Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Will Arsenal Win Trophies Under Arsene Wenger?

Just the title alone will bring out the morons who think "true fans" can't question anything about the club, but I'm willing to risk it in hopes that we get some real, honest, thoughtful, opinions. I really want to know what people think in regards to if we will ever win another trophy under the management of Arsene Wenger. I don't feel like I need to reiterate the fact that I am thankful for what Arsene Wenger has done for this club and acknowledge that he has made us a more attractive and succesful club.

Having said that, Arsenal, for the last few years, has been on the decline. In my last post I compared our current squad to the one from a few years ago and it wasn't even close. We are much worse off now than we were a few years ago. Our best player, Cesc Fabregas, will not stick around and battle for 4th spot in the league every year when he could make more money and win trophies somewhere else. He's been very loyal since he came to Arsenal but we can't expect that to last forever without winning.

We've had some seriously confusing dealings in the transfer market, like selling Gilberto Silva because of his age and then buying Mikael Silvestre who is the same age. Arsene Wenger has ignored our deficiencies in defense and midfield, as well as overall depth, and it has hurt our squad. Now yet again our depth will be tested, with Adebayor out for three weeks, RvP suspended for an act of abject stupidity, Walcott out and Sagna out as well. Gallas and Eboue are out this match as well and who really knows what sort of squad we'll have out there. A midfield of Nasri-Denilson-Cesc-Diaby is not acceptable at a top club in the best league in the world. While other clubs improve their squad year after year we settle for letting players leave. I'm not saying spend as much money as Chelsea or Sp*rs but it's no excuse for sticking with a weakened team. It should be common sense that when a key player leaves you should replace them with another key player. FFS we could've gotten Senna to replace Flamini for pretty cheap, and what was wrong with that? He was too old? Silvestre apparently wasn't, and Senna is a much better player than Silvestre.

Arsene Wenger's stubbornness is causing him to continually stick with a youth policy that isn't working. Yes, some of the youth players will one day become good key players in the squad, but not all of them are going to be great players and we shouldn't assume that. He seems determined to prove that you can win without spending any money at all, but it isn't going to happen. When Cesc Fabregas leaves, what do we have left then? Is that going to get other players to want to come play for Arsenal when our best player is leaving? We need to adjust this problem now, yet I can't see Arsene going out and really spending in January to try to help our cause either.

Wenger has lost the plot. Instead of saying "yeah we fucked up and lost to Stoke and Fulham" he blames them for trying to injure our players intentionally, which is absolute BS. Just because they try to play tough doesn't mean they're trying to injure us. Even with my Under 8's team that I coach, before every match I tell them to "Man up!" I think a lot of the current Arsenal squad could use someone telling them to man up. Beautiful football is wonderful and I love it as much as the next guy but it makes little difference when you don't win anything. A state of decline for Arsenal is not acceptable.

Somebody needs to tell Arsene Wenger that he isn't guaranteed a job forever. If bad results continue then something has to be fixed. If players can be sacked, then managers can be too. This isn't a call for his head, but it's a call for the board to tell him to wake up and realize that this isn't cutting it.

So I ask you all the question, will Arsenal win anything while Arsene Wenger is still the manager?


4 comments:

Unknown said...

It is an absolute mess. Either the financial situation at the club is way worse than people think, or Wenger has become the most stubborn manager of all time.

If we have to keep fighting for 4th place, you're right, Cesc is probably going to leave. Of course, if we put his mentor Wenger under pressure, Cesc might leave as well.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, Wenger's done this to himself and it was so needless. How many quality players have we had on trial and cost basically nothing appiah, annan and many others. At the same time keeping players that are not cuttin' it. Cesc has to be asking himself why the gaffe is doing this and he's not looking happy. Wenger has stated he'll do things his way and has no intention of changing, which means he thinks the youth experiment will still work, i'm afraid he'll be the last to know.

DogFace said...

I'm not sure that you fully understand the modern game... Football in the premiership is fast morphing into a purely gambling sport and corruption in the game has more than crept in - Arsenal will not be allowed to win anything unless it suits the bookies. The last 2 seasons we had the equivilent of lead weights hung off us (in terms of the PGMO on-pitch decisions) to randomise the title and give us a 'nail biting' i.e. gambling extravaganza of a season finalie. Of course in this situation the power teams will prevail in terms of off-pitch influence. Buying the next big 'flavour of the month' won't fix anything, we have taylor made players coming through who can play the best team football on the planet - listen to what Wenger is saying in his interviews. The game is bent and good football alone won't win you anything.

Accept it and expose it - it is only when popular perceptions seachange that we will see any fairness and change in the league...

Or we could just muck in with the rest and indulge in match fixing and favours for favours - what did you think players with 'experience' meant anyway?

Andre said...

We'll win nothing this year, but I don't think he needs to be fired yet. A couple key buys in January could turn things around... or at least over the summer. As far as Cesc is concerned, he'll probably leave, but he's not irreplacable. If Wenger sticks to his youth ploicy and reefuses to by again, we're screwed and the board will need to rethink his job.

Silvestre is as old as Gilberto but he's a center back, not a center mid-fielder. Gallas is that old too.

Here's what I think needs to be done:
1. Replace Bendtner w/ a better striker
2. Get a better partner for Cesc
3. Get another, younger centeral defender

However, when Eduardo and Rosicky return, (if they can stay healthy) two of those problems will b fixed.