How will the Fabregas debacle affect Wenger?

[IBK]

I've seen it asked whether losing Fabregas will affect Wenger's motivation. I think this is a fair question, since more than any other player Fabregas embodied AW's pastoral attitude to developing a world class player and building a team around him. The fact that there is no ready replacement lined up for him suggests to me that at least until very recently AW still believed that his personal relationship with the player, combined with Barcelona's outright refusal to meet our valuation, might miraculously convince him to stay - and I can well believe that this is a body blow for our manager.

If we hadn't seen evidence that our team in general seems to be stale and lacking in ideas, and that the manager has taken no substantive steps to alter the way we play the game, I might have suggested that maybe Fabregas leaving would be a kick up the ass that pursuaded our manager to freshen up the team properly and adopt a new approach - after all he has taken the team in new directions 2 or 3 times during his tenure.

But AW has looked increasingly desperate for the past 6 months - and I wonder whether what we have been seeing, both on and off the pitch, is a decline in the powers of the manager, as well as the ability of his team and the self-belief at the club.

What do people think will be the effect of Fabregas departure on the manager?

[Olivier's xmas twist]

I've seen it asked whether losing Fabregas will affect Wenger's motivation. I think this is a fair question, since more than any other player Fabregas embodied AW's pastoral attitude to developing a world class player and building a team around him. The fact that there is no ready replacement lined up for him suggests to me that at least until very recently AW still believed that his personal relationship with the player, combined with Barcelona's outright refusal to meet our valuation, might miraculously convince him to stay - and I can well believe that this is a body blow for our manager.

If we hadn't seen evidence that our team in general seems to be stale and lacking in ideas, and that the manager has taken no substantive steps to alter the way we play the game, I might have suggested that maybe Fabregas leaving would be a kick up the ass that pursuaded our manager to freshen up the team properly and adopt a new approach - after all he has taken the team in new directions 2 or 3 times during his tenure.

But AW has looked increasingly desperate for the past 6 months - and I wonder whether what we have been seeing, both on and off the pitch, is a decline in the powers of the manager, as well as the ability of his team and the self-belief at the club.

What do people think will be the effect of Fabregas departure on the manager?

It has a big effect already, You can see its knocked him for six, the man is deflated, it will be good to see if he can lift the team up from this. But you can seeing loosing his head boy has hurt him alot

[IBK]

It has a big effect already, You can see its knocked him for six, the man is deflated, it will be good to see if he can lift the team up from this. But you can seeing loosing his head boy has hurt him alot

Which raises the question as to how much of our capitulation was down to these impending departures. And if not, if AW couldn't raise the team with Fabregas and Nasri there, how is he going to do so without them.

I would say that the need for a real warrior - a proper captain is magnified immensely - yet it looks like yet another non-captain material player is going to get the armband. And so we go on.

[Marc Overmars]

He must be pretty crushed given that Cesc represented his vision.

Should spur him on to change things for the better hopefully.

[Niall_Quinn]

This is more and more looking like we have a bunch of absolute, total, unspeakably greedy cunts in the boardroom. Anti-football pricks to a bastard and that includes the yank who has visibly done fuck all except put his foot down on the Nasri sale - to ensure it goes through of course. It's also starting to look like Wenger has been carrying the can for these cowardly shits for a long time. When your bosses are among the worst scum to ever crawl on the face of the planet, sure, I bet it can wear you down. I say this because there's no way Wenger is an unintelligent man. but he's coming across as an utter tool at the moment and I don't see why he would set out to do that deliberately. Is he really so unprofessional he can have a laugh about the crisis we're in at the moment, just to muck around with the media? That seems far fetched to me. I smell old Etonians and nouveau riche yanks and it's a foul stench.

[Grebbo]

It wont affect him at all. He's be treading water for years.

I'm gonna love seeing his excuse for not spending the Cesc and Nasri money. I wonder what shite he'll come out with?

[Darth Vela]

I don't know, really.

I think he probably realised the end was nigh and with the collective failure last season I think he was more open to it. The way Cesc spoke about AW would seem to imply that the Spanish press narrative of Wenger clinging onto him for dear life in order to piss off Barca and almost against Cesc's will was more or less fabrications.

Nasri is different though, I think the plan was to groom him as the new Cesc and THAT has left Wenger a little nonplussed, hopefully we've been preparing for Nasri leaving in the last few months and are ready to spring into action and bring in targets, I wouldn't want to bet on it though.