Wenger Referendum II - And this time it's personal

[fakeyank]

That's like me saying you'll keep criticising Wenger if we won every game all season and won the quadruple.
If I'm defending him at all, it's because we haven't lost that many games and things aren't as calamitous as you keep making out.
We're a point off 2nd place, we're in the Cup semi-final (we're the current holders, by the way) having beaten Utd in the quarter finals, we should get to the final and could well retain the Cup.
IF we can sustain our recent form over the course of a season then we will challenge seriously next year. We have the squad to now, the question is do we have the mentality? A couple of results recently have indicated maybe we're getting better like that, I agree that the Chelsea result will be telling and we have Liverpool to play too.

Forget everything because we will just go round and round on this today, tomorrow, next year and the year after... just a simple yes or no question to you (please do not elaborate): "Do you think Arsene Wenger is the man to get us consistently challenging for the PL title and also make us a major* force in Europe?

* When I say major, I mean a team that will be disappointed to get Bayern in a draw, but not scared. A team that will be looked by the European power houses as one of the teams to beat.

[Power n Glory]

Look, here are the cold hard facts. In 18 attempts, we've failed to creep past the last sixteen a huge 9 times which is 50% of the time (yeah, maths baby!). We've made one final. Appeared in two semi finals. Qualification 18 times is great but never winning it and rarely qualifying past the dross round tells you all you need to know about Arsene and elite level football. He doesn't cut it.

Le Grove

[Letters]

That's not a fair yes or no question. I can't confidently say yes, he is; neither can I say no, he definitely isn't.
What I would say is I think we're close to a side who can do that and I've seen a few signs recently which give me hope that yes, we will under Wenger over the next few years:

We have started to make more major signings, like Ozil and Sanchez.
We have a better squad than we've had for years.
We won a major trophy last season.
We've won a couple of big away games this season, the sorts of games which we traditionally lose or even get hammered in.
One of those away games was in a Cup Quarter Final - again, the exact sort of game in which we've repeatedly failed. So now we're in a semi-final against a team I believe we'll beat. We could yet retain the FA Cup.


Now. I also recognise that we've had plenty of false dawns previously, but some of the above haven't happened for us for a while. If we do win two cups in two years then it won't have been a bad couple of seasons, despite some of the frustrations. I agree with you that the Chelsea game is significant in terms of beating a Mourinho side. If we do that, finish in the top 3 and win the Cup would it have been such an awful season? Would a manager who achieved that really deserve the ridiculous level of abuse you mete out?

As a club, we need to move on from Wenger if only because of his age. I personally don't think there's any big hurry to do that though.
While the billionaires are allowed to run amok I can't see us dominating like we did in the early noughties under any manager, but I do think we're well placed to challege over the next few years. There may be managers out there who would be better placed to do that for us but I don't think there are many.

[Niall_Quinn]

We have three billionaire "investors" running amok. Difference between ours and the rest is they don't put anything back into the game. Arsenal is a story of structural failure across the board in terms of football. In terms of business and shareholder value we're easily the number one club on the planet, nobody else comes close. That's because this is where all the focus has been placed and this is the prime reason Wenger stays in his job because he delivers year after year. He's the top manager in the world in this respect. This is why nobody questions him, this is why he is allowed to under perform on the pitch because the pitch is not the priority. He never under performs in the primary goal, returning value to shareholders. Why would a shareholder at this club do anything to upset the golden goose?

Even the media plays along with this game - look at what Arsene has done for Arsenal, big new stadium, qualifying for the CL money bonanza every year, self sustaining finances, he must be given more time and more time after that and then more time still. The standard line is it's ridiculous to even question him, an act of disloyalty or ingratitude.

But what does a big new stadium and perpetual qualification for the CL mean for the hard pressed fan who pays world leading ticket prices? It's a convenient high horse we are riding, pointing at the chavs and gypos and laughing off their success because they cheat. Is it them cheating the game or our non-investing investors cheating Arsenal fans though? Yes we have Ozil and Alexis, bought with the fans' and sponsors' cash, not from the pockets of our billionaire club. So let's not say we have world class players because of the board and Wenger. It's not as simple as that.

What it all means is Wenger is going nowhere and is in the luxurious position of being able to write his own terms. Not because he's a top manager. The results tell us he's not that by a long stretch. It's because he's a top accountant who delivers outstanding value to his employers. It's because Arsenal's first priority is profitability. So when we think about other managers who could come in and make a difference we also need to think about what their brief would be. Does the focus remain on profitability? In which case they have their legs chopped out from under them before they start. In such a case Wenger is truly irreplaceable.

It's up to the board. Is it time for us to focus on football yet? After a decade of promises and soaring share values? I don't think so. I don't think they have any regard for the football beyond its utility as a vehicle for profit. That's where our ambition and winning mentality lies, in the balance sheet. Which means we don't have ambition and the winner's mentality on the pitch where it needs to be undiluted. We have a few individual winners who drag us along but it doesn't extend to our manager whose focus is elsewhere. He has said he treats the finances of the club as if they were his own. Why? Why is he even bothered by the finances? What's it to him? Well, it's his job description unlike any other manager in the game.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Le Grove

It's actually 11 times in 17 that we have failed to get to the quarter finals

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Le Grove

It's actually 11 times in 17 that we have failed to get to the quarter finals

[fakeyank]

That's not a fair yes or no question. I can't confidently say yes, he is; neither can I say no, he definitely isn't.

I can definitely say he isnt and thats why I want him gone. Majority on this board think like me. Unfortunately the people who matter think like you..

[Letters]

No, the people who matter do NOT think like me, or you. See NQ's post for how they think.

EDIT: and yes, you can say he definitely isn't, but that doesn't make you right any more than me saying he is would make me right. Neither of us know really. I understand why people don't believe he is, I certainly have doubts myself, but I also see a few signs of hope which I've gone over. I do accept this isn't the first time though.

[fakeyank]

I do not think the board are ONLY worried about money, though that is their chief motivator (like any business person). But I do think their thinking is closely aligned to yours i.e. they think that AW is possibly our best option to becoming a contender at home and in Europe.

I'd prefer a more ruthless board, not a passive one where someone like Wenger can reign on forever without accountability.

[Letters]

I think they see Wenger as the perfect balance - he makes a profit and keeps us relatively competitive thus meaning the CL money keeps rolling in.
He is accountable, but the board's requirements of him are not the same as the fans. Had we been languishing in mid table I reckon he'd have been long gone.