A lot of Arsenal fans have started to look at the huge salary that Arsenal play to Arsene Wenger every year as one of the biggest, if not the main, reason for the Frenchman’s stubborn refusal to accept that things are not working and that we need a change at the top.
I am certainly not going to argue with that theory after the strange comments made by the Arsenal boss in his press conference yesterday, but that is not what I mean by the title of this article. As reported by the BBC the long serving manager was talking about his decision to stay at the club through the hard times of having very little to spend in the transfer market as the club paid off the loans taken out to finance the building of a new state of the art stadium.
Perhaps in an attempt to ease the anger of the Arsenal fans and relieve some of the flak being thrown his way, Wenger reminded us that he showed great loyalty and commitment to the cause when he accepted the demands of the lenders to stay in charge through those lean years and I must admit that he did do a fantastic job for us back then and deserves great respect and credit for it.
He said, “When we built the stadium the banks demanded that I signed for five years.
“Do you want me to say how many clubs I turned down during that period?
“The banks wanted the technical consistency to guarantee that we have a chance to pay them back.
“I did commit and I stayed, and under very difficult circumstances.
“So for me to come back and, on top of that, (critics) reproach me for not having won the championship during that period, it is a bit overboard.”
But what Wenger seems determined not to understand is that those times are now over and yet he is still acting as if there is no money to spend. That is why the Arsenal fans are not happy, even though most of us do still appreciate what he has done for the club. But how long can we keep living in the past?