Words of wisdom from Alisher Usmanov by KM
In a time where Arsene Wenger is turning AFC to a comedy show, the second most valuable shareholder of Arsenal has come out to speak the truth about the situation we are in.
‘Potential of the team is there, but there is no critical evaluation of own mistakes and their admittance. Because not a single genius can retain its level when he does not admit his own mistakes. Only when you admit your mistakes can you get rid of them. I wish this to my club. Nothing wrong, but we just repeat same results year by year. Quite high to secure the place in the Champions League. But we regularly lose in the first circles of play-offs. As an investor I am not happy with that.’
Can anyone really deny this? The quality is there, in fact in the state of the ‘top’ clubs in England we should be easily sitting in the top 3 instead of where we are now. Repeating our own mistakes again and again is another thing even the kids have learned, but not Arsene Wenger. The thing about admitting your own mistakes i like the most. It is basically saying that if you don’t improve, no matter who you were in the past, you’re doomed for the future. Does that mean that if Alisher was the owner, Wenger would be sacked after 8 years like this?
It’s also good to see that, someone else besides some Arsenal fans, is also unhappy with the fact we finish 4th and reach the 1/8 finals of the CL to get knocked out by a European heavyweight. These are words coming from an Arsenal fan, rather than a businessman. Not all Arsenal fans are privileged to be living in London, but we all care just as much about the club.
‘But we have in Russia a proverb which goes – ‘Even an old lady can have a roof falling on her’. Everybody makes mistakes. He can make mistakes and I know as you age that it is more difficult, more challenging to accept ones mistakes. Maybe it’s a problem today’
Alisher Usmanov has come out to criticize how the board doesn’t supply Wenger with resources in the past, but this is interesting because it is directly pointing to the manager, and Arsene cannot be happy with this. There goes the question of why Mr. Usmanov doesn’t have a place on the board? Ridiculous if you ask me. If you own 30% of a successful brand like Arsenal wouldn’t you want to have your say as to what should be done with it?
‘I like Arsene for his principles. But principles are a sort of restriction. And restrictions are always lost possibilities.’
And Mr. Usmanov hit the bulls eye and won this leg of the darts of truth with a perfect check out! Wenger is stuck with his philosophy and when it doesn’t work he’s doomed. We like principles, but we’re not that Barcelona side that could beat anyone by simply being technically better than them, but we do have a squad good enough so we can outsmart most oppositions. But instead we get outsmarted because our manager knows only one way of setting out his game, and the others know how to counter it.
‘My opinion, and I tell it openly, we need to strengthen every position to play on the level of such teams in UK as Chelsea and Manchester City, in Europe like Real, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and other clubs.’
Spot on yet again. We only have 2 players of the highest quality who could play for any top team in Europe – Sanchez and Ozil. We need a new defence (the whole 4 players in it) and we need a new keeper, and a DM. In midfield we have lots of ‘talent’ that failed to break a United team who conceded 5 goals against Leicester!
‘I know sport pretty well and respect all on the club, including Kroenke, who has a substantial experience in sport. But we also have knowledge of sport and have investment in volleyball, basketball…’
The previous lines were more interesting because for the first time the fire was at Wenger, but this one against Kroenke, has its valid point. Mr. Kroenke is a businessman and a successful one in sports investment, but that doesn’t drive the club forward. Usmanov mentions less popular sports like volleyball, because maybe investments are sometimes made for the love of the sport, not for the money it brings.
So to wrap it up, the important thing here is Wenger being put under pressure by one of the owners. Sadly it’s not the one that can rip his contract up on our next comedy performance. Under pressure people either improve or break. Wenger is broken already, he wouldn’t survive the pressure like Mourinho could and he’d be sacked in any other top club.
The question that should be raised is why isn’t Usmanov on the board, and how can he get at least a representative there right now, so we have someone with forward thinking on a higher level than Wenger.
One last thing. The world has been changed by individuals with vision – Tesla, Galilei and so on. Alan Pardew went through hell and look at him now, 6 straight wins. I am a programmer and a site like sackpardew.com is made in days by one person, but the influence it had was massive. It would cost nothing for an Arsenal fan to print out one “Sack Wenger” A4 paper for our next home game. When the 60 thousand people at the Emirates don’t want Wenger, he’ll be hurt. The media managed to capture the few “Wenger Out” signs at the Emirates, 60 thousand simply cannot be ignored. The media will pile more pressure on and a point will be reached where he’d have to change or leave.
After ten years of misery i know that the first is not going to happen.
Konstantin Mitov