I've seen it said that Saturday's 2-1 defeat was as bad as last year's 8-2, and while this stretches a point I can see the argument. Last year we caught them when we were in turmoil, transfer wise, and they were irrepressible. This year we were utterley dominated by a Manure team who barely got out of second gear. So 14 months on, and this time with transfer business concluded a long time ago, did this game underline in a revealing way why our manager's time is up?
Team selection? Clueless; incompetent and stubborn. Perservering with Santos at LB and Ramsey at RM was folly, and everyone in football apart from Wenger could see it. Arguably, even the selection of Vermaelen, who is woefully out of form, incapable of providing leadership, and gifting a goal a game these days was a mistake. Not to mention his failure to start Walcott, or to consider Oxlade Chamberlain. Wenger has always stated that he does not consider the opposition when setting up his team. It would seem now that he isn't able objectively to consider the performance of his own team.
Player positioning? Podolski on the left is clearly not working. Giroud up front with no service is pointless. Arteta at DM is too easy to mark out of the game. Theo - the best finisher we have, but Wenger would rather play Gervinho up front than Theo. We are a much better team on paper than we are on the pitch - and this team is increasingly looking like Wenger's vanity project more than anything else. It doesn't matter that he is bringling in more seasoned, experienced players. The advantage is being lost, because the manager simply refuses to play to their strengths. Saturday was a prime example of several players looking like they were playing a game utterly unnatural to them.
Team set up. This is a team and formation that can only be explained by the idea that it is set up around having a Diaby in MF. Wake up Wenger. We will never have a Diaby in MF for more than the odd game. Our style of football increasingly seems not to have really evolved since the Fabregas project. Only now, we have inferior players to play it. Wenger's brand of foolball looks not only stale - but almost as though it is the easiest type of football to play against - both in attack and in defence. All the opposition needs to do is to wait for the inevitable mistake. Norwich found it easly; Reading first half midweek...followed by a Manure team that looked almost bored by the lack of challenge on Saturday. Very difficult not to conclude that Wenger has run out of ideas and direction.
Motivation. Ferguson described this fixture pre-match as a 'hard-ish' game. I mean that comment alone would have been all the motivation that any team in the league needed to put in a display. Arsenal looked like they didn't care. Not about the veiled insult. Not about the fact that they looked a division lower than our old arch rivals, and even about making life difficult for Manure - still less about winning the game. Instead, we see that buffoon Santos swapping shirts with the captain that turned his back on us and who had scored against us for Manure, at half time. Second half against Reading aside, we look like a broken team. No belief, no spirit, no drive, no fight. It is the manager who is responsible for this. Rio Ferdinand spoke about how Ferguson buys personalities as well as players. Wenger represses personality - all he wants is characterless drones who do exactly what he wants them to do because his ego can't stand a challenge. So there is nothing shown on the pitch, and Wenger has clearly lost the ability to inspire off it. If he cannot get himself and his team up to play his oldest rival, in a fixture that resulted in such total humiliation last year than I would say that the writing is on the wall.
Regard for the club. Lets get this straight. I think the manager loves the club. But I think that we now need to ask what does this mean. I think that Wenger loves the club in the same way that you might love a faithful Labrador. A pet that exists to do his bidding. Re the team selection and other issues above, I think it is becoming unacceptable that the manager demonstrates such arrogance in perservering with policies, choices and risks that are almost doomed to fail - when the reality is that half of his tenure has now been trophyless.
This might be a bit of a ramble, and I know that all of the points made have been made before, but to see where we have come to against Wenger's oldest and fiercest rival, having been given a year to show that he has moved on since the nadir of last year seems like a watershed to me. I have always wanted to be convinced that Wenger still has it, but finally now I accept that there is no bounce back. I think the sooner his tenure ends now, the better.
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