ARSENE WENGER LOSING OUT IN THE PL BY NOT KEEPING UP WITH NEW TACTICS AND MORE INFOMED COACHES? LET’S TAKE A LOOL AT THE FACTS!
I read a recent article on Justarsenal, which said that while AW was our most successful manager, he fell behind in his later years by failing to keep up with modern tactics.
So, I decided to find out who these clubs with such managers actually were and how they had affected Arsene Wenger’s results in the PL.
Some really interesting facts came too light while I was checking out these details and here they are for those who are interested.
Since the formation oof the PL, a total of fifty clubs have been involved, right up to Luton Town this coming season.
Only five of those clubs have been in the PL since its formation, The Arsenal, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and the spuds.
During that time, the top four places in the PL have been contested by just fourteen clubs.
Everton, Norwich, Forest, Leicester (once) Villa (2) Leeds Blackburn (3) spuds (7) City (13) Liverpool Chelsea (19) The Arsenal (22) and Man United (26 times).
So I started to look where, exactly, Arsene lost his way amongst the top four elite clubs and who they were., having said I would go back to the 2004/05 season for clarification, so here they are, in order of their finishing places, with any new and upcoming clubs threatening The Arsenal in capitals. I’m assuming there will be many in Arsène’s “declining years”!?
Chelsea, Arsenal, Utd, Everton
Chelsea, Utd, Pool, Arsenal
Utd, Chelsea, Pool, Arsenal
Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Pool
Utd, Pool, Chelsea, Arsenal
Chelsea, Utd, Arsenal, SPUDS
Utd, Chelsea, CITY, Arsenal
City, Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea
Utd, City, Chelsea, Arsenal
City, Pool, Chelsea, Arsenal
Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Utd
LEICESTER, Arsenal, spuds, City
Chelsea, spuds, City, Pool
City, Utd, spuds, Pool
Just THREE clubs threatening the dominance of The Arsenal, Utd, Pool and Chelsea? Surely not?!?!
Quite amazing really, when you think that, until the Russian roubles arrived in 2005, Chelsea hadn’t won anything for ages, while City were a distant memory until the oil money arrived in barrel loads, while of course Utd , as always, spent big because they had always outspent everyone for decades… .Meanwhile, we were hamstrung with the cost of building the new stadium and the emergence of Mr Kroenke, who told us that, under his regime, the club would have to be self-sufficient and had no intention of spending money to help win trophies… rather the opposite, as it was soon made very clear that any player with a transfer value needed to be sold.
No surprise then, when City with their newfound wealth raided our club on a regular basis, and we saw them become a normal feature in the top four…but they didn’t knock us out of the top four, even with Pep in charge.
So how did this affect our performances then?
Well it seems that some of our fanbase saw this as the start of Arsene losing his way, not spending the money that Kroenke wasn’t giving him and/or spending it on players who weren’t good enough and the decline of this great man thus began… because other clubs and managers were outthinking him etc etc… patently not true, judging by the end of season results!!
Also, when one actually looks at the PL top four table, there is no evidence whatsoever of other teams breaking into that elite top four on a regular basis (bar City for obvious reasons) is there?
Arsene carried on, season after season, and without any support from the owner, to produce teams that defied logic…if one believes what some of our fans keep saying.
How on earth could any manager, supposedly losing his grip, not spending money, spending money on players who were not good enough, living in a time bubble warp, losing his top players on a regular basis to his nearest rivals, seeing other clubs moving forward while he stagnated, POSSIBLY keep our club in the top four?
Simple really, he was a genius, a magician, a one-off man who, even in his penultimate season, missed the top four yet again by just one point, while winning the FA cup for the 7th time!!!!!!!
But that’s when he should have resigned in my opinion and I so regret that he didn’t go out in a blaze of further glory.
Did he make mistakes? Yes of course he did. Stay too long? Yes of course he did. Change the face of The Arsenal worldwide? Yes of course he did. Deserve the abuse of so-called Arsenal fans, both personal and for the job he was doing? Of course, he didn’t and it’s a stain on our fanbase that this ever happened – I just hope that his choice to succeed him, Mikel Arteta, is never targeted by this section of our supporters.
Finally, I’ve been called a troll by suggesting that The Arsenal might have been relegated if Wenger hadn’t done such a masterful job and that they were or are too big a club to be relegated.
I guess I’m a troll then…a 78-year-old lifelong Arsenal troll, who remembers the time before Arsene transformed our club into the worldwide name it is today.
ken1945