You can script this Arsenal season by looking at the last ten! by KM
Arsenal won against a bad Dortmund side sitting in the bottom 3 in Germany, training in the park and playing for pretty much nothing at the Emirates. Dortmund need change as well. Players that played a champions league final and dominated Bayern for a couple of years looked like shadows of their former selves, these are of course the ones that stayed or eventually returned to Dortmund broken. Sadly this win is enough to change the opinion about Arsene Wenger.
This is Arsenal following our season script perfectly. In the champions league the script goes on as we finish second in a group of pretty much terrible sides, then we drew Barca, Bayern, Real or Atletico and we are out in the round of 16. In the premier league we started bad, then we might eventually bring a good spell of results that would help us finish fourth and we might nick an FA cup in 10 years but we will not change.
Fourth spot is not reserved for Arsenal, just because Wenger is our manager. The fact that Wenger has all the stability in the world, finally has some finances and the other top clubs bar Chelsea are in a deep crisis, means anything but a top 3 spot gotten with ease is not good enough. At least for my standards, not the standard of the Arsenal board though.
The board said to the open world “If Wenger has a plan we back it, if not we do nothing”, and a lot of people are totally ok with this. Wenger practically appointed Ivan Gazidis, how do you expect Ivan to come and sack him. Wenger gave Aaron Ramsey chances Mourinho didn’t give to Lukaku at Chelsea just because success now means all to Mourinho.
By doing so, Wenger infects the players, like they owe him something so they stick by him, but some players like Van Persie, Nasri and even Fabregas, knew in their heart Arsenal will not win the league with Wenger and left. But Le prof delivers the money, so Kroenke, who couldn’t care less about the success of the club is happy.
The fact he can say to one of the owners, “come say it to my face” is absurd. Wenger wouldn’t kick that lucrative contract he has unless he knew that even one of the owners cannot touch him. Wenger has even gotten a lot of the fans, as you see the AKBs are back with a bang after that win.
There is something really messed up in Arsenal from the fans and the manager, to the board and the owner. For me it all circles round the fact Wenger has become indestructible in his position. We can have any top manager we want with the resources we’ll provide him. Usmanov doesn’t look like he’ll fire a takeover bid, nor does Kroenke look like selling, so unless Wenger decides to leave for himself, this season and the next will just follow the script.
Konstantin Mitov