Serious Questions Must Be Asked About Arsene Wenger

That title for a post will piss off a bunch of "fans" who think they are better than everyone else, but I don't care. After another ridiculous draw at home against West Ham yesterday, I'm sick of the "In Wenger We Trust" bollocks. Yeah I think he's a good manager and we all know he's accomplished great things for the club but at some point he has to be told that he is wrong and things have to change. This is one of those times. His youth experiment or whatever you want to call it has led to no trophies in what will probably be four years and no titles since 2004.

The current squad that he chooses to put out there is not good enough, yet he refuses to strengthen. When we lost Diarra, we said, "Ok, well we still have Flamini and Gilberto." But when Gilberto and Flamini left, who did we bring in then? Nobody. Despite the fact that every Gooner from California to Russia knew we needed to bring someone in, Wenger bought nobody.

Cesc Fabregas is by far our most influential player, but did Arsene really think that it was impossible for Fab to ever get hurt? Why was there nobody who can at least fill in that role adequately enough? Diaby does not even come close to what Cesc can do, and while Nasri is good at creating, his moving into the middle leaves us short on the wing.

Emmanuel Eboue has never been good enough to play on the wing for Arsenal, or any Premier League club for that matter, yet there is a new contract in the works for him. Playing Denilson and Nicklas Bendtner out on the wings is just ridiculous for a team with title aspirations, because those aren't the players natural positions! Yet Theo Walcott goes down and we're running midfields of Denilson, Diaby, Song and Nasri. Yeah that looks like a team that can compete with the other top clubs...

What really got me questioning though was the fact that Robin van Persie started on the bench yesterday. He's been our best player (indeed one of our only good players) since Cesc went out, and yet the manager leaves him on the bench to start Adebayor (who has been absolute shite) and Bendtner, who clearly have never worked well together and even Stevie fucking Wonder could see that. He said the reason he left van Persie on the bench to start was because he didn't want to risk an injury. That's the most ridiculous reason I've ever heard. You don't not play your best player just so he DOESN'T get hurt, you assume that he will make it through the game healthy and will make plays for you. I have an apple in my fruit bowl but I won't eat it because it might turn into a core. I don't want to get a job because I might get fired from it one day. I don't want to get married because my wife might divorce me. Do those sound stupid and ridiculous to you? Because that is basically Wenger's reason for sitting RvP.

We've only scored four Premiership goals since we played United way back when, so you can see why Wenger is after Andrey Arshavin. Yet Wenger is nonchalant about it, saying he doesn't care either way.

"Nothing is happening - maybe, maybe not. It doesn't worry me either way."

It really should worry you Arsene, because you've had all of January to try to fix at least SOME part of this squad that's got us in 5th place and can't defend and has forgotten how to score. I'm not asking for big money signings. Bakary Sagna wasn't expensive yet he is a key player for us. Why can't we find some more signings like that to come in and strengthen the squad a bit? The reason is because Arsene Wenger doesn't ever want to be told that he was wrong.

I've been very very faithful throughout this youth movement for Arsene, but my patience is wearing thin. Draws against Everton away are acceptable, but draws against West Ham at home are not, especially when we could have brought in better players before now.

A lot of you will disagree and call me a cunt, but guess what, you can piss off and get hit by a bus. Wanting to win trophies does not make you a fake fan. I think Wenger deserves time to fix this because of all that he has done for Arsenal, but I don't think his position at the club should be there regardless of results. If he remains stubborn, if this Arshavin deal doesn't get done, and we miss the Champions League and go another year trophyless, then I think his time at Arsenal may be nearing it's end.

Leave your thoughts, although if they are not at least somewhat thought provoking I'll just delete them. Cheers.

Arsenal Granted Arshavin Work Permit, West Ham Preview

Hello all. Last night was a little rowdy for me so I slept in pretty late today, hence the late post. Not a whole lot going on with Arsenal today ahead of the West Ham game tomorrow. Arsene Wenger gave an interview to Arsenal TV Online, and said he wants to get the Arshavin deal done before the match tomorrow. He also said he has looked at other targets besides Arshavin, but given the fact that the transfer window is just about to close there isn't a lot of time to get any other deals done before the deadline. So it looks like the only signing this window will be the Arshavin signing, and you probably know my thoughts on that already.

The good news today is that Arsenal applied for a work permit for Arshy and it was granted, so he will be able to move and play right away as soon as a deal gets finalised. That's pretty good news just so long as the deal actually gets done. Even though I am not particularly excited about us signing Arshavin, I'm sort of excited just because of the fact that we're actually buying SOMEONE.

In financial news, yesterday I mentioned that it would be disastrous for Arsenal to finish outside of the Champions League Places.

We can't afford, in the current economic state, to not qualify for the Champions League, and at this rate it won't happen. We're developing the Highbury Square flats, we're paying off the new stadium, we have fairly high player salaries to pay, and the Champions League provides a lot of revenue towards those expenses.

Well apparently Peter Hill-Wood reads the blog because he directly responded to that today, saying that it would not be "financial armageddon" if Arsenal finished outside of the top four.

"But although missing out on the Champions League for one year would be a big disappointment, it would not mean financial armageddon for Arsenal. When we worked out our budget, and did our fund-raising calculations in respect to the new stadium, we did not assume we were going to be in the Champions League every season. That may be an assumption at other clubs, and it's not for me to comment on the way they are run, but we did not want to get out of our depth in terms of paying our bills."

It makes some sense I suppose but it's disheartening to hear that it would almost be accepted if we were to finish outside the Champions League spots. Yeah sometimes you have bad years and you have to work through it but I think of all people PHW should be saying we NEED to make the Champions League. Accepting mediocrity does not bring trophies to the club.

So tomorrow we have West Ham, and it's a match we need to win. West Ham handed us our first ever loss at the Emirates and we've got them at home tomorrow. Villa have continued to take three points from their matches and we've got to do the same. As I told Joaquin yesterday, an unbeaten run means nothing if they are all draws. West Ham also are on an unbeaten run, theirs is 7 games, so it's another team in good form and could be a dangerous one for us.

The injury news is the same. Rosicky, Eduardo, Theo, Cesc, Silvestre are all out. I'd like to see two goals from RvP and another from Ade. 3-1 to Arsenal. Cheers.