The greatest irony, and there were plenty of them around at Arsenal on Sunday, was that the outcry was triggered by a change. Arsène Wenger's decision to substitute a talented youngster with potential for an experienced and expensive international was also, on at least one level, pretty ironic, although no one saw it that way for a simple reason: Andrey Arshavin, the Russia captain, has become a total liability. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, by contrast, had impressed on his full Premier League debut against Manchester United.
Wenger promoted contrariness afterwards. The jeering of the substitution, he suggested, vindicated his decision to start Oxlade-Chamberlain ahead of Arshavin. Arsenal are living in topsy-turvy times, where even what may appear sensible invites condemnation. The club's financial results are due out by the end of next month and they will be impressively strong. The directors are waiting for a bad day to bury the good news.
Arsenal's supporters are back in mutiny mode and it was a complication for Wenger that Robin van Persie seemed to be on board with them. The captain also expressed his unhappiness at the substitution, which presaged Danny Welbeck's winning goal for United (Arshavin, following Sod's law, had to be at fault) and it did not need the pundit Gary Neville to pronounce that "if the captain's reacting like that, you've got problems".
Wenger is bogged down in them. He should be able to shrug off Van Persie's heat-of-the-moment exasperation and the striker will not base his decision on whether to extend his Arsenal contract in the summer on one substitution that went painfully wrong. "The manager and I are fine and my relationship with the club is good," Van Persie told the Sun. "There is no problem, there is no conflict, there is no controversy."
But the bigger picture is not encouraging the Dutchman or the fans. The United defeat was Arsenal's third in succession and eighth of the Premier League season. They sit five points off the Champions League pace and if the half-full-glass drinkers note that fourth-placed Chelsea still have to visit the Emirates, the half-empty brigade fear that the fixture on 21 April will press Wenger's team out of contention. And that is if they were to remain in it. The apocalyptic scenario is that no Champions League qualification equals no Van Persie next season. Wenger admitted last Friday that no Champions League football equalled a disaster in sporting terms.
Sunday felt like a tipping point for Wenger because the dissent was so vociferous and widespread. Even the supporters who did not chant "You don't know what you're doing" at him surely asked themselves the question. A body that measures in the thousands has lost its faith in the man who famously "knows", and that goes for his substitutions to his decisions in the transfer market.
Gooner soul-searching is nothing new. There was an outbreak of it in the desperate weeks of the early season and there is the sense now that the improved performances and results from the end of September to the turn of the year merely papered over the cracks and the inherent fragility of the squad.
Expectation levels have already been scaled down, just as Wenger's summer deadline-day splurge on a clutch of steady heads marked a change to his approach. The limit of Arsenal's ambitions for the season has long been to finish fourth but the doubters argue the club are sprinting to stand still, even if a Champions League play-off is infinitely preferable to falling off the precipice in fifth.
The fans want, somehow, to get back to the old level, when the team were regular title contenders. Deep down, they wonder whether the squad is good enough, which undermines Wenger's belief that things will be OK when his many injured and unavailable players return. And in order to drive the upturn, there is the growing feeling that fundamental change is required.
The plain fact is, though, that it will not come about easily as it is not only Wenger but the chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, and the majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, who are wedded to the club's economic model, which is against high-risk spend-to-accumulate offensives.
Those who feel that Wenger should jump or be pushed from his post ought to be careful what they wish for. Kroenke and Gazidis would seek a replacement with similar philosophies and to work in a similar framework, and not only because of the incoming financial fair play regulations. In Wenger, they may already have the best.
A radical view involves the removal of Kroenke and Gazidis, and a fresh approach entirely, perhaps under the leadership of Alisher Usmanov, who owns a little under 30% of the club's shares and has positioned himself against the concept of the self-sustaining business model. It would be fiendishly difficult to see this happening.
Gazidis has identified a huge discrepancy between the worldwide reach of the Arsenal brand and the revenue that it generates. He believes that bringing the latter up to speed – the club have sophisticated strategies in place to do so – is the surest way forward. It is simply not possible to play the sheikhs and the oligarchs at their own game.
And so Wenger and Arsenal will continue to dip their shoulder against emotional supporters, unsatisfactory short-term fixes and the prospect of an excruciating slide. As another crisis bites, there are no clear solutions. The ever-decreasing circles are dizzying.
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Reply With Quote
This is the thing even if wenger was to go wit this board they get someone even worse thats the problem.
