Proving people wrong more important to Wenger than Arsenal glory?

I am not trying to suggest that Arsene Wenger is not too fussed about whether his Arsenal side wins major trophy honours or not, as that would be ridiculous and of course the Frenchman wants to win things. I just have to question whether it is more important to him that Arsenal win in the right way and so prove him right in his refusal to jump on the bandwagon of trying to buy success.

We keep hearing that Arsenal have mega millions in the bank that the boss could splash on new and big name players but apart from the odd one or two like Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil he seems stubbornly reluctant to do so. Wenger himself has stated in the past that it is the right balance of players rather than star names that is more important to the Gunners, but does this mean that he believes it is the best way for Arsenal to win things or simply that it is the right way to go about things?

A number of players that many Arsenal fans and football experts think would have helped Arsenal to the Premier League title this season, with expensive stars like Zlatan Ibrahimovic among them, but it seems as though Wenger has not even tried to get them to sign for us rather than one of our EPL rivals.

Wenger has received plenty of praise for his tactics and easy on the eye brand of football in the past but has also been accused of lacking the pragmatism to do what it takes to win in the cut and thrust of the modern game. We know that he is a man of principle but is his refusal to pander to the over inflated pricing of transfers in the Premier League and his determination to prove that glory can be gained his way costing the Gunners?

29 Comments

  1. ARSENE is master to hide and seek. He more interest in Arsenal glorious profits. Why not make the profit loss papers into a cup and celebrate with hide seek partner Kronks

  2. Stubbornness and Arrogance are some of his characteristics
    In fact, he believes Leicester winning the PL proves him right

    He won trophies with guys like Henry, Bergkamp, Ian Wright
    All the PL winning teams had very good to great strikers ie Vardy, Costa, Aguero, RVP, Rooney, Ronaldo, Drogba, Tevez, Van Nistleroy, Henry, Bergkamp, Ian Wright
    All these strikers have scored over 20 goals in a season
    Very rarely do PL Champions have a striker who scores less than 20 goals and mostly score in the mid 20’s
    Wenger doesn’t understand this and wants to believe its not necessary or
    He probably believes Giroud is WC
    Top teams usually have a backup of Giroud’s quality
    Look at Spurs. Which is better Kane/Janssen or Giroud/Theo
    Arsenal would have been brilliant with Kane and Janssen

    He has also been very stingy in defense and doesn’t believe in DM
    He is attacking minded and never spends big on DMs
    He inherited Viera and never replaced him or spent big to get a DM
    We are lucky to have coquelin
    Last summer I was bigging for Kondogbia, Schneidelin, Krychowiak, Carvahlo
    Xhaka isn’t a dedicated DM but hopefully his defensive skills will make up for that

      1. well maybe Grimandi was his 1st but he bought Viera also.
        But agree we need a high profile signing to boost morale of fans and players same mole as Sanchez/Ozil.

        1. David Dein was mainly responsible for negotiating those successful transfers and blockbuster deals then…Since he left in 2007 (if i am not mistaken)….AFC has not been the same….Gazidis also like Dein, sits on the Board but he appears to be more of an Accountant than a Football man to me…I think the fact that he is the owner’s man reflect the real priority of the current owners….

          1. He brought in Berkgamp, Henry, Vieira, Grimandi, Overmars, Anelka, Pires, Fab, RVP, Gilberto and even Arsene Wenger himself during those hugely successful years in the 90s until 2006…Its unfortunate that he cannot see eye to eye with the current camp in the AFC board….

  3. And that’s what makes Wenger soooooooo stubborn and annoying. 12 years and counting, yet! he is still talking about the same old stability, focus and balance… Oh and he has also added ‘cohesion’ to that delusional list of his ?,
    They are all fantasy bull ? words that have no actions to their meanings, on the field of play… well, 90% of the time, anyway and thats nowhere near good enough, is it?

    The new season will be kicking off before we know it and it looks certain that we will have 4 to 5 key player’s missing for the games against Liverpool and Leicester, yet the only thing that’s coming in through the transfer window, is a ?ing breeze! ?
    Even a Goldfish syndrome suffering muppet, could tell you the benefits of getting your new signings in before pre-season…. but hey, some people are what they are. ?

    At present, we only have Xhaka to look forward too, but he ain’t no Superman! ? And of course, we have the same old Wenger, with no tactics or motivation, who will be driving us up the wall and around the bend for another season of doom and gloom. ?… Now go and prove me wrong you stubborn old ? and sign us some quality! ?

  4. I don’t expect Arsene to change, he is too old to change.
    We will not upgrade our squad properly and the usual excuses will come early September.
    Everyday, I hope he proves me wrong and bring in the needed personnel to help us contend

    1. Ranieri Wenger Pochettino
      Guadiola Mourinho Koeman
      Bilic Klopp Hughes Conte.
      The field of Managers is very strong.
      The best Manager will win the League.
      I think I will address teams by their Managers name this season.

  5. I would say this article is spot on. Wenger has completely lost focus on what the definition of success is in the world of football. He doesn’t want to conform, believing 100% in his philosophy…even though it never actually works anymore!

    If by some miracle, Arsenal do finally win a major trophy this season, I am sure Wenger will claim success for his philosophy, likewise with the AKB’s, whilst at the same time, conveniently forgetting a decade of failure because of this same philosophy.

    It’s funny because for years now: pundits, journalists, other fans, and our own fans, have all been scratching heads trying to figure out, what are the reasons behind Arsenal’s constant failings! The answer is blatantly obvious…Wenger is just not very good at his job anymore. At any other club, this wouldn’t be an issue, because he would have been sacked years ago, but sadly for the long suffering Arsenal fans – Wenger has become unsackable. He has become a disease, that grows stronger with every bloated profit margin!

    1. Wengeritis is very nasty, mate ?
      It’s similar to Mad Cow Disease but with an old Goat instead.

      More evidence that Wenger won’t be signing much before the new season kicks off!
      As he has stated that the player’s who are in training today are the one’s who will be starting the new season ?.

      So we can expect the usal: last minute dot com panic buying frenzy to kick in when we find ourselves 6 points behind the leader.

  6. The article outlines the issues that i have with Wenger perfectly, the song “i did it my way” keeps popping up in my head when i think of wenger and the way he runs the club. I understand as a coach/manager you are going to have a set type of principles and style that you hope will bring you trophies.
    Now thinking about the style that won arsenal trophies we had physical/technical midfielders and we had wide players who could play the forward role easily who were also equipped with pace and technical ability.
    Perhaps due to the recession period (yes we had one)we could not easily replace the players that were lost and tried bringing through youngsters to fill the gap, which also brought in a new style of TIKKI TAKKA football and players that were not of the arsenal mole, lacking pace, lacking commitment and lacking loyalty, so there in it got more difficult to win anything.
    We eventually start recovering from the recession about 4-5 years ago and many felt arsenal were inches from a title or trophy, each of that four to five years, the pundits, coaches, our enemies, the fans and even unborn babies ask just for three things a pacey forward, a technical/physical specimen of a DM and of course a CB.

    Each year WENGER decides just to use a patch instead of buying a new tube, to the amazement of the fans, players were not available, it may destroy the cohesion of the team, the market has become too expensive and i have faith in my players, i could go on and on.

    Wenger over the past years have bought some players, but in my opinion its just to sooth the anger of the fans not really to fix our issues, which in truth it does not take much to shut us up for a while. He gives us one major buy then does anything he wants after and i heer the song again “I did it my way”

    1. So spot on.

      Wenger needs to be truthful to himself. His archaic philosophy can win the EPL. We the fans are tired of his blatant lie.
      He’s lost touch, he should just admit it and let’s move on by honorably calling it a day if he doesn’t lay his hands on the EPL trophy this season.
      I, as an Arsenal fan don’t mind if we lose out on two years UCL spot to get our ass together after Wenger is gone.

  7. According to the april 2015 arsenal accounts on arsenal.com. We have cash reserves of over £200m but also debts of over £200m, net debt is £5.7m. Before tax profits were £24.7m.

    Clearly people look at our cash reserves and conveniently forget that we have large debts.

    My understanding is that we have paid off the short term high interest loans on the stadium but still have the long term low interest loans to pay off.

    However you look at it, it is not simply a case of saying, we have plenty of money in the bank so lets spend it on players. We still have large debts, and we need a contingency fund.

    We have recently had some big money signings, ozil, sanchez and now xhaki. The problem as i see it is that we need a top striker and central defender to challenge for the league and to show players such as ozil and sanchez that we have ambition. I think a top top striker is beyond us, even barca and real madrid had to sell top talent when they bought suarez and bale. The top talent they sold are precisely those players we want to keep. Bit of a catch 22 situation really.

    I think we need to dip in to our reserves and buy a decent striker to complement giroud and if necessary sell a player or two. I personally would start with Walcott.

    My main concern is that we will go into the new season without reinforcements up front and not seriously challenge for the title then next summer transfer window be selling ozil and sanchez because they will not sign new contracts.

    1. Did you know the united states has the largest debt in the world, or in the football world barcelona and real madrid have the largest debt, but they still buying high price players.

      So what are you saying

      1. Ruelando, what i am saying is we should dip in to our reserves, which we did not do last summer, see my comment below.

    2. Ok, lots of adverse comments and thumbs down. However what matters is how Kroenke looks at it.

      Last financial year, in the first half (april to sept 2015) arsenal made an operating loss due to deferred payments to existing players old clubs. The result was we paid £10m for cech, arsenal did not dip in to their reserves and buy what we needed.

      What I said was that we should dip in to the financial reserves but we have to be realistic about it. In other words, not do what we did last year.

      For those of you that believe that Kroenke will spend all our cash reserves, i suggest you read what he said at the MIT sloane conference. It will not happen and my concern is that he will not touch them at all, hence my comment about lack of ambition and ozil and sanchez contract extensions.

      1. According to the bbc website, with regard to arsenal and cash reserves “The cash reserves of £193.1m are intended to cover costs for a full season and are not solely designated for player transfers”.

        That is kroenke’ s idea of what cash reserves are for.

  8. Hmm.. No word on this site about Di Marzio claiming we’re meeting with iCardi s reps this week.

  9. Arsenal have a bigger problem,if Wenger hopefully leaves at any time,the club would find it difficult to get a hungry coach/manager who’s eager for success without having problems with the board and Stan. Because as modern football shows that for a club to be successful,you have get the best available players in the market and they don’t come cheap. Trust me,the mistake of Leicester wining the league won’t happen again.

  10. Good article.
    The only reason we finished second last season was because every one of the big clubs had a terrible season and if you look at the stats we actually manged less points than the past two seasons.
    2013-2014 points 79
    2014-2015 points 75
    2015-2016 points 71
    This year will be the complete opposite because everyone is strengthening their squads and the winning mentality of the current crop of mangers will give us a reality check at AFC.
    I can always hope i’m wrong

  11. You’d think Wenger would have been shaken out of his malaise by the protest (it was a bit mild mannered for my liking) but no, it doesn’t seem to have shaken him into opening his cheque book at all. The worst thing that happened to us was finishing second. If we’d finished outside the top 4 then the board would have been financially hit and ordered Wenger to do something. Finishing where we did, and Champion’s League footy again, all’s alright in their little world of money hoarding.

  12. The only one that can prove WENGER wrong is WENGER himself, if after 12 years and counting he still does not get it that times changed, despite after every season anyone can clearly pinpoint our deficiencies and yet nothing is done, then there is really no hope that WENGER will change his approach.
    I agree with him 100% that the balance of the players can make you win the title, Leicester is proof of that, but WENGER is not Rainieri neither OG is Vardy, so his approach should be MO’s buy WC players and give it a real shot to win something….unfortunately nothing has changed same old WENGER

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