Uncertainty around Arsenal will likely roll on until the summer. by Konstantin
Rumours, rumours and more rumours. Some interesting, some, not so much! Arsenal have become a major debate for the media and suggestions are that big changes are coming in the summer. Now, I’ve heard this before. We’ve been promised competing with Bayern, war chests and what not, but nothing has significantly changed.
There is a little rumour going on that Ivan and Arsene are having a little cold war and that Gazidis is the main drive for change. This makes some sense to me, because Ivan is the youngest person on the board apart from Josh Kroenke and he’s a smart man. Be certain he’s noticed the empty seats, the protests and the banners.
He’ll know our revenue is likely to suffer with the lack of champions league football and the major fan drawbacks. I also believe he has one hand tied down, because Wenger’s relationship with Kroenke and the ever increasing stock market value of Arsenal is all the owner cares about.
But of course this is all speculation, because we don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes, but something is going on there for sure. It’s sad that we’re unlikely to hear it before the summer. Arsene & the Board may believe it’s for the better, but for me a decision right now would benefit everyone!
Latests report suggest Marc Overmars is a candidate for a director of football. I loved Overmars as a player and he’s a director of football at Ajax. Dortmunds Michael Zorc is another candidate which name is thrown around, and the only reason I fear hiring ex players who’ve played for Wenger is they could be another ‘yes man’.
The whole director or football role is one that doesn’t add up with Arsene staying. Our whole strategy for nearly 10 years was to leave it all to Arsene and we suddenly decided we’ll change it, by introducing people who should take some of his responsibility but still keep him? Even if we do add such a person, Arsene still won’t make a substitution before minute 60 if his life depended on it!
He won’t change his tactics either. Arsene is stuck to a losing formula for ages and he still believes in it. The director of football might help with our transfer policy, but Wenger ultimately will be the one picking the squad, and he’ll have the final say on the players he wants to bring.
And let’s just say Arsene changed over a hundred players since his last league title and he’s only gone backwards! And even if Overmars or Zorc is appointed and they pick some of the players we buy, if Arsene doesn’t like them, he won’t pick them. We’ve seen numerous times how Arsene killed players who started with potential (Arshavin springs to mind).
The daily Mail suggest some of the board members no longer trust Arsene. Funny, but their roles aren’t really important and the Kroenke – Wenger financial relationship is the one that has to break for us to see real change. I hope that the board and the players go the owner and say “Look, things are not working with that guy”, but sadly I don’t see us doing it.
Arsene spent 90 million this summer and he went backwards from where he was when he only bought a sole goalkeeper. Reports suggest he’ll be given more than 100 million and with players ready to be sold it could reach 200! Why don’t we trust somebody new with this?
The protests are doing a good job. Even with their relatively small numbers, we’ve been noticed and the situation around the club will change this summer in one way or another. Times change, and Arsene’s banned this word from the dictionary at Arsenal, but football is a game of eras.
We had the boring, boring Arsenal, the one nil to the Arsenal, the Invincibles era, the weak mentality era (this one) and now finally the post-Wenger era seems as close as ever. Arsene is still more than 90% certain to stay, but look, if he doesn’t spend on a massive overhaul, fans will go into meltdown.
If he spends 150 million plus on players and he doesn’t achieve instant success, he’ll be targeted again. He cannot do this overhaul. Arsene is a figure splitting the fans and slowly but surely people are leaning onto the Wenger Out side of the equation.
If you think this season is bad, wait until next year, to see Arsene’s “revolution” and it will be even worse. Even if we change 10 players, we still have 15 more who don’t like him. If he stays, he’s only creating more enemies for himself. Even if we appoint new personnel like a director of football, if they don’t have power over him, it won’t change a bit.
Lastly, I want to say that nowadays I follow more what fans say after the games, rather than the games themselves and the general opinion is that we need change and 90% of those people said change means changing the manager. Honestly I had enough. I have been following this club for the better part of my life and I cannot live with more of the same.
I survived the sale of Vieira, Henry, Van Persie, Fabregas and Nasri, but this time I really fear for the summer. We’ve lost our class. We’ve turned into a business rather than a football club and that mentality has spread from Wenger to players like Giroud who say trophies are not important. With this mentality, we’re never attracting more players like Sanchez.
Change! It’s the only way.
Konstantin