It becomes a lot easier question to answer when you lose three league matches in a row, make inexplicable substitutions and your team crashes out of the fa cup with a limp performance.
Wenger's mandate it seems is to make sure the club finish in the top four every season, and considering the shocking summer transfer debacle including the sale of the our two best players than in itself will probably stand as an excellent achievement should we finish what we have we so constructively and doggedly started in the last five league games (as well as being aided by good fortune in the respective collapse of both Chelsea and spurs).
The question still remains over stagnation - we can't rely on spurs, Liverpool etc to not improve and if we don't show more ambition they will rightly overtake us.
Also we are looking at the possibility of entering the club's longest period of not winning a trophy for fifty years if we fail to win any silverware next season, finishing in the top four for it's own sake is a pretty bleak and redundant thing to do. Wenger needs to address the inconsistencies and slumps in form that have invariably left us empty handed for the last six/seven seasons and have become as each season passes increasingly predictable, obviously being more assertive in the transfer market is not really the all in one solution some of us might believe it to be......we can point to the fact that we are deficient in key areas this season but I feel we had a perfect balance in our team in 2007/2008 and still we hit the mental block when it came to the crunch.
As much as I think Van Persie is a fantastic player, can he really lead by example....to be honest no i don't think he can, anymore than Fabregas or Henry could....a captain is someone who did what Vermaelen did last night, a centre-back running the entire length of the pitch to be there in the box if the ball fell to him....this is not a criticism of Van Persie but generally i don't think flair players or forwards make good captains because their skill is unique and they cannot expect everyone around them to match their talent.
I think playing with Vermaelen has made Koscielny a much better defender, to the point where the training wheels have been removed and he is just as effective even in the absence of his centre-back partner.
I think Wenger has been allowed to take on too much responsibility at the club and he has made poor decisions (most notably giving big financial rewards in terms of long-term big money contracts to players based on potential rather than achievement) he should go back to being the manager, not the manager and the conduit through which every of the club runs. I also think the club should encourage him to refresh his day to day backroom staff and maybe even groom a successor (perhaps the way Ferguson may be doing with Ryan Giggs).
I am unsure whether Wenger can take the club forward, I certainly don't believe he can without significant change to his transfer policy and without certain tweaking of his footballing mantra. If he can't bring success I would favor someone else that can.
But I make no qualms about this it's with Wenger that I want this club to succeed, I have said much about wanting him to go simply because I put my love of Arsenal football club far above any personal regard i have for the man but I would derive much more satisfaction from us winning trophies under Wenger than a new man, but the jury is still out for me on whether he can deliver.
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Originally Posted by Syn
