See you tomorrow, on here, same time.

  5. When something has sentimental value for you, you begin to make excuses for keeping it regardless of whether it can be replaced with better.

    That is what Arsene Wenger is. It is only natural that it is like that considering he has been around 20 years at the club. He is not a bad manager. And he isn’t failing at his job.

    He was an excellent manager, but not anymore. However, being the most experienced manager in the PL for close to 3 years running he simply can’t be excused for not striving to achieve like the Leicesters, Dortmunds and Athletico’s of the last 5 years.

    1. Forget the fact that our owner has openly said he doesn’t care for winning things while the other teams you have mentioned at least appear to want to fight…

      1. You are not alone in believing that the ownership is doing a whole lot lesser than what they should be doing to support the manager.

        But when I speak of the above as examples -Klopp, Simeone and Ranieri- it is because in the years they achieved glory, none of them had even half of what Arsene Wenger has had at his disposal the past three years -stability, huge control, 17-20 years experience in the league and even finances. Yet they over-achieved under difficult circumstances. You know why?

        Where they did not have $billions$ to spend, they compensated with flaming desire, ruthlessness and pragmatism -three adjectives none of which you can use to describe Arsene Wenger of today.

        1. Klopp I think will do well overall but he hasn’t had 1 season in the EPL yet, I wait to see how well it turns out for him. Things have been a bit up and down for him, the win was a highlight but Liverpool was Liverpool under Klopp, unpredictable.

          Simone hasn’t managed a EPL team has he? He might flop in the EPL.
          Wasn’t LvG going to walk it with UTD?
          Ranieri has always had my respect, he built the foundation for Jose to win things with yet people always put 100% of the success on Jose, shame for Ranieri I thought. I am also glad that if any manager was going to take advantage of this season other than Wenger, I wanted it to be Ranieri and I have been wanting Chavski to ask him to manage them again and would love to see him spurn them 😛

          There is nothing to say that even Ranieri would have failed if he had to deal with Silent Stan and his yes man Ivan the terrible, it at least appears that Ranieri has the backing of the board in not selling players from under his nose or to buying players for him without his consent.

          We can name names all day long at who might or might not be good enough to win the EPL with us but shouldn’t we be able to trust the board to act in the direction we hope for?

          I’m not saying Wenger is the best we can ever get, I just want to unite against the board so that maybe we can get a board we can trust to deal with these issues rather than leaving us to think either nothing will happen or we will enter the manager lotto, roll a number to see if we get lucky and have a manager that can keep us competing with delusions…

  6. You talk about chelsea’s youth team.. there currently beating PSG in the final! fair enough they dont promote much youth but our youth players haven’t been anything special recently barring Iwobi.

    It’s time we take the risk and get rid of wenger, we may win the league with a new manager or not even get top four but who’s happy with getting our hopes up every season for it to fall half way through and finish 3rd/4th with wenger! Wenger is going to carry on buying the same sort of players which wont make us champions of anything… every body seems to know the issue with arsenal except wenger

    1. “Wenger is going to carry on buying the same sort of players which wont make us champions of anything… ”

      Hmm, for a start Wenger doesn’t have final say on transfers.
      Wenger saying how he wouldn’t have signed Welbeck if he stayed at home should of been a clear indicator to anyone with a brain in their head.

      I am not saying Wenger has nothing to do with transfers, I bet he talks to the players when it is one of his desired targets and he helps talks them into joining us…

      Like Alexis who joined us over Liverpool because of Wenger, Like Ozil who has said Wenger was a big part in him coming to us, Cech as well…

      If you could think for youself then you would of realized that Wenger and Dein bought in quality and Wenger on his own spent the cash to buy in players… even though we had stadium debts at the time, Wenger still broke Arsenals own transfer record.

      What changed?

      Gazidis came into Arsenal.

      Gazidis is what changed so it must be Wengers fault… stupidity will win the day 🙁

    2. Off the top of my head, players that have come through from a young age (teenagersish), developing at their clubs, not bought for significant money(less than a million) & given a chance in the first team, during Wenger’s reign:
      Chelsea:
      Loftus Cheek, Terry
      vs Arsenal:
      Bellerin, Coquelin, Iwobi, Cesc Fabregas, Anelka, Gibbs, Sczesney, Fabianski, Gnabry, Stephen Hughes, Simpson, Matthew Upson, Sanogo, Inamoto, Djourou, Sanogo, Wilshere, Clichy, Manninger, Bendtner, Lansbury, Aliadiere, Ashley Cole, Hoyte, Toure, Bentley, Alex Song, Thomas, Owusu-Abeiyie, Mannone, Eastmond, Gilbert, Merida, Frimpong, Traore, Vela, Miquel, Jenkinson, Joel Campbell, Damian Martinez

      Obviously successes have been mixed, but how many of these Chelsea youth players beating PSG will ever get a fair crack at making it in the Chelsea first team? Any? Doubtful. If they show strong promise at Arsenal, at the very least they will get a shot.

      1. So when we take players out of the kids and promote them rather than keeping that talent in the youth… that gets complaints?

        Some fans are just ignorant of the larger picture, the kids who have taken Chavski to where they are now are kids that are not getting promoted and as such stay big fish in a little pond.

  7. Truth be told.
    Wenger is dwindling especially in this decade.
    It is not about comparing ourselves with other teams but to look at our potential and resources.
    The habit of changing managers is important because you get to try different ideas and bring new things to our club
    And you never know what may happen.
    Chelsea and liverpool have both won a european championship because they have changed managers often.
    The reasons we are stalling are so obvious.
    Someone out there has the ability change our fortunes if we keep searching and do it well.
    Its important we keep the pace and not be left too behind with the elite because at the moment the gap is so large.

  8. It is always easy to point fingers at other clubs. The bottom line is that Arsenal have become predictable and ultimately toothless – how many times have you heard commentators and pundits comment something like ‘typical Arsenal’ or ‘same old Arsenal’. Why do we always lose games that we SHOULD have won? We have drawn/lost so many games this season because our players just seem to go belly up second half with no urgency to carry each game through till the end. For a long time I thought well it’s just bad luck, the next couple of games we will win. But it hasn’t happened that way, the same sh** keeps happening to us which means we need to start looking at common denominators. Also we cannot expect our players to play their hearts out when we have a manager who has lost his passion, drive and winning mentality. Our players attitudes are a direct reflection of the managers.

    These are some of the less obvious points, but most obvious is Wenger’s lack of focus on our strikers. It was clear from Giroud’s second season he simply was/is not good enough to be our no1 striker. Yet Wenger has persisted with him and although he hasn’t done horribly bad, for the amount of chances he has been provided with he should be topping the charts. Ozil top assists three seasons in a row, twice in the BPL, yet do we have any strikers with top goals? Not even close. Wenger should be busting a nut right now to secure Lukaku’s signature, for obvious reasons, but he will put all his faith in mediocre players and expect miracles. There are a few other players who simply have not materialized into anything special, I won’t mention names but here we are supposed to be a club gunning for CL titles, nevermind domestic trophies. How on earth are we going to win the CL with some of the players currently in our squad? I understand Arsenal are not as rich as a number of clubs, but our bank account is nothing to sniff at. Surely we can do better than some of the players we have?

  9. The author whoever he is, should just look at things on both sides, you gave example of Liverpool changing managers, Liverpool are just Liverpool you can’t compare them to Arsenal currently just like Spurs. Man U; Alex had to leave one day, his last years you could see his health was detoriating and he had wrist shakers whenever they were losing. Talk about Chelsea and Man city, these are 2 good examples

    Mourinho came for the 1st time, they won trophies. he left, they won UCL, he comes back they win some more trophies, and don’t say about their position now, they are 10th and we are 4th but they just had the title last season, we are 12 years apart from our last title

    Man city have been changing managers and they have been winning the title every now and then, unlike us, same manager, same philosophy, same tactics, same excuses, same crap, the only difference are the seasons

    I wish someone could collect all the excuses this deluded manager gave from the last time we won the title, you’ll find that he has same lines he just goes in the dictionary for some few new words (cohesion) and comes back to mock us.

  10. Ridiculous article! When one has to come up such excuses to keep justifing Wenger, surely one must know deep down that something’s not right.

    Yes it’s been a long time since Liverpool won the league, but they haven’t changed their managers at the drop of a hat. Most have had a fair amount of time to try and get things right. Since Liverpool’s last league title, they’ve still won:

    1x Champions League
    1x UEFA Cup/Europa Cup
    3x FA Cup
    4x League Cup
    2x Charity Shield/Community Shield

    Not too shabby if you ask me.

    Then on to the other ridiculous example of Chelsea’s youth. As fans we all love seeing a youngster make it in the first team, and I’m sure Chelsea fans would have liked to have seen youngsters get more of a chance. But on the flip side, Chelsea have won everything in the last decade and consistently challenge for major honours. No way would Chelsea fans would give up all of those trophies just to see a handful youngsters make it.

    It’s just plain stupidity that some of our fans think Arsenal FC will enter the dark ages as soon as we change manager. Arsenal have done almost nothing in a decade, it really isn’t going to get any worse. Given the resources at our club (even with Kroenke), we should be doing a lot better, and we’re in a great position to progress, once a competent manager is placed in charge.

    Leicester, Tottenham and Dortmund seem to be doing loads better, and they’ve all recently changed managers.

  11. Great article mate; the ingratitude to Wenger & sense of entitlement amongst a lot of Gooners makes my blood boil lately.

  12. emirates cup has been cancelled
    where the hell we gonna get a trophy from now lol
    can they bring back the intertoto. we can beat fc red star milkshake of mongolia

  13. It is killing me to watch SPUDS ALREADY 1-0 UP SHOWING GUTS, DESIRE ( WHOLE TEAM ) , AMBITION something we always lack when going to STOKE..very cautious..passing..slow side ways and back..and always losing there….they are disciplined..dynamic..all running for the same cause..IT HURST TO SEE THEM GOING TOP AND SPECIALLY RUBBING IT ON OUR FACES. IT WAS COMING..CHANGES NEEDED NO MATTER HOW MANY WENGER SUPPORTERS LIKE THIS ARTICLE COMES OUT EVERY DAY…CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE.

  14. The reason wenger had not to strengthen the squad is Still beyond me, 2.d reason for his faith in tired and injury prone players like flamini, arteta, roscisky, wheelchair etc is beyond me still. 3. The reason for wengers belief dat he can win d epl without a prolific striker is beyond. 4. The reason wenger consistently trivialize the transfer window and spending big is beyond me. 5. The reason wenger doesn’t see anything wrong in his style and inability to win d epl in 12 years is beyond me. 6. The reason wenger has not the balls to axe under performing players instead he’s emotional abt them at the expense of the club and fans every year is beyond me . 7.The reason wenger is specialist in failure and specialist in bottling up chances to win silver ware is beyond me,. 8.finally, the reason I’m not hopeful about my dear Arsenal with arsene wenger running things in winning the league is nt beyond me, after all this years of unflinching support for this club, defending my club against friends and families scornfully exaggerated but truthful comment against my club, I think enough is enough , wenger out, I want my darling club back, only a mad does a thing repeatedly and expect a different result.

  15. What bothers me the most isn’t getting 3rd or 4th every year (the results), but the lack of ambition from Wenger and the board. The players know this and generally reflect the same lack of desire.
    Wenger and the board seem to calculate what needs to be done to finish 4th and then do it – nothing more and nothing less.
    There is absolutely no passion or urgency. This makes it difficult to continue to be an Araenal fan. Look at Liverpool. They are doing everything right. They need more talent and know it, but they are fighting and fighting to get back on top the right way.
    Araenal is a total embarrassment. They are an embarrassment to their legacy.
    I don’t watch the complete Arsenal games anymore. I watch highlights at half time. If they are in the lead, I fast forward to where they predictably blow it, then I might watch the last 10 minutes in the hopes that they get it together which almost never happens (Leicester last time).
    If the players, coach, and board don’t care, it makes it difficult for me to (year after year my best wishes for the team held ransom by passionless business people running the club)
    #WengerOut #BoardOut #WhereDidOurClubGo

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