What to do with Arsene Wenger

So, here it is again, the time of year where the world of football starts debating as to whether Arsene Wenger should end his multi-year reign at Arsenal Football Club. This is the same debate that has been occurring consecutively since the 2013/14 season where the FA Cup victory at the end of that season supposedly kept him in the job. However, this year it is totally different, there is a strong genuine feeling that Arsene Wenger will decide to leave Arsenal after 21 years at the helm. Fans are divided so, should he stay or should he go?

At Arsenal Wenger has won 3 Premier League titles and 6 FA Cups, which is remarkable for any manager around the world however, 13 years. It has been 13 years since Arsenal last won the Premier League. Surely a club as big as Arsenal cannot be satisfied with the fact that they haven’t won a league title in over a decade. Specifically looking at the more recent years for example, they have now fully paid off the debt for the new stadium and are now able to compete financially but they still haven’t made any real progress. 

The mentality in those players isn’t where it should be because they seem to always fall out of the title race around February, March time and they will get this mentality from the manager. Arsene Wenger has allowed the players they have today to learn that second best is a fine achievement and winning trophies isn’t hugely important as long as they are getting top 4 each year, something caused by the ridiculous comment that Arsene has made by once stating that achieving top 4 is a trophy within itself, this shows how Wenger is past his best. There is no way Arsene Wenger of old would have come out with this comment and accept second best, Arsenal Football Club should be winning trophies not just achieving Champions League football and nothing more.

Many people would argue that Wenger has managed to achieve Champions League football consecutively every year for the past 18 years without fail, but what have they done in those 18 years? Have they won the Champions League? No. Instead of that, they have been eliminated from the tournament in the Last 16, repeatedly for the past 7 years. Arsenal fans should not be paying over £1000 for a season ticket, to see them go out in the Last 16 every year, and then see Wenger and the Arsenal board label that a success. The new stadium was built so that they could compete amongst the elite and in the latter stages of the Champions League with teams like Bayern Munich, not lose 10-2 on aggregate to Munich.

Looking in from the outside it looks as though Wenger is now just a dictator running Arsenal running and deciding every single thing that happens at the club, not the board. It looks as though the board are just glaring at past achievements thinking Arsene is still as talented as what he was despite the fact he hasn’t won a title in 13 years. Such as, from what has been gathered Wenger is the one who decides his own future at the club and he chooses when he goes, not members of the board such as Kroenke or Ivan Gazidis. 

Something like this is enormously unhealthy as to how a football club should be run, yes Ferguson decided when he was going to leave but he was winning trophies every year up to when he retired, unfortunately you cannot say the same about Arsene. It seems as though Wenger has just surrounded himself with ‘yes men’, these are staff members who will just agree with Arsene and go along with what he says, his staff will never dispute his ideas, something like this cannot be happening at a club.

Let’s have a look at what he was like when he first joined Arsenal. If you were to look back at him, it is evident that he ticked all the boxes for a world class manager. He had his own philosophy that was effective, he was an exciting young manager and he engraved a winning mentality into those players. Now let’s have a look at him now, could you say he ticks any of those boxes nowadays? No not really. Yes he still has the same philosophy, but you couldn’t say that it is as effective anymore, he isn’t young or exciting and he no longer engraves a winning mentality into his players apparent through him labelling top 4 as a trophy. This isn’t the worse part of it for Arsenal because if you were to look down the road at their fierce enemies Tottenham and see who they have in charge, it is the exact contrast, you could easily say that Pochettino is currently ticking all those boxes.

In the time that Arsene Wenger has been at Arsenal Football Club, there is one major scenario that has never happened whilst he has been there, and that is Tottenham Hotspur finishing above Arsenal in the Premier League. Well, it looks as though it is more than likely that Spurs will finish above them in the league.

Arsene Wenger has worked wonders in the past for Arsenal, but the word ‘past’ needs to be emphasized because after 21 years, sorry Arsene but it’s time to move on my friend.