I had been hesitant to watch the new film Invincible because that era of Arsenal’s history has been beaten to death. There are dozens of books, there have been multiple documentaries, and even StatsBomb got in on it and released a data set (for free) covering that 2003/04 season. It’s not that we shouldn’t cover the topic, but it’s always a danger with something so momentous that it gets over-covered and that each new iteration adds very little to the story.
But Invincible manages to be about more than that one season. Couched in the 2003/04 season, the film manages to show a side of Arsene Wenger which we have written about here on this blog but which is rarely ever covered in other places, and never covered (or actually even ridiculed) in certain corners of the Arsenal fan universe. Wenger’s sacrifice.
My position on Wenger has always been that he’s the greatest manager Arsenal have ever had. And while I was “Wenger out” in a sense, it wasn’t because I didn’t respect what he was doing, it was because so many of the fans didn’t respect what he was doing.
The moment that crystallized what was going on at Arsenal was the fan incident at the train station in Stoke in 2014. It’s often laughed at as the “Joel (Campbell) get out while you still can” moment but that was the only thing funny about that night. Because the reality of that incident is that there were fans on a platform menacing Arsene Wenger. After that night, I realized that this would only get worse for him, that no matter what he achieved, there would be a sizeable portion of the Arsenal fan base which would never respect him.
And trust me, those folks still don’t respect Arsene Wenger. They are probably reading this or some snippet of it and bristling at the idea that Wenger was even any good, much less Arsenal’s greatest manager. Yeah, I wanted “Wenger out” but only to escape the constant criticism. Only because he deserved so much better.
So, it’s no surprise that in the film what Wenger says he most regrets is staying on at Arsenal after the 2005 FA Cup win. He’d been given many chances to leave Arsenal, to go someplace else like Real Madrid, but he chose at that moment to continue. And he did so knowing that it was a gilded cage he was trapping himself in.
The club had his hooks in him. He couldn’t leave. His addictive personality teamed up with his stubbornness to make it almost impossible to leave on his own accord. He wanted desperately to win another League title, and do it with a young team he’d put together on a shoestring budget.
Meanwhile, the Emirates stadium project ran nearly double the estimated costs. The banks required that the club keep Arsene. And Arsene needed to finish fourth place every season, plus sell off his best players, just to break even every season. Arsene needed Arsenal, but Arsenal needed Arsene just as much.
It was a crazy time for Arsenal, no other manager would even remotely agree to the terms that Wenger agreed to. And it still makes me angry to think about the way the fans treated him during those years.
Nothing epitomizes the disdain combined with ignorance like the backlash to Wenger saying that 4th place is like a trophy. It became a rallying cry for the anti-Wenger crowd who, I guess, thought that someone else could come in and do a miracle and get Arsenal back to fighting for a League title because it’s really just that simple for them: Wenger was the problem and a new manager would come in and “show more ambition”.
Yeah, well, that didn’t work. They brought in a new manager, one with a proven track record of winning European football and even after the club spent hundreds of millions on new players, we couldn’t get back to fourth place. And the sick thing is that people still blamed Wenger. They said it was still his fault because it was still his team. They say that to this very day: that Arteta needs time because he’s still clearing the rubble left by Wenger.
It’s incredible and almost unbelievable that people still blame Wenger. The club wouldn’t even be in the position its in to spend hundreds of millions on players if it hadn’t been for Wenger. And when he left the club, he left with a massive cash surplus. Sure, there were contracts (for Ozil) which weren’t great but it wasn’t Wenger’s fault that the club hierarchy failed so stupendously at planning for his succession and I think that’s evident to nearly everyone but the most blinkered Wenger-haters now.
And news flash: fourth place is a fucking trophy. It was a trophy when Wenger said it was a trophy and it still is a trophy today. Show me an Arsenal supporter who wouldn’t celebrate a 4th place finish right now? And 20 consecutive years of 4th place? With players like Denilson and Coquelin in midfield? With complete unknowns suddenly scoring 20 goals a season? Amazing. And don’t take my word for it, Sir Alex Ferguson makes an appearance in the film and admonishes the fans for disrespecting that achievement.
At the time, I likened losing 4th to getting relegated and some of the more conservative elements in my mentions hated that analogy but that’s exactly what it means when your club finishes 6th. It means you’ve been relegated out of the Champions League. And when you finish 8th, it means you’ve been completely kicked out of any European football. And just like relegation, you lose money, your club’s profile gets smaller, and it’s harder to recruit and retain players.
And beyond 4th place, there was a beauty to the way that Arsenal played football from 2007-2013. Of course we could be undone by a counter attack (still can, ha!) and we played very far up the pitch attacking constantly. And sometimes it was even too much for me to take. Sometimes I just wanted something a little different, another game plan. But on the whole, that Arsenal side and the way that we attacked and dominated opposition teams – ok, to be fair, usually the bottom dwellers – was marvellous. I’ll never forget the win over Barcelona, or Fabregas’ goal against Spurs. And we even managed to hold our own against Bayern Munich and nearly get through one year only to be squashed by the ridiculous away goals rule.
It was a fun time to be an Arsenal supporter. We dominated Spurs, we played good football, and we came close a few times to winning the League again. We also won some FA Cups. I think if you ask yourself honestly, you must deeply miss those times because what we see these last three or four years is just how difficult it is to play that way and stay successful.
But even in the film, there remains a certain disdain for Wenger’s staying on and he feels it. He calls that time his biggest regret and in snippets throughout the film you can catch what he sacrificed to do what he did for Arsenal: he gave up developing parts of his personality, he harmed his relationship with his daughter, he lost his relationship with his wife, and in the end it looks to me like he’s lost his relationship with Arsenal, the club he calls the love of his life. His life’s work. His time at Arsenal reminds me of the famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy in Hamlet:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
In the end, Wenger bore the criticisms of unworthy takes, he suffered the pangs of despised love, and heard our contumely but as the title of the film suggests, Arsene Wenger remains undefeated. He describes those final scenes at the Emirates as a funeral but they were far from, because he didn’t fall on his sword.
His Arsenal afterlife seems quite pleasant. The movie shows him laughing and smiling, playing football in the sun, gathering around children in a stadium named after him in his little town Duttlenheim. He speaks about repairing his relationship with his daughter. And he’s able to look back on those times now and be proud of what he did for Arsenal and for us, even if he still doesn’t get all the respect that he deserves.
Arsene Wenger, truly invincible.
This is great Tim – thanks
Where were you able to watch it in the states?
someone sent me a link.
https://youtu.be/J_XC89UQK5s
This is great 👍
In my opinion the moment Wenger should’ve left (for all the reasons you list and more perhaps) was 2014- he’d (honoured and) paid off the stadium and proven he could still win silverware, the perfect swan song. His legacy at that point, as far as I’m concerned, would’ve eclipsed SAF.
I was also kinda “Wenger Out” from circa 2013 onward (the year we sold RvP) because I’d lost “faith” in his project, but more specifically because I wanted him to stop being the scapegoat for the malaise in the club (board/owners/et al)…
*caveat: I personally think he eclipses SAF because Wenger went toe-to-toe (during the glory years at least) with the biggest club in the world on a shoestring budget… And he even had the audacity to be the only club in the history of (worldclass) professional football to go unbeaten for more than an entire season… It’s just that there was that “murky” period where Wenger appears to have been the “poster” of the club’s under-achievement when subsequent to him being dismissed, he was everything but at fault.
We are a super-club BECAUSE of Wenger. No other reason.
#OneArseneWenger!!!!
I agree. It was understandable that he stayed beyond 2005 to try to build on what he had, but for me the decision to stay beyond that FA Cup win was the big mistake. He could go out on a relative high. Staying was a terrible mistake, which both club and manager paid for.
This brought tears to my eyes.
Like when, after winning the FA Cup after a long time, his players doused his expensive suit and white shirt in champagne, and threw him in the air.
What a man.
Lovely stuff, Tim.
Fergie despised him at first. It was the first time he felt truly threatened by a manager, and Arsene, for all his of the professional airs that he gave off, was a hard man. He was the first guy to show Fergie that he was not intimidated by him. Refused his post match drink for years. Then Fergie’s regard grew into something close to love for Wenger. It was more than the fact that he stopped being a competitor. It seems like a genuine appreciation of Arsene. Today, they are very close.
And with the exception of Roy Keane, United players who faced off against Wenger (notably Ferdinand and Neville) hold him in the highest regard.
I wanted him to leave earlier than he did. And I’d have loved to see how he did at Real or Bayern. He gave us the term “financial doping”. I wonder whether he would have worked with a club pumped full of money.
“I wonder whether he would have worked with a club pumped full of money.”
*Next best/worst thing- FIFA? 😉
SAF only respected Wenger when he continuously qualified for Europe (and fell out of the title race) while selling his best players (famously one of them to him) to pay for the stadium.
Let’s be straight, those Project Youth 1.0 days were arguably Wenger’s greatest (trophyless) achievements and he came so close to winning a few times despite the odds, but mostly owing to injuries. Invincibles-shminvincibles…
Qualifying for Europe with a bunch of kids (the model for Pep/Barca, Klopp/Dortmund, et al, in less competitive and less lucrative leagues) while paying off +£400mil in debt for a stadium… quite frankly unparalleled. SAF is right to honour/respect Wenger.
Hope all our American brothers and sisters in this community had a happy Thanksgiving (what do you give the horses for a Thanksgiving feast, Bill?)
Speaking of Champions League football, Tim, been seeing a few pieces on the anniversary of the 5-1 we did on Inter, with Thierry in his pomp. Worth a mention. Good Lord, the running all over the pitch. Freddie, Pires, Cole…
Like the best Arsene teams, it was defined my athleticism, pace of play and movement. I think about Pepe ponderously advancing the ball down our right and I want to tear my hair out.
Team was so spectacular, that many gooners dont remember that Pascal Cygan played at CB 🙂
Always wondered about that banks’ clause and how enforceable it would’ve been had Wenger decided to leave, or the club decided to move him on.
Can’t imagine it was worth the paper it was written on.
Probably the bigger value was Wenger’s word he gave that he would stay on for however many years he promised the Banks he’d stay.
We’ll probably never know but I suspect the club signed up to fairly onerous penalty clauses. It’s highly unusual and probably something everyone involved, particularly Arsene regretted. At the time he’d won the double and gone unbeaten against a very strong MU side and manager and was feted as one of the best in world football. The financial men were backing his continued success.
Fantastic write-up, Tim. Superb and spot-on.
A thoughtful piece, by an thoughtful man, about a thoughtful man.
You echo my sentiments well, and we were fortunate to have witnessed his role for the club he help elevate for a very long time!
Just think if we did not move to the new stadium, he would have been able to keep our top talent and develop the youth- a Champions League trophy would have been in our cabinet, to match breath taking futbol.
Wenger, what a man! Miss the days when he was the soul of this club, he really missed Dean.
I was also one, who thought he over stayed in the managerial role (by about 3 yrs), should have moved up, a role in the boardroom and found a successor.
Wenger deserves more fans like you Tim.
Wenger is why arsenal is. The point I thought he ought to have left and appointed a manager is when Klopp was available. I mean we all knew Wenger wasn’t getting a new deal and Klopp was really angling to come. Actually put to Klopp Arsenal or Liverpool… There was no brainer. He was an arsenal man through and through.
Excellent perspective, Tim.
Wenger, for me, has transcended the sport. I have nothing but affection, admiration and respect for him. I was never blind to his many faults, but perfection never made anyone human. And Wenger is eminently human.
Very few that come immediately to mind have done that. Muhammed Ali, Vince Lombardi, Yogi Berra, Johann Cruyff, for sure. But I’m stumped in the moment to think of others, though they are a few.
That is a superb piece, Tim. I haven’t seen the documentary yet and for the very reasons you give have been reluctant to do so. I have fond memories of these days and am reluctant to have them overlaid by another’s narrative.
I thought it a privilege to watch Arsene’s Arsenal when he transformed the team he had inherited into the most excitingly watchable and successful Arsenal I had ever seen but he did stay on too long. I felt that as a result of what he had done for the club he had earned the right to choose when to leave but, like you, I came to believe he should leave for his own welfare. No-one should have to suffer the abuse he received from the morons amongst our fan base. The lack of respect was appalling.
I believe that if Arsene had himself chosen to leave after the Villa cup final victory that would have been optimal timing and he would not have experienced the sense of betrayal and loss that he clearly has and that has alienated him from the club. However I do understand why, given his personality, his sense of commitment and his self-belief, he did not choose to do so and still wanted to take ‘his team’ back to the top. That was a mistake. One should always know when it’s time to leave the party.
Fabulous post Tim.
I did not follow Arsenal or European football for that matter until Fox Soccer channel came on line around the turn of the century. I do not have the detailed knowledge of Arsenal history that many people have. For me the only Arsenal team I knew was managed by Arsene Wenger. I am not in position to accurately judge if Arsene was Arsenal’s greatest ever manager I will defer to those who know more about it then I do. I do know that he helped to build one of the greatest teams in history and the consistency of keeping the team in the top 4 for all of those years may be an even greater accomplishment. He deserves to have the largest statue in front of the Emirates stadium.
As many of you will remember, I was one of his longest, staunchest defenders for these reasons. In the end the club had to move on because the momentum against him became too much. To me he was Arsenal, and Arsenal was him, and I was desperate to see him succeed despite all the odds right until the end. It’s a sore topic for me because of all the time I invested defending him on online forums. It doesn’t seem like time well spent now but I was constantly riled by the injustice of what was being said about him. I’m glad the moment has changed again and he is being recognized for being the hero that he was. He carried himself with the utmost class, not blind to the critics but refusing to give in to the narratives. And the greatest achievement I think is the way his colleagues saw him, spoke about him, and what he meant to them. One of those colleagues was Mikel Arteta.
I don’t think you can call his overall Arsenal tenure, and even his post-2005 tenure as anything less than a smashing success. I challenge anyone to show me a manager who could keep a team that competitive for that long, with essentially zero investment, especially in the shark tank the Premier League became in the era of super clubs. I was there when Chelsea bought half the planet and I was there when Man City did the same, and when Man United did the same to keep up. Arsenal, by contrast, were taking flyers on U21 free transfers, hunting for bargains in far flung places and breaking even year after year, financed by selling their best talent to their direct competitors and then getting walloped by them in the Champions’ League. And the narrative would be: Look at Arsenal, they’re not ambitious, they don’t care about winning. It cut me deeply and still does to this day because I know it’s a lie. Arsene Wenger, who was Arsenal, cared so deeply about his club and about its success he was willing to tear down his life outside of the club just to keep any thread of hope alive.
I know he is still watching and I hope he is smiling that smile of his when he sees Bukayo Saka and Smith-Rowe scoring goals, and when he think about the team we are building. He deserves so much happiness and joy for the rest of his life and I hope Arsenal can be a part of giving him that.
Fantastic post. The club also seemed to uphold better values when Wenger was in charge.
This.
Wenger was a player’s manager, and never showed the vindictiveness that Arteta does towards players he doesn’t like. And he managed more problematic characters than Arteta had to. He understood that that was part of football.
The changing culture was probably one of the reasons he felt (belatedly) that he didnt fit anymore.
Let’s take Guendouzi, whose manager at Marseilles has raised his game immeasurably. He’s giving him more attack minded roles. He has responded with 3 goals and 3 assists… more goal involvements than Arsenal’s 2 premier strikers. Imagine that. The thoughtful, deep analysis of Bill, “he runs around a lot and has nice hair”, proved to be just short of the mark. But only just, hey Bill? 🙂
This is the kind of thing that Arsene would have done, and he would have taken pride and pleasure in working on. Developing a player who cost £8m into one five times his value. Raising his game. He would not have plunked £55m on a so-so defender, when he had a perfectly capable young one that he himself described as a generational talent. Some fan raved about Rob Holding to him once…”Im sorry that he didnt cost 40 million”, quipped Arsene.
Wenger would not have treated an employee of the club the way they treated Mesut Ozil, and would have found common ground with him. If anything, he gave the player a level of special treatment that didn’t go down so well all round, but we’d have been spared the ugly brinkmanship. Van Persie, Song and Nasri would never have survived an Arteta regime. Wenger improved all of them.
Arteta himself he kept on contract when past his usefulness as a player on the the field, because he recognised Arteta’s dressing room value. The irony of that is that it’s something that Mikel himself hasn’t absorbed. Maybe one day Mikel will become half the manager his ex-boss was, but he’s a long way off that. He and the Kroenke regime seem a good fit for each other.
No, Arsene cant escape his share of responsibility for the decline and the rot that eventually set in, but overall, his sheer excellence, values and decency shone through.
Maybe Wenger tolerated more challenging behaviour that Arteta would, but let’s not pretend that he didn’t get rid of at least Szczesny, Bendtner and Bentley explicitly for disciplinary reasons.
Plenty of others were also sold or moved out because they could or would not get on board. Beyond the list of players who improved or made it under him there are literally dozens of others who never made it to the first team or disappeared without a trace because in the end they couldn’t apply themselves hard enough.
“Van Persie, Nasri and Song would never have survived an Arteta regime”, well firstly I doubt that, actually you’re right maybe Nasri wouldn’t, but secondly even Wenger sold all three when their demands became too difficult to manage.
You say he would have found common ground with Ozil, that’s certainly a possibility, but on the other hand based on his track record he may have sold him quicker than Arteta did. You say he prized loyalty towards his players, but again that wasn’t limitless, he didn’t “allow” Fabregas to return.
Ruthlessness is built in to the job description. And where do you draw the line between principled, pragmatic and ruthless? It’s nowhere near black and white.
None of this reflects badly on Wenger, who remains head and shoulders above his peers. Unfairly determining the course of players’ careers is part of the job, and that’s why decency and values are so important.
Wenger saw the best in everyone, and was determined to help them reach it. That is an incredible gift. If Wenger is your measure of character, I think literally any other manager would come off second best.
Great words Tim. A more urbane, articulate, intelligent fella you’ll probably never see in football.
If I could turn back time the one thing I’d change during Arsene’s tenure was the Emirates. The vision was good but the execution was piss poor. To saddle the club with so much debt and financial restrictions was dreadful business practice. With the array of financing models available, to take long term loans was desperately naive. Plus could you imagine any of Arsene’s peers at the time signing on for those constraints? We’ve never recovered as a club. Never a debtor or lender be.
And by the way, I loved the song that fans in the stadium had for Arsene… the title of this very article, sung to the tune of “Guantanamera”. Hey, none of them will win Grammys, but they’re good fun.
I knew the Wenger song before I knew where it was from. I watched the movie as I was learning Spanish and was so excited to hear the Arsene Wenger song in it.
You express my feelings exactly regarding wanting Wenger to leave only because it hurt to see how he was being treated. I never paid much attention to the actions of the Club towards him, but the negative pressure applied by some of the fan base (ignorant, IMHO) who seemed to expect us to win everything, all the time, with vastly inferior investment, was disgraceful. Ironic, since Wenger was nothing if not gracious. But I also felt (haven’t seen this mentioned, so maybe it’s just me) that the players, for whatever reason, stopped playing for him. Now you can put the blame for that anywhere you like, but I tend to think that players owe it to the Club and the fans (and the Manager!) to give 100% on the field, all the time, and I can’t say I saw much of that in the last three years Wenger was in charge. I didn’t care much for Emery’s methods but I think the biggest obstacle he faced when he took over was not that the players he inherited weren’t talented but that they didn’t seem to care. The weird disciplinary actions against certain players during that time clearly had to do with personality and attitude problems that for me were a reflection of a more general quiet player rebellion that perhaps had become the norm in the dressing room. And when the players are no longer committed to the manager, he may as well resign.
I see nobody is talking about the win today. I take that as a good sign. We were expected to win and did so with minimum fuss. No controversies, no nail biting finish, no last gasp goal, no first half stoppage time set piece sucker punch and Ramsdale came up with a great save from their only shot of note. It was as if Liverpool didn’t happen. The best player in the first half was arguably Sambi and the best in the second was arguably Tavares, two young players who had really tough games at Anfield. That’s exactly what I was hoping we would see from the pair of them and good job to Arteta for sticking with them.
I was also glad to see Odegaard back in the lineup. He has been out of sorts for a while now but he seemed to rediscover some of his flare after the goal. Still a long way from his best form and he seems to be heavily dependent on confidence for form at this point in his career. From this view it also looks like he could do with a little more upper body strength. I know he’s still young but so is most of this team, many of whom are younger and not plagued by these issues. We invested a lot in him and he has to start delivering more impact plays for us.
Aubameyang is another player whose form is languishing. As skipper he will continue to get starts but between this game and Watford he is in a real funk. Both he and Lacazette looked a bit leggy out there today and I wonder if it’s time to give them a bit of a rest. I can’t see Arteta resting either of them against MU which is an absolutely crucial game in the race to win our 4th to 10th place “mini league” with them and the likes of Spurs and West Ham. Not a good time (if ever there was any) for him to lose form so spectacularly. It highlights the lack of a reliable like for like replacement in the squad, a problem that I’m sure will be addressed but not until 2022.
“We were expected to win and did so with minimum fuss.” That is, if Saka isn’t crocked. Fingers crossed…
Well said Tim and so many others.
He produced a style of play that meant that very many non-supporters wanted to watch them.
No, how many non-supporters want to watch the garbage that is served up every game? Even supporters like myself watch, not because we want to but because we feel a duty to.
The pressure put on him at the end was too much even for him to bear and he left without the club bothering to ensure the succession.
That was a calamitous error and we are reaping the problems that that has caused.
His legacy has been deliberately destroyed and we are left with a club in tatters.
I suspect that the talk by Arteta of bringing him back in some capacity is nothing more than talk.
I have long not bothered to read or hearing anything that Arteta has to say, as I do not regard him as anyone worth listening to.
Claude
Regarding Guendouzi, we have seen over the years the production of players while playing in Ligue 1 are no where close to being predictive of what they give us in an Arsenal uniform. Compare the level of production from Gervinho, Chamakh, Lacazette Sanogo Giroud and now Pepe compared with their goal scoring and/or assist numbers while playing in France. Suggesting that his manager has raised his game because he has 3 goals and 3 assists playing for Marseilles is clearly not an accurate predictor of what he might be able to do if he was still playing for Arsenal.
“Suggesting that his manager has raised his game because he has 3 goals and 3 assists playing for Marseilles is clearly not an accurate predictor of what he might be able to do if he was still playing for Arsenal”.
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Ah but it is. It shows clearly what his ceiling is. And that there’s more to him as a footballer than that “he has nice hair and runs around a lot”. In that assessment of yours, one of your criticisms of him was that he didnt have enough end product. Now that he has shown that he capable of it, you’re dismissing it. Choose an argument, please. Take some time and watch Marseilles games. You probably won’t be so dismissive of the young man’s strides*.
You left a whole heap of players off your selective list; including one that I mentioned… Samir Nasri. There have been successes, and there have been failures fron Ligue 1. For every Anelka, there’s a Chamakh. For every Gervinho, there’s a Petit. I wont mention 2 of our greatest ever players, Henry and Vieira, because they didnt come directly from France. But they were young enough and were in Italy briefly and unsuccessfully enough for their French education to count.
Guendouzi is showing what developmental leaps he is capable of with good, patient coaching. At 18 and playing nearly every game for Emery, he was already a good, if raw, player. He’d have been a dream signing for Wenger. Im not discounting his volatility, but Arsene had his share of such characters.
*the whole team underperformed on Thursday, and got ejected from the Europa. The only saving grace was that Spurs stank even more.
We also had Koscielny, Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna from Ligue 1, but we also had the likes of Pascal Cygan. Shall we have a list-off? 🙂
i went and compared giroud’s non-penalty goals + assists per 90 in france vs with arsenal, and this assertion does not hold water in this case: https://fbref.com/en/players/16ceb862/Olivier-Giroud
Yeah, his G+A/90 was almost exactly the same and actually improved the longer he was in England (before old man time caught up with him at Chels).
So I’ve thought about this a lot since he left, and since Wenger has been in the news of late. I haven’t watched the docu so can only comment on the few quotes that have been doing the rounds.
Let me preface by saying that I have huge admiration for Wenger. I wouldn’t say I’m one of his GREATEST fans (because that would be dumb), but if you were to ask me the names of 3 people past or present I’d want to have dinner with, Wenger is still on that list (the other two spots of changed a bit over time). So that’s how highly I regard him.
I wanted Arsene out after the 2014 FA Cup win. Actually I wanted him out a little while before that, but for me that was the moment, the ideal time for him to leave. I remember having tears at the final whistle, tears of joy, but less for the club and more for him. Because of all the crap he’d had to take, all the suffering he got put through, this was a fantastic moment, a great time to leave on high. Alas, he didn’t.
Why did I want him out? I was perhaps dissatisfied with the failures of Project Youth, although in hindsight it was an audacious project at a difficult time that came so close. I am less critical of that now. It was more that I felt Wenger had lost his touch. He came in and revolutionized the game. Players diets and all that. Being able to unearth diamond after diamond. Frenetic and effective attacking football. By 2014 it was all dust. We had serious transfer duds (Kallstrom, Chamakh, Gervinho, Andre Santos, Squillaci, Park), became more and more possession-without-end-producty, and frankly, painfully predictable. We would always come unstuck at the same times, in the same ways. We would trip up at crucial times to teams we should beat. We always played a suicidal high line and got punished.
And everyone else caught up. Suddenly Wenger wasn’t revolutionary anymore, he was tired.
Like all dictators – yes, Wenger may have been benevolent, but he was still a dictator – he didn’t know or refused to admit when his time came. Results slipped, he insisted he was the man. Fans started to grumble, it was the fans who were being ungrateful. Players with ambitions who pushed for transfers were painted as ungrateful. This kept getting worse, but he could have still left with his reputation mostly intact – better late than never. But he held on. And who would question him? He was the biggest figure in the club’s history. He made all the decisions on his future. He would choose his own time, because that’s what dictators do.
This was all true in 2014. I felt it was time for him to go. And there was another crop of managers coming through – young, hungry, the new Wengers, pushing the boundaries of what we knew. Klopp was one of them, and was not in the job at the time. How lovely it would have been for Wenger to bow out on a high and hand the reigns to a young, hungry, managerial superstar? Alas he didn’t, and Klopp went to a Liverpool who were at a low point. The rest is history (and now, it’s not entirely Klopp, but he is a huge part of it).
I resented Wenger for that. He won the FA cup again but it didn’t feel like it mattered because we still sucked. And then Leicester won the league when we should have it just felt like I described above – a dictator holding on to power, bringing the club down with him.
So eventually he left, and I was relieved, and there were no bad feelings. But reading these comments… I feel sad for him, because it sounds like he still doesn’t get it. That he’s stuck in his own resentment at being pushed out that he can’t see the truth of the situation, that it was time for him to go. He’s still hurting, and that makes me sad because I don’t want the man to feel that. He should feel the love, the appreciation almost all fans have for him. But he still feels resentment at HIS own situation and can’t see how it played it for what it really was, and frankly that’s on him.
I would love him to come back, get standing ovation after standing ovation, and I’m sure he will. Maybe a bit of time is a good idea. But these quotes about should have gone to Madrid etc, they just come across as bitter and spiteful, and it makes me sad to see them.
Come back Wenger, we need to show you our love. But please, wake up a little.
Claude
The attacking players we have brought into the club from Ligue 1 in the last 10 years have all seen their production of goals and/or assists drop significantly compared to the numbers while playing in France. The correlation has been 100% during the that time period. The point is that the level of end product while playing in Ligue 1 is very likely a significant over estimation of what they are capable of while playing for Arsenal. Most of that happened during the Wenger era so we I don’t think we can’t blame the manager.
We talked some about Joe Willock last summer. The run of form he hit last year certainly looks like it was one of those unexplainable and unrepeatable things that happen sometime. At least so far it looks like selling him at his peak value was the right move.
Another clean sheet and dominating possession and shots when playing a lower table team and we are sitting firmly in 5th place. It seems like Arteta is getting it right in games when his team is able to execute the game plan.
Aaah so now your benchmark is “attacking players we have brought into the club from Ligue 1 in the last 10 years” 🙂
Careful you don’t strain yourself moving those goalposts.
Guendouzi is not an attacking player, Bill. My observation was about how the midfielder has significantly added to his game. Why are you going to such lengths to disprove the obvious. Did you watch his games for Emery? (Do you actually watch any games?). The opposition box was nosebleed territory.
Players can improve. The man is 21. He is far from, as you say, his “year 32”, no?
Why all of this contortioning to not give him his due? Joe Willock is not a good comparison. He was always a player with goals in his game. Guendouzi has added goals and assists to his, and doing something Joe never did — getting picked for his country’s senior team. His improvement isn’t insignificant, much as you wish it to be.
I’m going to let your thoughtful analysis that “he runs around a lot and has nice hair”, stand as your assessment of the player’s abilities.
Oh BTW, great insight that “it seems like Arteta is getting it right in games when his team is able to execute the game plan”.
It’s tight at the top, amigos y amigas. 7 points between us (5th) and Chelsea (1st). Would have been nice for Chelsea to beat United and keep ’em at bay, but a solid first game in the dugout from Carrick, who showed the cojones to bench Ronaldo.
Doc, I’ll offer thoughts on yesterday’s match when Tim analyses
https://www.theguardian.com/football/premierleague/table
I became an Arsenal fan in 1997. Wenger was the only manager I knew until he was replaced by Emery. And now I’m starting to wonder if I really was a fan of Arsene FC and not Arsenal FC.
Not strictly true of course. I love our history. And part of the reason I love Wenger is how he incorporated that history in the future he visualised. Keeping Pat Rice. Having Bob Wilson around. Incorporating people like Danny Karbassiyoon and Ryan Garry. He respected that history without letting it be a burden.
I wonder how much of Wenger’s disdain for him staying is to do with the way he was treated by the fans and some within the club, and how much is to do with the way the club has chosen to carry on since. I feel personally offended and my fandom violated by many of their actions and choices, I can only imagine what it would do to someone who sacrificed one of his dreams (winning the CL) to build the club up and leave them in a good position for the future.
I also question people who assume Wenger leaving for Klopp was ever on the cards. Even if Klopp came here, how confident are we the club had anywhere near the will, leave alone the ability, to give him what he needed? Liverpool got lucky with the Salah and Coutinho deals being on either side of PSG meeting Neymar’s Sanhelli negotiated release clause. Would Arsenal have been in that position to get similarly lucky? I doubt it. We’d be a top 4 club under Klopp though and the complaints would’ve been as loud as ever, with his Dortmund departure being shown as proof of him being washed up. It’s only now that we fell off that people are looking at painting 8th as positive. Our standards, both on the footballing front, and off-field behaviour, have never been lower in my quarter century as an Arsenal fan. I miss Arsene Wenger.
Always a Wenger IN….respect due. Should be around to mentor is successor…Arteta.
I received the video just a few days ago and find myself putting off viewing it. My heart soared with Wenger, bled with Wenger and broke with him. It still hasn’t mended. The injustice towards him, his own blindness and the isolation he suffered with no one, it seems, to whisper “it’s time my friend ” in his ear. I have so much respect for what he did, and what he tried to do as a man, coach, manager. Warts and all.
Like Arteta I’d like to have him ‘closer’ to the club. But you know what? The cynic in me fears that the club seek to usurp his persona again to contribute to an Amazon Prime spectacle. It must be his own wish, in his own time, and in a place/way of his choosing. If it were to happen he must be protected from the media and from the idiot Arsenal fans. Perhaps best, at first, quietly, with no attention and no fuss.