Wenger should not take so much blame from Arsenal fans by Sam P
I know that I am not the only Arsenal fan to still think that Arsene Wenger is the right manager to take the club forward and should be getting respect from the Arsenal fans rather than having to run a gauntlet of abuse as he gets on a train, but sometimes it feels like I am a lone voice in the wilderness.
Let me just point out a few things on our season so far to the knee jerk Wenger out brigade.
1. There is no way that any manager can plan to deal with the crippling amount of injuries that Wenger has had to deal with. There are other clubs that have had big problems on that front too, but none of them have had the same amount of games as us and none of those managers has taken as much stick as our Prof.
2. Some key refereeing decisions have gone against Arsenal. For example, when we were trying for a come back from three goals down, the ref wrecked our momentum at 3-2 by sending off Chambers, harshly. Whereas when Anderlecht came back from three down against us, their first goal should have been ruled out for clear offside and they would never have got their momentum started. Small things yes, but if they had gone the other way the fans would be much happier. I could also point to harsh red cards for Ramsey and Debuchy and the Fabregas handball at Stamford Bridge.
3. Our bad luck has not been confined to the injury list and the bad decisions. If we had got what we deserved against Man United, which was a comfortable win, then we would be in the top four and the pressure would be on van Gaal instead of Wenger. I know that the buck stops with the boss, but surely he cannot be held responsible for every little thing that happens.
Don’t forget what Wenger has done for us or that he is the man who kept us in the elite of Europe with no money, won us the FA cup last season and signed Alexis Sanchez. Doesn’t he deserve some credit?
I agree with you, I think some of the fans are just to annoying. Look at Dortmund fighting to keep there self out of relegation. At least we are not in the bottom of the table .They are same like us injury to key players. Who else has injury like us in the PL? It’s just to harsh on wenger for all he has done for club with little help of finance from the clubs sources . I can bet you even Mourhino won’t be able keep a team in the CL every year like Wenger with little finnace. Building a stadium and making our club worlds fith richest in the world is not easy. Please give him some respect, he deserves respect from us
“Little finance”
“World’s fifth richest”
Which one do we go with??
Yes when will dumbo’s stop
pleading poverty. Arsenal
is an obscenly rich football club.
The wage bill for the senior squad is
more than 155 million pound.
Ozil cost 42 mill
The manager is paid 8 mill per yr
for delivering 4th.
The fans pay the highest prices in Europe.
Our wage bill could feed Ethiopia.
FFS stop with the shoe string budget cr#p already!!!!
You call 200 mill spend every year “nothing” !!!
Actually we still make a loss despite all these salaries. It’s a very small loss compared with Chelsea/City/PSG/Real/etc but we still have like 30 mils debt. Probably board does not want to loan so much, hell if I know what their plans are. You talk about spending here and not about profit. Operating profit for the group is only 1.5 mils. Not a big profit but at least we write it with black ink.
And stop spreading the bullshit with “richest” club in the world. It is most VALUABLE as in assets, market capitalization at a certain point which is totally different from “richness”.
maybe if we cut half of wenger’s paycheck we can cover a little bit our loss, right…
LOL we’re in debt but still pay our manager 8m.. it’s madness…
lol, look who is tllk.
Why don’t you read your 1st comment and take your own piece of advice cause all you do is whine and tell everyone how wrong they are and that everything is so f*cked then you usually whine some more
Stating facts is not whining.You are the one who is bi%tching cryinng bec people dare to tllk against the board and the inferiour manager we have in Wenger. What a loser. Nerverless, Gn.
@ ks gunner
I don’t blindly follow wenger and I think the board are completely useless along with that snake Stan.
And I admit when wengers wrong like not buying a DM&CB etc but the difference between me and you is I’m realistic and look at things logically.
You on the other hand are nothing but negative and come up with non sensible comments constantly
You got that right!
dont bother bringing up an arguement w KS, he cant answer fact and only resorts to name calling, we are on to him,
@arzenal stfu enough iz enough #aw out dun talk
you are a crazy nutz, go and support Spuds. You should be ashamed of yourself to be a fan of Arsenal. We have lot of idiots calling them self fans than geniune fans this is why we are going down.
We have had the highest injuries year in year out since 2008, the manager should:
1/. See that there is a problem with coaching/medical staff and fix it.
2/. Be prepared, it isn’t a surprise anymore.
3/. Buy some bigger stronger players.
I would like to say I take offense at the ‘knee jerk AOB brigade’ reference, I have wanted Wenger out for 5yrs, I know a number of fans that wanted him out for longer than that.
There is no knee jerk reaction in 10 yrs of mediocrity and failure.
Don’t make excuses re referees, we had bad decisions back in the Henry days and still won games.
Tired of people making excuses for a man that has failed miserably, the facts are there if only AKB’s would accept them.
right on the money. the injury problem is not surprising: it has continued year after year. should be attacked w 2prongs: 1: figure out what the core cause is, 2: plan for it by having more backups (not less ,like we do).
re CDMs and DMs: wenger has sought to buy these , so i think he sees the problem, but not to its real degree. but he does not succeed in fixing it, either bc of his cheapness, or delusion that he thinks he can do w/o them. he does not see the magnitude and urgency of the problem. 3-3 v anderlecht, 3-2 vs stoke: we let in 3 each time. our defence is threadbare. i and many others predicted after trans window closed that our defence was short and it has proven so. it was easy to see and could have been fixed. negligence. wenger should leave.
Its disgusting how people keep on mentioning the fact that we have gone for 10 yrs without trophies as a highlight of wenger’s failure! wenger is no God ffs! how can u expect any manager to win anything when his line up used to be limited to the likes of chamakh, bendtner, squilaci, ebue, arshavin, denilson, ramsey(his old self), walcott (his immature self), djourou, vela, etc. Not even pep or mourinho can archive anything with such mediocrity in the team.
And its not like Wenger bought such poor players by choice, thats what his money could afford him, think about it…not long ago, a mere 16 million euros that was used in the acquisition of carzola was our record transfer fee when other teams bought players for fees in excess of 30 mil every season!
Blaming him for not winning trophies is like blaming someone for not winning a gun battle with a machete!
in addition to all that you’ve mentioned, which I agree with by the way, I think our lack of substitutions in games and our rigid starting XI contributes to injuries. When we do make substitutions we make them at the end of a game.
Tackles at the end of a game are more likely to be cynical and to the player who has received niggles throughout the game a severe injury is more likely to happen when he’s tired.
We play games every couple of days and most of our players play a full game at a time. What about subbing off players when we don’t need them in the game? Rest them for future games.
So you think you have the right to tell other people what they should be thinking? Bet you don’t drink – your massive big head would not fit through the pub doors!
arrogant beyond words
Ridiculous article!
1) we always seen to get more injuries then anyone else, so maybe its down to how the players are coached or train. Utd have just as many injuries but yet still beat us and are now 3rd
2) dont blame the ref on the stoke game as if it wasnt for his poor game we should have been 4-0 down!!!!!! Everyone gets ref decisions going fore and against them throughout the season
3) all if and buts!!!
Take your head out of the sand! Maybe if wenger wasnt so tight he may have invested more in the summer like everyone knows he needed too
What makes my blood boil is the AOB telling me what’s wrong with the club, the lack of tactics, player investment etc…but then never come up with ideas that can then be as intensely scrutinized as AOB’s are with Wenger.
Want Wenger out? Fine, Wenger isn’t the club…he’s a part of it. Give us some names to consider. You bitch and whine but when names are brought forth and taken seriously suddenly there is panic. Remember David Moyes? The AOB’s wanted him two seasons ago. What about Manchini? Then there is Roberto M, or Koeman? What happens when they actually take over?
Then there is Klopp, who is in fact Wenger to a tee…same philosophy…impose your style…plays players out of position etc. What about Rogers? What happened to everybody thinking he was ‘class’.
What about all the transfers that Arsene should have made…Dembele, Paulinho, Fellaini…where are the AOB on those targets now? What about Baletolli? All the AOB were telling me he was the answer in the summer, through $30million down and get it done…
The greatest thing about being an AOB is you can bitch and complain and never have to be accountable for your opinions. If anybody questions why somebody would come down on Wenger for not signing a Fellaini you can simply label them an AKB…and deflect the opinions of those questioning your ideas….
I want Arsenal winning championships every year, and I’m not sure Wenger is up to the task but I’m sure as he’ll not ready to hand the keys over for the sake of change. We’ve waited so long to move forward, brining in the wrong manager can move us further away from the ultimate goal. So Wenger out all you want but starting being accountable for your opinions. Some of the ‘tactics’ and transfer wish lists by AOB are laughable and would make Arsenal mid table in one season.
You are afraid of change, its a very normal human emotion, it blinds you to the facts. The devil you know is not always better.
There is not a single manager in world football today that has been given as much time, money and freedom to build a team and failed time and time again.
The reason why everyone is so pissed off is not because we lost a game, it is because we lost many many games through out the years for reasons everyone could see and a man who makes 8 million pounds a year, does not find the players and the tactics, the motivating factors, basically the solutions to build a winning team and a fighting mentality.
Let me give you an example, Mourinho came back to Chelsea and in two years built a winning team and spent less than Wenger. He had the balls to sell their best midfield player Mata to a rival and replaced him with Matic. When he did that he had a plan he wanted steel in the middle of the park. This window he bought the two pieces of the puzzle that he needed one world class striker in Costa and our own Cesc to boss the midfield. He had a vision and he built a team according to that vision quickly and efficiently and having sold players like Luiz and Mata quite cheaply.
This is the type of vision, thinking and leadership that is lacking in Wenger. He once had it, and the football world has passed him by. His vision, his thinking, his tactics are no longer relevant in world football, hence 4th place year after year.
So, try to rise above your fears, and demand change with us. Change is scary but sometimes it’s the only solution, sometimes you have to go down to go back up.
Jimbean -typical…blah blah blah blah. You’ve made my point entirely. I’m not a Wenger fan, I’m an Arsenal fan…you just wasted time showing Wengers faults without offering a single idea on how to improve.
You sit there as a parrot quick to point out flaws but offer no ideas or discussion on how to improve. Suggestions on managers, comments that can analyzed. It’s cowardly.
Plastic parrots – the lot of you.
Nice one bomber – and have you noticed that when one of ’em squawks the rest can’t help but join in. Can’t blame them I suppose. . . the plastic parrots have more brains!
Its too easy to give Mourhino as an example, there arent many managers at all of his ilk. If we do get change it wont be with Mourhino. Hes a winner with a game plan and all the money in the world to achieve that game plan. The strange thing is though everybody was comnparing this che team to an Arsenal winning team… and for good reason. The football world didnt pass Wenger by… he revolutionised the prem and then changed from a winning formula to barcaesc leaderless formula. Why he changed i do not know.
Bomber u the man. I am on this site everyday and read 100’s of comments everyday frm all kinds of arsenal fans but never feel the need to leave a comment myself until now. What u say is exactly right Wenger gets abused by these dumb AOB’s everyday relentlessly and they haven’t got a clue how to manage a club. And look at the many trophy’s Wenger won in his firat 5yrs at the club bringing in many many world class players to the club . Then we built the stadium had very little cash so cod not get as many of these world class players there were maybe 3 or 4 of these at the very most trough the last 10yrs. The first year he gets over 25 mill to spend we win the fhe f.a cup. Fair enough we will not win trophy’s this year but world class players are coming to our club again ozil, Sanchez, and there will be one more this summer hopefully a defencive player and one more next year. Then we will be 100 per cent ready to challenge for the tittle. It takes a team littered with world class players to win the tittle and that’s what we are doing. We don’t have the money to buy 3 or 4 world class players in 1 window but slowly but surely we are getting there AKB OOOHHH RRRAAA
Most of us do know nothing about being managers, myself included.
But what I would like to see from Wenger is more hunger and drive because I still believe that he has the ability to take us forward. However potential doesn’t equate itself with actuality.
Mourinho called Wenger a specialist in failure, harsh but technically correct as Wenger has never beaten Mourinho. Why not beat Mou on the pitch to prove him wrong? LVG will chop and change his team in order to achieve a result. I only compare Wenger to LVG and Mou because say what you will they too are great managers and I wanna see Wenger competing with them for the top. If your opponent is better than you then learn from his strengths and exploit his weaknesses. They do that to us.
I believe Wenger is smart enough to come up with tactics of his own, or with his staff, that could beat Chelsea, or UTD, or City. But that that would require him to move away from playing the same or similar team or tactics most games. A predictable opponent is easier to beat, ask the teams who beat us how they did it and pretty much their answers would be quite similar. High line, counter attack etc…
Wenger is a great manager and I would love nothing more than to win Champions League with him at the helm before he leaves. I know it’s a long shot but he has a special place in Arsenal’s history and I’d love Arsenal to win its first CL under him specifically.
Carlos Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola are two managers i’d be happy to see at the Emirates. Ler me ask how many of you were whooping and cheering when Bruch Rioch took over? How many of you had even heard of Arsene Wenger?! But you were happy to have him on board. You gave him a chance, so why would we not afford that to a new manager?
If you want answers from an AOB then here you go.
Look at your teams areas of weakness.
– Defence: Why did Wenger not strengthen? It was the big white elephant in the room but the position was ignored. And now we have resorted to a patchwork defence. So answer number 1 is we need defensive cover.
– Midfield: Viera went, Gilberto went, Song (Not that great in my eyes) went. Why has the DM position not been filled properly? We get overrun and always look vulnerable to a counter attack. The Swansea game and Man U game were classic example. Chelsea have Matic, Man City have Toure, we have……….a whole host of attacking midfielders.
– Striker: I like Danny Welbeck, and I think he will come good, Sanchez is a brilliant player, and Giroud makes a good back up striker. But why bring Joel Campbell back and never play him? And Sonogo is starting to resemble Diaby with the amount of injuries he has, never mind he’s not top PL quality yet. Again Chelsea has Drogba, Remy, Costa. City have Dzeko, Jovetic, Aguero. We need another world class striker.
Get rid of the mediocre players that are paid £50-80k a week. The ones that sit on the bench week in week out and replace them with players that can be trusted to do a job. A classic example would be why do we have Joel Campbell or Sonogo when we could have bought Remy for next to nothing!
A good manager will analyse the team he’s going to play. Look at how others have beaten them, adjust tactics to suit, keep the opposition thinking. We play the same team in pretty much the same formation. Half the time i could tell you what the next 3 passes will be between arsenal players because we are so predictable. It’s no wonder Sanchez doesn’t pass the ball sometimes, he’s better off going alone.
Build a squad with cover in all positions. Rotate. Different players will bring different attributes to a game. This gives you more dimensions to your team and pattern of play. We don’t have that at Arsenal.
Substitutions. It’s always the same players on and off, and normally in the last 15 mins of a game regardless of how the match is going. Where is the variation? We don’t have the players and Wenger doesn’t trust those he does.
We need a manager to tell the board who he needs. Someone not afraid to stand up to them. Does it dawn on the board that the more successful the club is the more support they are likely to get. The more supporters will be inclined to spend, not just here but all over the world. Why are Man U such a huge worldwide business? Because they are successful more often than not. They have had a rough season and a bit, but they are looking better, and Van Gaal will bring them back i’m sure. The same will happen at Arsenal after Wenger.
A manager should manage the team! At Stoke Wenger sat and did nothing. His reason being, he didn’t want to fire up the stoke fans even more! Great tactic! Against Man U he could have called a player back to cover just before Rooney’s goal. Instead we get told after the match that he was surprised at his teams lack of defence! He really didn’t see that only one man was back?! Come on! It’s getting irksome to hear the pitiful excuses like “we were too soft in defence” “We were naive in defence” etc. I KNOW ARSENE! WE KEEP BEING TOLD BUT YOU DO NOTHING ABOUT IT! I want a manager to come out and say, i’m sorry to our supporters, I got it wrong. I want a manager to be open to change and adaptable.
The irony with this is that all the AKB’s tell the AOB’s we don’t have answers. Yet their answer is to bury their heads in the sand, call all AOB’s whingers etc and plod happily along in our mediocre world. Because they are too afraid of change. But this leads me back to my first point. How many had heard of Wenger? I bet they felt the same when he was appointed as they do now. Afraid of change.
Exactly, I am all for change at the club if there is a clear vision on where we are going and what our future team, players, targets are going to be. Change just for the sake it usually doesn’t work out. Obviously, there are cases to the contrary. I would like to make an assessment of Wenger on what he has done right and where he has failed. This is just my subjective opinion.
Goods:
1. Last year we were too slow in attack and had no one to run in behind defenses after Walcott’s injury. He bought Alexis Sanchez who is one of the best buys of the windows so far. Wenger has obviously tried to add more dimensions to our attack.
2. All of our newcomers Welbeck, Chambers, Sanchez(not including Debuchy as he hasn’t played many matches) have done reasonably well.
3. We have shown good fight in almost all of the matches. We managed to salvage draws out of loosing situations and even managed to win against Anderlecht. As much as people like to deride our own team. This is a good sign and the team does respond to the manager.
4. The first season Wenger didn’t have to sell any key player, he delivered the FA cup and Community shield. As much as fans like to forget this achievement, it is still one of the oldest and most respected competitions in English football and wining it deserves respect.
Bads:
1. Failure to have a top quality defense. We could have won the EPL last year had Wenger got a DM in January. He should have got an experienced CB to replace TV5. We have been lacking a physical presence in mid field and has been a missing area since god knows when. This is a serious flaw which gets exposed every time we play a top team. Our team likes to bomb forward and have dominant possession. In our style its the most important position as a classy DM always stops these counter-attacks. I dont think its the problem with Wenger’s philosophy or one-dimensional football. Previously we had people like Gilberto Silva. The people who have replaced him just aren’t in the same class. Its painful to see every time we get hit by a goal on the counter and our DM( Flamini ir Arteta) either out of position or getting out runned or missing the tackle.
2. Mental approach towards big teams and games. Quite often we dominate the opposite team and don’t score. The team seems to lack the belief to be able to beat the best teams in the league.
3. Injury issues: There are too many injuries at the club to be just a coincidence. Training methodologies, recovery time regimes have should be seriously questioned. I know some of the injuries we had were due to knocks and bad landings/tackles.
4. We should have been building on from the success of last year and at least be competing for the title or at least be gunning for 2nd or 3rd. Yet we lie 6th losing matches we should have won.
5. Our attack at seems pointless just not creating enough chances. Its been ages since I saw the old arsenal opening and cutting teams apart with incisive passing and creating good chances. These days we seem to score a lot of scrappy goals. Not the Arsenal attack under Wenger in its prime. On paper we do seem to have quality but performances are not there on the pitch. Not reacquiring Fabreags seems to be a mistake. Though I do appreciate that we do have limited money.
6. The transfer will be judged a failure on the whole because we didn’t sign in key positions and out opponents Chelsea and Man C have put more distance between us and themselves.
I’m not choosing any side but
1) a manager who experiences serious injuries issues season after season, one who watched his title challenge flounder last season in the wake p injuries, can expect to have to deal with that situation.
2) we have squandered so many good chances in games. Bad luck just isn’t an excuse. However, I will say this is probably not Wenger’s fault unless we want to wander down the w c striker trail. I don’t. The point is really that everyone in the club is underperforming besides Sanchez, and very little is being done or even discussed p address the issue.
Well looks like the top 4 have formed yet someone’s missing…
You speak too soon. Give it another ten games.
…
I dont want to deal with wenger for another 2 years, the mánager MOST resign once this season is over.
My patience and empathy with the stubborn man are dead and buried.
Why wait, get him out now, Bould in as caretaker, Henri in as striking coach.
Defense would instantly improve, striking would improve, new manager in the summer.
I’m in with u… 16m will be added for our transfer budget on january…
Virgil Van Dijk in January.
This is another stupid article, do u knw hw many times wenger has made dis same mistake, how does a manager with more than 20 years of experience go into a season wth only 2 senior CB, dis injuries are no mistake, you play the same set of players every chance and just leave the rest to rot on the bench when some players could be rested for others and thus keeping everyone fit and happy…tactics are same every match hes just so predictable…anyway we all love wenger but he’s time is up…we all know that
And please stop complaining bout referees being bias, for Gods sake the scored 4 GOALS, how do u let a defensive side like stoke score 4 goals…trust me if the 4th wasnt cancelled (unfaily) we woudnt even score any…wenger shud resign
And how would you feel if you are afobe or akpom who have been in the club since 8 or so, training, developing and praying for a chance in the senior team and suddenly the boss gets another guy(sanogo) who is not a better player than any of them and immediately intergrates him into the 1st team?
How would you feel if you were rosicky or podolski or campbell after having a previous great season n world cup you get relegated to the bench and watch out of form or tired players play your position?
Our youth system is dead as wenger has lost faith in them, this is not wenger i know, sometin is so wrong..
Wenger was given a chance at arsenal too ( from japan) now we must do same with someone else, its a gamble but thats the only way forward, atleti, dortmond, barca, man u n all other big teams at a stage made that gamble
I am just wondering how do you become a manager fan instead of a Football Club fan.?? I am Gunner fan, I support Arsenal FC. In my opinion our current manager is not doing a good job, he is fading away slowly but surely against our rivals ” City, Chelsea, United ” not to mentioned the other Top teams in Europe. I would understand the rivals fans loving our manager, because he hasn’t beaten them in yearssssssss now, we were humiliated by them. 8-2,6-3, 5-1, 6-0. Now the likes of Stoke, Swansea are beating us easily. MR Wenger with all my respect for the last 5 years things hasn’t change ,you are just aiming top 4. This is not good enough… Please do something or leave the club.
HAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAHAAHHAAH
AKB’s just never run out of excuses, it isn’t “bad luck” when we are first on the injury ladder (by a country mile as well) EVERY SEASON, the last time i remember having a reasonable injury list was before diaby was injury prone, so whether it’s down to his tactics, players diets or imcompetent staff, a 2.5 star manager wouldn’t have taken more than 2-3 seasons to fix these problems, players join our club with amazingly good injury records (ozil) and become injry prone, players leave our club (fabregas) and are fit 2x as much as they were for us, SOMETHING IS WRONG AT ARSENAL
referring decisions also go in our favour, for instance that dortmund goal sanogo scored was clearly offside, these things are apart of football, GREAT teams overcome these obstacles, GREAT teams do not crumble with 3 or 4 goal leads, GREAT teams do not concede 3+ goals in 40 mins REGULARLY, GREAT teams average more than one tackle every 90mins, GREAT teams don’t need more 7 clear cut chances to score, united have academy players in defence, in fact our defensive players are 15x better but VAN GAAL will get a result, united have had an injury list just as long if not longer than ours but VAN GAAL will get a result, united have just gone through a managerial shift but VAN GAAL will get a result, so why on earth are united in the title race and not arsenal?
and don’t give me that “arsene had to work with a tiny budget” BS Mouth-rinho signed all the right players this summer and made chelsea a profit, in fact mouth-rinho made one of the best signings of 2014 in january (matic), whilst arsene signed an injured CM that we didn’t need but u guys are right, arsene knows best……..
THANK YOU!
Oh, Injuries, bad referring and bad luck. This recycled excuses are STUPID!
1- injury has nothing to do with arsenal bad start of the season. they are not winning much since the beginning and look rather clueless is most of the games.
2- if the referee was good in the Stoke game there would have been 4-0 and no need to for charlie adams to come in and play rugby against Sanchez.
3- some supporters here need to take their blinkers off. we have been shit for the last couple years with known and documented weaknesses. what else do you need?
dont agree w wenger most often but he is the manager and i will support my team, other than the obvious success up until 2008, i think he has dealt w issues like loss of cesc which set us back, that was not wengers fault and it led to the loss of others due to how long cesc dragged it out, but still, wont forget beating Spurs, Liverpool w Suarez then Everton to finally beat Hull in the FA cup, many mention beating Hull, never mentioning the wins to get there. From mid 2013 to mid 2014 we were the best team by points when we had the lowest injurys, would just like to see this squad without the long term injuries such as Theo, Ozil, Ramsey… I think this squad, with additions to the defense and DM, at strength would compete. also, i have to give credit to Wenger for Cesc, Henry, and now bringing Ozil and especially Alexis.
What you wrote above is correct and I fully agree with it, however bear in mind that when Arsene Wenger joined the Club it had a ready made defense, assembled by George Graham, which was the England defence line in Lee Dixon, Steve Bould, Tony Adams, Nigel Winterburn as well as Martin Keown and on top of all this the England goal keeper David Seaman. It was the best defense what Arsenal ever had. To strenghten all this Mr. Wenger brought to Arsenal Petit and Viera, who became the lynch pin for many years to come. The team also had Dennis Bergkamp who was instrumental in the early years of Arsene Wenger’s reign. As the years went by the defense was slowly replaced with lesser talents with a few exception like Sol Campbell, until the Club reached where they are now. If you look how the team plays in many games recently you get the impression that they’re not motivated enough, or maybe they’re too tired or are with a very low level of energy – I don’t know. I have not got a solution but then I’m not the manager but I hope something will change for the better very soon. My feeling is that Arsene Wenger fell into a “comfort zone” where he lost some of his ambition and drive energy, he became a little bit stale.
Certain managers work out suitable tactics for each game and opponent and not use one set that the opponents can easily learn.
What Arsene Wenger should do :
1. Sort out the reason for the injury problem.
2. Buy sufficient cover for the defense & for the defending midfield positions.
3. Get an effective Captain of the Tony Adams caliber.
4. Get a professional motivator to instil confidence in the players to believe in themselves.
5. Shouldn’t only play some of the favourite players but give chance to others as well.
6. Don’t play players out of position – it should reduce the injuries, beside why buy a player for a certain position and then play them in another.
Now how to fix these problems I’m not qualified to say and really I’m just guessing (and hoping).
To fire Arsene Wenger I don’t believe is the right solution (unless with him you fire a large portion of the team)
but perhaps from now till the end of the season the club could look around for a suitable replacement as manager.
Arsene Wenger was an excellent manager but his methods are not anymore successful as they were 15 years ago. A change is needed with fresh view, fresh tactics, new commitments. Change, not for the sake of change but for betterment. (Won’t be easy.)
it was also 12th in the table when he joined, just saying… peace
Right I’m going to throw my opinions into th mix. First of all the author of this article is wrong in the most part.
We can blame refs all we want but we never learn, we all know teams can get away with murder against us. There were a number of occasions this season the ref could have punished our opposition but chose not too and then punished us for far less.
Like Cahill’s gbh challenge on Sanchez, Oscar’s repetitive fouling (17 fouls that stopped promising play without a caution) the tackle on Wlshere against UTD, Melo gbh challenge against Gala in the CL, and the Charlie Adam choke hold, just to name a few.
But are players should know this brush em selves off and carry on with the game and to be fair to them on the whole they have. Our problem is the arrogance we have when we play, which in a is encouraged by Wenger. We expect teams and refs to role over and have their belly scratched, they won’t. We can’t go out on the field and play the same way every week and not expect teams to counter us and cancel us out.
Which leads to my next point the squad and tactics, we don’t need a striker anymore unless one leaves the players we have are good enough so AOB can stop asking for Cavani.
Are attack is probably the best out there. The are so many combinations that can be used and players that will compliment each other to devastating effect. Each of our attacking players have something different to offer the team especially when Walcott is back, we are are very dangerous. All they need to do is become more clinical only then will they become the force they are capable of being.
The problem is the defence and the lack of cover, we need to get 3 players in January, a centre back to challenge or replace Mertisacker and 2 combative midfielders. Wengers relience on Arteta filling this role is totally blinkered, BVB tore us apart because of Arteta’s inabilities to literally stamp his authority on the game.
Having a deep playmaker is all well and good but having one that’s the physical specimen of Arteta and Flamini is a big risk. Wenger did look for these types of playes in the summer and I honestly believe him when he says the right players were not available.
Now so called AOB’s, when wenger States the right players are not available, he means there are players he wants but the clubs don’t want to sell, simple. The clubs we buy from have to want to sell or well have no joy. Then it’s up to the CEO to decide how much money they are willing to pay to make them available. So it’s not all Wengers fault on that front yes he should push more but the board should too.
The injuries, this is such an unpredictable situation it’s like the weather. Now we genuinely have the best medical facility in the world that’s why other athletes from other sports use it to rehabilitate themselves and our staff are top notch, so I don’t think that’s the problem. The problem lies for me in the way we play, we leave ourselves open to heavy challenges that can pave the way for injuries to set in, simple.
We are so reliant on slow tiki taka build up play Neanderthalic players get annoyed put up a brick wall on the 18 yard line and kick us into submission. Our players hold onto the ball for far too long and leave themselves open literally to attack.
This also has a negative impact on our build up play too because it slows up the speed of which we attack. You can blame Wenger for this one, he needs to change it, press teams hard in the first and middle third, draw them out and counter attack at speed like we used to. The players need to see this on the field too and read the game more and use their initiative.
Now in my opinion this should be Wengers last season in charge because if he can’t see we need to have more verity in our play then someone else needs to come in. I have enormous respect for Wenger and I admit saying out of frustration ” he has to go” but so much has gon against us this year as well as the players not being clinical enough ala UTD.
If this should be his last season I hope he does us proud gets the players needed and challenge Chelsea because their not that good it’s just the competition has been so poor.
Cmon Wenger do us a favour and do us proud!
“1. There is no way that any manager can plan to deal with the crippling amount of injuries that Wenger has had to deal with. There are other clubs that have had big problems on that front too, but none of them have had the same amount of games as us and none of those managers has taken as much stick as our Prof.”
Why do we have so many injuries? Because we don’t have the depth in the squad. Actually think about it. We rush players back too soon and then they get injured again. Who’s fault is this?
“2. Some key refereeing decisions have gone against Arsenal. For example, when we were trying for a come back from three goals down, the ref wrecked our momentum at 3-2 by sending off Chambers, harshly. Whereas when Anderlecht came back from three down against us, their first goal should have been ruled out for clear offside and they would never have got their momentum started. Small things yes, but if they had gone the other way the fans would be much happier. I could also point to harsh red cards for Ramsey and Debuchy and the Fabregas handball at Stamford Bridge.”
Wow! Erm……….Why were we 3-0 down against Stoke in the first place? I sure as hell don’t think the ref was to blame for that was he? Did he think the match was unfair so gave Stoke a 3 goal advantage? NO! How did we manage to let 3 sloppy goals in against Anderlecht? Ok the first was offside, but what about the second and third?
“3. Our bad luck has not been confined to the injury list and the bad decisions. If we had got what we deserved against Man United, which was a comfortable win, then we would be in the top four and the pressure would be on van Gaal instead of Wenger. I know that the buck stops with the boss, but surely he cannot be held responsible for every little thing that happens.”
Hmm……..Wenger couldn’t understand why we only had 1 defender back when Rooney scored. Yet he’s on the touchline, with a view of the whole pitch. He can see his whole team piling forward and didn’t think to call someone to drop back? An all too familiar problem because his tactic at 1-0 down was to allow everyone to pile forward!
“Don’t forget what Wenger has done for us or that he is the man who kept us in the elite of Europe with no money, won us the FA cup last season and signed Alexis Sanchez. Doesn’t he deserve some credit?”
I will always credit what he’s done up to a point. He’s been amazing up to a point. but no longer. Yes Sanchez was a fantastic signing, but why did it stop there? Why was he not here on deadline day, why did he not sign a DM and CB? I just wonder how rose tinted your glasses are Sam P.
I think the so called fans are far to much. AW is not arsenal the players and supporters are. We have been put through the mill with players out but I think we will have a strong run in from January on. Yes he will need to add and I think we need to ask West Ham for our right back Jenkinson to come home then just loan a few players to kick us on. Thing is we don’t want a summer living in hope of buying a player AW should just tell them up stairs who we need and have them sign a pre contract ready for the new season. Start being the 12th man now arsenal fans enough