Arseblog News – the Arsenal news site
Arsene Wenger says he’s never thought about walking away from Arsenal despite the club’s lengthy trophy drought and the increased pressure heaped on him following recent poor results.
Speaking at the end of a week which has seen his side dumped out of the FA Cup by Blackburn Rovers and given a Champions League grilling by Bayern Munich, the boss made clear that with a contract until the end of 2014 his commitment remains steadfast.
“Never. Not one second,” he told press ahead of Saturday’s match with Aston Villa. “The love for the game and the love to win [motivates me],”
“I don’t think that [motivation] spark has anything to do with the length of your life. It is just that’s how you are and you’re motivated by how much you want to win and how much you are a winner.
“If I go out now and play one against one with you, you will see I will beat you and at least if I don’t manage to beat you, I will want to beat you. That will not change as long as I can move.”
Cutting a less tense figure than last week, Wenger continued, “I have a contract until the end of 2014 and at the moment we are on a short-term plan.
“This is for two reasons, because I am here for a long time and as well I have to consider what I want to do. That will be decided in 2014, not before.”
Rallying against some of the hyperbolic copy filed by Fleet Street’s finest Wenger also reiterated how he feels responsible for getting the club back on track.
“We live in a world of emotion, of excess, and it is down to people who have responsibilities to put that into perspective and keep solid and keep guiding the club in the right way.
“My responsibility is to keep the guidelines and guide the team and the club in what I feel is the right way. What is important for me is to focus on the next game and try to give my best, like all the players.”
6,486 views
I bet Arsene is a demon with the ball at his feet;
Quicker than Theo
Stronger than Giroud
Braver than Jack
And far, far, far more intelligent than Frimpong
Wenger should sign up this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=avk2aObnb9w&feature=endscreen
I have no doubt that arsene gives his best but not sure the same can be said of all the players this season. They owe him and us a decent finish to this season at the very least.
Agreed, I’d definitely sack him.
I really can’t wait for this man to start winning things again. I just hope it’s with us.
100% agree
Thumbs up for the name and avatar alone.
I can`t wait for the day I see his picture one morning in the papers with the title : “AXED”
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you……….and if I don’t find you, i will want to. Of course, if I don’t really want to find you, I probably wouldn’t say no and if I would say no, I’d say ‘Ask me again tomorrow. I might fancy it then’.
can’t believe Wenger actually said that! …wow!
Stop calling for Wenger head who will they bring in now it will be a disaster it will be more disruptive to the team and they should also take responsibility for what happens on the pitch
I think you should consider using punctuation in your sentences as they are way too long and are incredibly difficult to follow I really think you should take responsibility for what happens in your sentences
And where are your punctuations mister?
Are the idiots thumbing me down suggesting that Merlin’s… sentence requires no punctuation? I don’t see any in it. If you are going to take up a comment on punctuations, at least make an effort to do so in your own comment!
Just how is that sarcasm font coming along? Is it 2-3 weeks away? Perhaps we should get in a sarcasm mark that could provide cover in the meantime and offer something different off the bench?
Whatever you want to say about Wenger, you can’t question his commitment to the club.
i`d be committed for 7 million a year
say what you will about his signings, team selection, etc but you have to admire his loyalty, especially considering he has to deal with the English “press” several times a week.
Top top quality.
And the fact that Real Madrid and PSG both have tried to lure him away multiple times with absurdly lucrative contracts.
And the fact he didn’t take those jobs because he would be out on his ear after a year of no quick results, and not having complete free reign.
It’s a crafty “You wait and see what I will do” argument, knowing full well he was never going anywhere, just another subtle manipulation of the fans.
Pound per point he gets paid better than any manager in the history of the game. He likes it just fine at Arsenal.
When has arsenal ever replaced departing quality with diverging better? Face it when arsene leaves he’ll be replaced with some shit manager from ligue 1 who’s done ok for the pay 2 years, just like gervinho and giroud.
so change the person who picks the replacements…Wenger. it isnt rocket science
I’ll take Remi Garde if that is the criteria
Well, we’ve replaced Santos with Monreal, arguably that’s a step up (although it’s too soon to tell).
so what you’re saying is that Squillacci is a better footballer than Koscielny, Vermaelen AND Mertesacker, and that Szcz will never be the goalkeeper Almunia was?
Muppet.
*something, not diverging, apologies for my crazy autocorrect
There are quite a few reports concerning Wenger’s future – amongst them, the one that stands out to me is “Arsène will leave this summer – and Nao Huan is apparently a worthy successor” … #There’s only ooonnneee Arsène Weeenger#
Christ, Wenger is more deluded, arrogant and out of touch than I imagined. He said at the conference: “What we need is to be united and strong, and not to be destabilised by people who have strong opinions after one game.” After only “one game”, Wenger??! It’s been EIGHT YEARS, not one flipping game.
As Mark Lawrenson said, of course he’s not going anywhere and has the full backing of the board – whilst he’s bringing in £50 million for the shareholders, they’re going to be holding onto him for dear life. Just yet more proof the board see the club as Arsenal Ltd instead of Arsenal FC.
Well, when bringing that money in depends on selling your best players and replacing them with mediocre ones, it’s not sustainable. Mediocre players can’t be banked on to make the Champions League (and the club still has work to do if it wants that this season).
The good news is that we’re down to probably just one player we could sell for boatloads of money. The bad news is that our manager is too stubborn to admit when he’s wrong and make any changes.
Oh, the other bad news is that we’re down to probably just one player we could sell for boatloads of money.
What’s not sustainable is thinking that we can just make constant big buys and major contract concessions without regard to our actual economics situation.
We live within are means and soon, other clubs will have to too.
@ bard: Yes, we live within our means. That’s laudable. Really, I’m proud of the club for that. But what transfer money we have spent the last 5-6 years hasn’t been well spent. Some great players have left and been replaced by good-to-average ones.
Moreover, our wage bill is one of the highest in the league, with big chunks of it going to the Bendtners, Denilsons and Squilacis.
Or perhaps the board recognise there aren’t many managers out there who could keep the club competing at the top during an extended period of having hardly any money to spend
A reasoning voice in a storm; to God, you are precious!
I love the way Wenger has redefined the word “competing” for so many of you.
Underperforming for most of the season, then making a late rally to finish way below the original objective, reliant on the shortcomings of Spurs (usually) as well as our own ability to hit form just after we are out of any meaningful competition, is NOT what I would call “competitive”.
It staggers belief how may of you have been affected by the reptitive subliminal programming, and worse, you try to convince others it is reality! (or blame everyone and everything else rather than the manipulator himself)
Oz, the day you start using Mark Lawrenson as a voice of reason is the day you should check into the nuthouse.
Where does this £50m figure come from? The accounts don’t seem to record it.
The whole 8 year thing is tiresome and created by the media to bring about hysteria amongst the fans. Does any sane fan think for the entire 8 yrs he has failed and not had to work within financial restraints while other clubs have had billionaire owners throwing money at them? It’s the past 3 yrs where I think he could have done better as financial resources became more available.
At the end of the day I think the summer would seem the natural time for Arsene to call it a day, however lets not forget he has never broken his contract despite attractive offers from super clubs, so perhaps we need to show him the same loyalty if he stays for the final year?
Spot on with the 3 year comment, it totally true. It’s only the last 3 years where you could argue that we could have done better with our finances. Before that we were rebuilding and constrained by the stadium move – we still are, but it’s only the last 2-3 years that we’ve started to emerge from it.
Still incredibly frustrating though.
As the corp says, lets say its 3 years that’s we have had a reasonable amount to spend. This summer is a defining period for arsene and the board. We will see if arsene is willing to spend and if the board are willing to give him serious funds to do so. No more excuses after the summer.
Arsene deserves our respect for what he has done for this club but should not be immune from criticism.
We have been steadily going down hill and it clearly needs addressing, my doubt is that stan isn’t bothered whether the stadium is full or not or how we are doing in the league, the cl is a bonus to him but like the American model I think he sees enough income coming from tv revenue and commercial endorsements and the fans are secondary.
We will see in the summer I guess.
I’m not sure I would agree that he has had 2-3 years of significant resources to spend. His resources and Arsenal’s profits basically only came from the sale of the most imporant players. Cesc, Song, RVP, Nasri, Clichy, etc. Not only were these the teams best players, but they were basically the core of players Wenger was attempting to build the Arsenal future with. Other top team’s resources do not usually come from the sale of their best players. Wenger is now in the phase of building a team around the new core. A core still in its infancy. Let me pre-qualify my next statement by pointing out, I have absolutely no problem with foreign players dominating the Arsenal team. However, I think Wenger has noticed that trying to build a team around a base of foreign players is much more challenging than if you establish a core of British, and more importantly, Arsenal die hards, players. Although the struggles of today cause me great displeasure, I for one hope Wenger desires to stay until Wilshire, Theo, the Ox, Ramsey, Gibbs, and Jenkinson are in their prime. At that time, I suspect his vision will be achieved, and Endgland will benefit from it greatly. Also, at that time, he will have positioned this team to be successful for another 5+ years with whoever the incoming manager would be. The only hope is that Wenger can put up with us short sighted fans, and more importantly the half assed sensational journalists, who clearly cannot see the forest through the trees.
*England
Fucking short memories. I can understand peoples’ frustrations, but to simply bandy about the “8 years” argument without looking at the nuances of each season, the new stadium (which will brinng us immense benefits far beyond the puny 8 years people think of) and the influx of stupid money elsewhere in the league is just plain idiocy and simple-mindedness.
Other clubs have been punished for this sort of short-term thinking. I wouldn’t want us to join their ranks.
I fear that changing the manager would just be a change for the sake of change. The unfortunate reality is that the premier league over the past decade has evolved as in Spain where only a small group of teams with financial power are really competing for the title and the rest are making up the numbers. None of the criticisms of AW or recent transfers change the fact that unless Arsenal decide to play the oligarch game or are able to achieve an unprecented increase in commercial revenue, have significantly smaller resources than the top 3 and will continue to have their top players picked off. Look at Wilfried Zaha – Man Utd spent an amount that would be a transfer record for 17 of the 20 teams in the league on a speculative purchase of a very unproven player that they don’t really need. Its just not even close to a competitive playing field. There might be windows where teams in the next financial tier like Arsenal or Tottenham can compete but it is extremely unlikely that they will be able to compete on a sustained basis unless the financial realities change. I realize that the media doesn’t want to acknowledge this and would rather foster crisis after crisis and whip the fans into a frenzy to feed the news cycle, but its become the reality. It won’t change just because there is a new face at the top – and the risk is that a new manager who tries to spend his way to the top like Ferguson, Mourinho or Mancini could quickly get Arsenal into a very difficult financial position.
defeatest?
You can’t blame ManU wealth on oligarchs, nor Bayerns. ManU have been a commercial powerhouse, they gambled on success and won, by winning a lot, they win a lot of fans, who buy a lot of shit. This simple formula seems a bit lost on Arsenal who are a too conservative for my taste (I’m not asking to break the bank, just speculate a little bit to get success, especially when we were close to winning a few years ago). now the task for Arsenal grows with every year, the reputation is taking a beating and commercail revenues will suffer (if they have not already, I wonder what the numbers on shirt sales and other merchandise looks like for the last 5-10 years).
spot on neutral, well said
We are happy to spend 300 odd million on the gamble of a new stadium and yet will not go a penny into debt on the very thing that will make sure that stadium is full. A successfull team. Very odd.
When did Bayern become a PL team (and therefore become a fair comparison)?
ManU have been the biggest team in the PL for 50 year and that generates a very big income (for some years Liverpoo were competing with them but dissappeared.a short
@neutral
Where is the line between speculating “a little bit” and outright betting the farm in reckless gambling?
The problem with your assertion is that you assume we’re not even close to speculating, but we have! It’s all relative. One club’s “safe bet” of £20m is another’s club massive gamble!
So the problem is the fans’ perspective of what constitutes a “safe investment” and what constitutes a “gamble”.
And you’ve said it yourself, ManU “gambled” on success. A gamble is still a gamble.
Leeds United gambled on success.
We shan’t gamble, but make educated decisions.
For the record, ManU never gambled, they invested at levels that were proportionally affordable for them. Arsene invested at levels that were proportionally affordable for us and had many successes.
The point is – we need perspective.
@Voldemort
We spent £300m on a stadium and DOUBLED out matchday income and will pay for itself in a couple of decades while keeping us much more competitive.
It’s called return on investment and the stadium will stay with us for a very long time.
Perspective, guys. Everything needs to be put into context.
We should soon be in a position to compete financially which will be 100% due to AW, the new stadium (and the sponsor deals needed to build it) and a tight hold of the purse strings. But it may turn out that with FFP a large number of the bigger clubs in europe can no longer pay vast salaries and purchase prices, so we have less need for the financial success that should be coming.
it’s sad that his legacy in the club will be decided within the next 18+ months. how low can one’s reputation go?
His legacy (so far) for what he’ll be remembered is
FA Premier League: 1997–98, 2001–02, 2003–04 (invincibles)
FA Cup: 1997–98, 2001–02, 2002–03, 2004–05
FA Community Shield: 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004
Champions league final: 2006 (the first in the clubs history)
UEFA cup final: 2000
Ok we didn’t win the last two, but still that’s pretty fucking good. Shame about the last 8 years but that’s quite a legacy.
For anyone who went through Wenger’s early years, if you remember his legacy based only his final years, then you’ve got a very short memory indeed.
Wenger has never thought of leaving?
I bet Wenger has never thought about a lot of things. Defensive organisation, for instance. Badum tssch.
Jokes aside, I don’t want him to leave but there are other things within the club that definitely need to change.
Say what u want but…:
Wenger > Villas-Boas – anyday;
Tottenham – forever living in Arsenal’s shadow
E.g.:
Sagna vs Walker
Koscielny vs Gallas
Gibbs/Monreal vs Assou-Ekotto
Arteta vs Parker
Cazorla vs Dempsey
Walcott vs Adé/Lennon
Giroud vs Defoe
The only positions that they are better in are LM/LW and GK (i.e. Bale vs Podolski & Lloris vs Szçzesny)…
…BUT Wilshire is > ANYONE…!
Well mate, untill we catch them, there isn’t much we can say is there?
Typical deluded fan, I know spurs bashing is mandatory, but get real you compare our sarter (Cazorla) to their sub (Dempsey).
I watched abit of spurs v zenit last night (I was hoping to get a good laugh when zenit won, I almost puked when dembele won it for them in the 89th)
Anyhow, I could not help but think that spurs fans are probably a lot prouder of their team than Arsenal fans, and with good reason. It is really a shame about Adebayor and his attitude because last night he showed a but of skill at one point that made me think, yeah, Arsenal players used to do that kind of stuff, not anymore. remember when he won the game for us in the CL against villareal, taking the ball on his chest with his back to goal and firing over his shoulder on the half-volley? Wish he had the right attitude and had stayed at Arsenal.
If Wenger is such a genius how come all our good players leave, players have bad attitudes (adebayor, bendtner, nasri), and we overpay the losers who stay?
And the deluded keep telling themselves, Wenger knows this team is crap he just has a good poker face, or does he?
Spuds played Lyon. Plus couldnt care how they did in the mickey mouse cup. Also the 3 blokes you mentioned are cunts.
This view that Wenger let the better players leave is getting very tiresome. Do you really think he wants to keep losing the better players and have the stress of finding new ones and having the fans on his back everytime something goes wrong?
Umm, wasn’t Liverpool the team that was playing Zenit last night?
sorry about the team mix up
as for Baptiste…
no I don’t think Wenger wanted them to leave, but I do question what he might have done to make them think staying was worth while, or just not to sign such cunts in the first place.
Short memory. You take the few negatives of Wenger and conclude he’s got no talent. Easy enough for you to ignore when Wenger’s gone against the oddes and won.
The reason you think a Spuds cunt is prouder of his team is because you look at one season. Short memory.
And every team can have bad characters. Even your lauded Spuds and Manu.
We got rid, for high prices. That’s skill.
You’ve got memory issues, go see a doctor.
I always felt that wenger was the abe lincoln equivalent of our club, i’m not saying he made sacrifices but he lead the club through troubled times, i mean we just moved to a new stadium, crappy sponsorship deals till recent times, no sugar daddy, back stabbing cunts, just like lincoln through the war.
People hated him at that time only to realise how precious he was after he was gone forever.
haha except it took Lincoln half as long to win the Civil War as its taken Wenger to win a trophy
A lot less people hated Wenger 4 years ago
Lincoln did have the finances and support of half a country whereas AW had limited funds and supporters. A lot less than half the country plus little support from the press or the refs/officials (or ManU supporters as they’re also known).
*led
““We live in a world of emotion, of excess, and it is down to people who have responsibilities to put that into perspective and keep solid and keep guiding the club in the right way.”
You may have. Appoint but it has been 8 years Arsene. 8 years. I don’t think the “emotion” argument stands anymore.
Every passing year, we find ourselves further and further away from the top, and our seasons are over earlier and earlier.
Nobody questions your love and commitment for this club, and we all know that your place in the Arsenal legend is safe forever. Not just Arsenal, but for all of English football. But after 8 years of the same disappointments, the same mistakes, And with so much power over the way the c,ub is set up, the tactics, the transfer policy, Arsene cannot really fault our patience.
Yes some critics go overboard, and are offensive in their criticism, but that doesn’t mean that the crisiticism you are facing is not justified, and your past successes, and the 8 years of decline, are there to be analysed and criticised, it doesn’t mean we are jumping on a bandwagon and are being fickle.
8 years is quite a long time, Arsene. We love you, but it’s time this club (board included) took a different direction.
Not the Chelsea direction, but not the slide to mediocrity we are witnessing either.
my god, he is spouting that emotional world crap again…
oh to have wengers wisdom, us mere mortals can only dream of appraoching life with his balanced perspective, what a completly insulting asshole. the worst part is all the fans lapping it up.
wengers psuedo-intellectual spoutings rile me up like nothing else
how about giving us a tactical breakdown of why we lost v Bayern or Blackburn? You’ll never hear it, just some crap about not having the right mentality or the “handbrake”.
So you think he’s wrong just because he doesn’t tell you what you want to hear.
Logical fallacies abound. You’re right, you’re merely mortal.
To the Arsene out brigade: I respect your opinion, I really do! At the end of the day, you have the club’s best interest in mind. But, take your frenzied fingers if your keyboard and give it a thought to how the man has transformed Arsenal and English football in general or rather how would we had turned out had it not been for him. He deserves our utmost respect and not the choicest abuses we reserve for sp*rs or united or stoke. Voice your opinions, but in a civil way. Don’t let the doom mongering media fool you! I saw Arsene compared to clough!! really? he got forest relegated. Things are not as bad as they are made out to be. Please, get a grip.
Show me any other industry in the world where underperforming employees are kept in their jobs based on sentiment and emotion and not results.
I could, but where is the relevance. Arsenal are a top four club, with rising revenues, a great stadium, consistently in the champions league, a good core of young players, a good academy and no ‘bad’ seasons to be talked of like we used to have.
Arsene is NOT under performing. You are over-expecting.
you tell me when in our illustrious history have we been so consistent? tell me what really gives you the audacity to call this “underperforming”? Stop acting like spoiled brats! Our front has never played together before this season..it takes time for a team with a stabilized core to not “underperform” look at barca, bayern or even chelski from 2004-2010. We are in a right direction..to expect a newly put together team to beat bayern is taking it a bit too far.FYI, even the invincibles failed in 04-05!
Be patient n get behind your team when they most need you!
Failing to address the same glaring defensive issues season after season is underperfoming. Failure to identify what the team needs and to rectify it with available resources is underperforming. Consistantly playing players in positions alien to them and causing the team performance to suffer as a result is underperforming.
Need any more hard facts?
okay first of all, we will be defensively fragile as long as we play how we play. You might remember the clean sheets at the start of the season and also that we had only 1/2 shots on target. The comical individual errors, well, if you hold the manager responsible, hah, well.
Second, if chelski want a striker and united want a striker and arsenal want a striker, Arsenal will get the third best striker as even if we match the fee, like we did with hazard, the wages do us in. So you have to bear in mind that neither are we funded by a sugar daddy nor are we a commercial behemoth like united!
Third, its funny really when you don’t complain when Henry n van persie were played as strikers( alien to them, eh?) or ramsey as CDM or at right back or bac at CB!! haha, it works spectacularly sometimes, sometimes it does not. He sees them in training so i guess he is in a better position to judge where a player fits his 4-2-3-1 best, no?
Any more “hard facts”?
You’re right, I can’t show you any other industry.
Your mistake is in thinking he’s underperforming badly.
Get some perspective, he;’s done well under the financial environment.
How do you know he fails to identify the problems?
And how do you know he’s efforts at rectifying the problems is not the best effort within the context of the situation?
At the end of the day, I can show you plenty of industries in which an employee achieves plenty within the context of his constraints, even if to to the outside world ignorant of these constraints, he’s a failure.
In short, you have to put things into context.
And to put things into context, would someone else have come in and fix all those problems, without introducing new ones?
It’s easy enough to imagine that if it wasn’t Wenger, we wouldn’t have these problems. But when you really start putting things into context, you’ll find that that isn’t guaranteed.
Seems some people just come here to comment and praise wenger. He is so out of touch with reality. He had notice of bayern game before january. He did nothing to re enforce the team. His hair is turning grey faster than anyone. The frustration makes him fight with his zipper or take the anger out on bottles. Watching an arsenal game with arsenal ahead, a lot of things can still happen which frequently happens. We lose. We all blame nasri, rvp, clichy for leaving. Henry and cesc also left cos we are shit and won tropies immediately. And i hear people calling wenger a genius. Geniuses dont fight for top 4. They fight to be number 1. As far as champ league, wenger is content as long as we get to knockout stage. Question is what would a reasonable player do when his team is shit and only purchases are 12 year old highschool boys. Or league1 players. WE bought a striker from monaco just cos he was cheap we never used him. Wenger has lost it. The fact that a replacement is hard to find dont mean he should not go. Whats the worst that would happen that is not already happening.
Buying players because of one is exactly the sort of short-sighted shit that ruins clubs.
Fucking stupid faff about geniuses fighting only for number one.
Not true.
Geniuses do well within the constraints they have.
An African kid from a mud hut who manages to bring electricity to vast swathes of his homeland is a genius, even if he’s not number one.
Perspective.
He will always be a legend unbeaten season and emirates stadium.
I can see us winning things in the future like 20 years time and everyone will talk about the stadium and how the club moved with the times, singling out the Wenger years as a huge moment in our clubs history.
ps im not saying it will take 20 years to win things and also imagine where Liverpool will be in 20 years? ahaha
ARSÈNAL stadium, anyone?
The next manager should be chosen very carefully. The club, including Wenger, should make this decision over a year or so. I’m sure there is another hidden gem somewhere. Many just don’t get the chance.
A friend of mine (Chelski fan) says that Bayern is everything Arsenal should be. You should read 7amkickoffs last couple of posts on his blog. Since 2009 Bayern have been building up and spending the
A friend of mine (Chelski fan) says that Bayern is everything Arsenal should be. You should read 7amkickoffs last couple of posts on his blog. Since 2009 Bayern have been building up and spending the money they have made off their new stadium. Arsenal has regressed every season since 2008-09. We have the money now. Wenger has worked miracles to keep us in the top 4, but we need to use our own fucking resources now. We ARE the 3rd most valuable team, we are the 3rd or 4th most popular team in the world and we have the 5th highest revenue which will be 3rd highest in a few years. We aren’t going to go bankrupt. We NEED to show some ambition. We have the huge sponsorship deal now, time to spend some fucking money.
I love Wenger and I would love it for him to win many many many more trophies.
While I agree with you, it’s not correct to say that Bayern has merely been spending the proceeds of the stadium.
Their dominant position in Germany, which is unlike anything England has at the moment, means their commercial revenue dwarves even that of Man Utd.
So if we are to emulate them, the commercial revenue needs to grow and to be honest, I don’t think the new Emirates deal did the job but that’s just my uninformed opinion.
As Bard says, Bayern can’t be compared to us. They are the ManU (but better run) of germany with a very long (pretty much uniterrupted) history of being the most successful team there and despite 1860 and a few other teams best efforts, they have a massive support. Bavaria is by far the wealthiest area in germany (although Hamburg is close behind but a much smaller area of wealth). They would be a great model for us if it was at all possible but it’s not.
I lived there for 2 years and was a regular at the old olympic stadium (and gunter murphys sports bar to watch us). They are my second team but their whole situation is so different.
Wenger does excellent work in the transfer market. His financial discipline has helped us become one of the ten most valuable sports teams in the world, in any sport. A lot of that has to do with the new stadium. For that we should all be thankful to Wenger.
But he’s letting us down right now. His job isn’t just to manage the club’s resources and keep us on strong financial footing, he also must get the most out of those resources to put forth the most competitive football team we can. Wenger simply isn’t doing this. The tactics are stale and predictable. As are the substitutions. And the day-to-day training never seems to fix certain problems (i.e. defending set pieces/defensive positioning) that have lasted for years.
For these reasons I want Wenger demoted. I dont want him sacked, he’s done too much for the club and deserves to be treated better than that. I don’t want him to quit, because I think he’s a strong economic mind that few can rival on the international transfer market, and he deserves respect for how he’s been able to find undervalued assets as well as his discipline to not overspend and jeopardize the future for short-term gain. We can still use Wenger. But not in both roles.
He needs to be made the director of football this summer. He needs to play an active role in finding a coach who will get more out of these players than he’s been able to. Its not an easy step to take, and I’m not sure Wenger’s humble enough to take a demotion like this in stride, but the status quo is going to get us nowhere. Change must be made.
“Arsene Wenger says he’s never thought about walking away from Arsenal”
Well, he should.
Why? He’s doing the job that he loves, and one we can only wish we were doing, at a club he obviously feels proud of and wants to succeed again at.
He’ll never succeed again at Arsenal. He’s had squads miles better than this in the last 8 years but still counted on Almunia and Denilson, not to mention Silvestre and throwing Bendtner on the wing. We were screaming for a new keeper, he wouldn’t listen. We were screaming for a dominant centre half, he wouldnt listen.
We’re always a couple of players away from having a great team. Sadly players are only half the problem we have now.
@GiveMeWhatWengersSmoking
More short memories. Everything is about what “should” have been, without caring whether the situation at the time permitted it.
You speak as if you know everything. As if the dominant centre back would’ve changed everything.
Well, I won’t say Wenger’s always right, but he’s proved us wrong more times than I can count.
So I weigh his opinions far more than an armchair analyst’s.
This Arsene thing is like the end of a marrige, you realise bit by bit that it’s coming to an end, gradually you start to resent them, you go out just to avoid spending time with them, you don’t want to be in the same room as them, but should anyone verbally attack them, because of what you’ve been through together in the past you defend them to the hilt and would readily punch the attacker in face ’till they stopped breathing.
All i know is Arsene gave us the most successful period in the history of our club and has set the club up on a sound footing for the next hundred years (something some fans seem only to willing to forget) so i think he deserves a chance to take us back to those glory days..And to all these twats that started supporting Arsenal during the Wenger/invincibles era that now want Wenger out, fuck right off, the club wasn’t formed when he became manager, we went through years of playing shit football and winning fuck all before you came along and jumped on the glory hunting bandwagon..
Dial Square: “This Arsene thing is like the end of a marrige” this makes me dick how dare you quote something that Piers Morgan said in an interview on talksport on this great site.
WHAT A INSULT!!
@Jason, it may well make you dick (?) So what are you saying, two people can’t think along the same lines???
Good one.
The frustrations are only natural and even in a healthy environment, some conflict is unavoidable.
But to rashly give in to short-term emotions will just wreck us in the long run.
Awesome awesome post man, one of my favorite I’ve read around these parts. Thank you, it made my day a bit better.
Analogy?
if the relationship between AW and the club (supporters) is a marriage, then it is one arranged by its parents (the old Board). Love was not the first element. He came cool, classy and he had you elegantly orgasm every night. He gave you his all. You enjoyed it. But your selfish sex drive gradually went so uncontrollable that you want more and would never feel satisfied, let alone feeling disappointed, insulted after a poor night. And in your neighborhood there comes a guy rich, muscular and filthy. You could not resist getting in his bed at your first chance. You want a divorce. You, bitch!
I have some staff like that in my business who I wish would fuck off and resign but nooooo they make me have to fire them
Dave, I’m sure your staff think highly of you.
I’m delighted Arsene is staying. He is the man to lead Arsenal. I don’t give a fuck what anybody says. I think the board is the problem. Just my opinion
The board don’t organise the team defensively. The manager does.
” I don’t give a fuck what anybody says”, well you certainly sound like him!
“Underperforming” is a relative term.
Only his employers can judge if he is underperforming in the role he has been employed for. We can only judge him as a manager of our football team. We have no clue as to what he is being directed to do by the owner/board.
Wenger is employed by the owner/board, not the fans. He has to deliver what the owners want. If he doesn’t or refuses, he is out – and sadly, a replacement will be found who will toe the owner’s line.
For all we know, with the present owner and board, if we didn’t have Wenger we could be much worse now, probably he has kept us from sliding further down.
I doubt Wenger leaving will make any difference. We will be left with the same owner. If the owner(s) are not passionate about winning trophies, but only in it for the profit, no manager in the world will be able to make any difference. No manager with any brains will even want the job (not saying that AW is in the job because he has no brains, he truly loves the club).
If he goes to big spending club, I am certain he is still capable of creating another band of invincibles.
Slight subject change: Have a look at this story in today’s Daily Mail Online.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2282239/Brian-Coleman-mayor-Barnet-claims-I-slept-Arsenal-striker.html?ICO=most_read_module
I wonder who it was?
AHAHA the highest rated comment.
“Clearly rubbish as Arsenal has never had a striker!
it could only be David Bentley
“Football is made of short-term and long-term, but a long-term plan is vital. I know that today in society it is very difficult to push that through, but people who are responsible have to do that.”I prepared myself for some suffering when we moved to the Emirates, yes, because we knew we were under restricted resources for a while.”The main target was to be in the Champions League because we had to pay back our stadium. Did I expect to go out against Blackburn and to lose against Bayern? Honestly, no.”
-arsene wenger
kind of summarized my thoughts on what has gone on since the move to the Emirates
It’s not because of the move to the new stadium that we play with the “handbrake” on, lack a little bit of quality in the final third, make the most individual mistakes of any team, concede so many goals from set-pieces and play fucking Almunia in goal for years.
Ah, you Wenger-lovers are so deluded.
Sometime, probably in the near future, when our Arsene finally departs, the truth about his incompetent final five years at the Grove will be revealed. You see, any half-decent manager can finish in the top four of the EPL with a budget of 150 million quid to spend on wages. Wenger’s great success in qualifying for the CL will be shown to be not such a big deal. And when the new manager actually builds a side that will challenge for the title then all those bullshit excuses will look even more pathetic.
Wenger is finished – just accept it.
Mancini has the biggest budget and still can’t get out of the Champions League group or guarantee the title.
Also, Wenger won titles without the biggest resource.
Not saying that he’s always right, or that he will definitely succeed.
But you’re deluded if you think that’s what we think.
And you’re deluded to think that you know it all and will definitely be correct. You’re just too deluded to realise you’re deluded.
Just accept it, you know fuck all.
Finally of course, you’re deluded if you think we have that massive wage budget because of fate or destiny and not because of Wenger’s good management.
And also deluded into thinking that being far from having the league’s top wage budget, that it would be suddenly easy to keep being in top 4.
To quote another bard, THE Bard: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
It’s not you, is it, Arsene?
well we should least let him finish his contract. that is the minimum we should give wenger, but of course we are not the one that decides that.
lol loving this season’s keyword.. “deluded”
This will end one of two ways as I believe Wenger will see out his contract and take a role upstairs.
1) We will scrape a Champions League Spot as usual and one of Wenger’s greatest legacies will be that he led Arsenal to the Champions League for 15 or 16 or whatever it is straight years. That truly is a remarkable feat. No Big Ears trophy, but still a remarkable show of consistency.
2) We finish outside the CL spots and Wenger leads us back to the promise land of Champions League football in his final campaign while winning the UEFA Cup/Europa League or whatever it’s called.
Fuck that, Thursday night football on ITV 4, the shame….