Wenger Referendum II - And this time it's personal

[WMUG]

PS: Was in York last weekend, you didn't even come and say hello

I'm back in London now, term ended in time for the West Ham game. What'd you get up to? Standard Shambles/Minster/Betty's, or something innovative?

[Letters]

I'm back in London now, term ended in time for the West Ham game. What'd you get up to? Standard Shambles/Minster/Betty's, or something innovative?

I'd been there before and done the Minster so while we popped in we didn't pay to do the tour. And I'd done the train museum before. But yeah, standard stuff really. Walked along the wall, wandered around, did a boat trip, Jorvik thingy and that Chocolate museum. Nice place.

[The Emirates Gallactico]

So Klopp just announced that he's leaving Dortmund this summer and that he's not planning on taking a "sabbatical either".

How does this change things for you with regards to Wenger if at all?

50/50 for me. I genuinely think we're on the precipice of doing something amazing so risking a manager change at this late stage could seriously jeopardise that however the opportunity to hire a top coach (one bad season doesn't change that) like Klopp doesn't come around that often, especially one with the longevity and who shares similar attributes to Wenger in terms of long-term approach to building a club.

I would absolutely hate to see Klopp at Pool or Citeh .... his style and his philosophy seems tailor made for us.

[Kano]

The pattern is so obvious regarding Wenger. Great start/ending, fuck up elsewhere, so we'll keep chugging along as we are with him in charge. How many seasons do we go, "Well next year will be better" only for it to repeat? The hesitation will always be finding a manager deemed 'secure' enough to carry on where Wenger has left off and Klopp fits the bill better than anyone.

But, it won't happen. The board will stick with Wenger for as long as he decides and the stubborn old fool will continue in ever decreasing circles for the foreseeable future...

[Letters]

We're on our best run since The Invincibles - this isn't just another 'decent run'.
We've finally got a squad that looks like it can compete.
We've won a few of the 'must win' games that we 'always' lose.
We've won a trophy and really should get back to the final, we have a decent chance of winning two major trophies in two seasons.

And you really think we're just 'chugging along' and there are no signs we're heading in the right direction?

[Kano]

Going by our points comparison, no. We're just doing the same as usual. Meaningless win runs that leave us between 2 and 4th offer no comparison to the Invincibles at all. That is just yet another pointless media stat thrown out there.

We've had a squad that can compete a few times. The problem is the manager cannot 'manage' them well enough to get the maximum out of the group. With the money spent, two FA Cups is not enough to justify the expense of this squad and is vastly short of what they should be pushing for. Europe remains a joke - and after 15 or so attempts it's fair to say that is never changing.

Wenger has to go at some point. The club needs to be forward thinking about that change and take on a young manager who could potentially remain in place just as long as Wenger, deliver what they need financially and what the fans desire too. But of course it won't happen. Just fanciful thinking on my part.

[The Emirates Gallactico]

The familiarity to our "title collapses" is definitely a valid point ...... I mean as you say it's either a great start or ending. However, I think it'd be remiss to not acknowledge or appreciate that our improved financial muscle is starting to have an effect. We've improved our squad to such an extent now where really this sort of thing should be a thing of the past. You can point to this season, but there were certainly factors which played a part towards our shit start: the WC, bedding in so many new players, a lack of CB/DM cover (rectified and will hopefully rectify) ........ I'm not sure any manager could have dealt with them.


I'll put my two cents out there: I don't actually think Klopp is a better manager than Wenger. He's got plenty of issues and problems himself however with the Bundesliga being less competitive and "hard" than the PL, he can often get away with them (not this season though). However he's a very good and talented manager who could get better and the opportunity to replace Wenger with a talented manager who shares very similar characteristics doesn't come around that often so I'd also be annoyed if we let it go to waste. Especially if he thens ends up at a Liverpool or Utd and stays there for a decade or two.

It's 50/50 for me but I'm leaning towards Wenger staying atm.

[Letters]

With the money spent, two FA Cups is not enough to justify the expense of this squad.

Not over 10 years, I agree. I think we can all agree that over the last 10 years Wenger hasn't done well enough with the resources at his disposal. That said, we did have the triple whammy of the stadium debt, the billionaire cheats and poor commercial deals - secured to ensure the stadium repayments and good at the time, but we tied ourselves in for too long and lost out longer term. Easy to have 20:20 hindsight about that.

Now we have new commercial deals in place and the stadium debt is paid off, or getting there, Wenger has started spending more. The sorts of players we're signing - Cazorla, Ozil and Sanchez - is a level above the players we signed before that. If we win two cups in two years - having thought, especially after the Birmingham debacle, that under Wenger we'd never win another trophy - and get a similar number of points to what we got last year (which was the most since 2007/8) then IMO it would show we're on an upward curve. It didn't look like it early season, granted, but you judge a season at the end, not in the middle.

I don't think we've had a squad quite this good for a long time. And I see the result at Old Trafford as significant - it's the sort of game which we 'always' lose and 'never' show up in. Well this time we did show up, we were superb, and we got the result. And we thumped Liverpool recently in a game which, had we lost, they'd have been right on our tail. Again, the sort of game we 'always' lose.

FY said earlier in this thread that he saw the Chelsea game as significant. I see that as a bore draw - Mourinho will come and park the bus, come for a draw and probably get one. If we could win that though then, although it would be all for naught, it would be another little monkey off our back in terms of beating a Mourinho side.

Wenger does need to go at some point, but is that point when we're finally building up a bit of momentum?

[Niall_Quinn]

None of that touches on Wenger's glaring tactical deficiencies which are the main reason we haven't competed more effectively with the resources we've had, depleted or otherwise. Wenger's mentality isn't mentioned either. He's become way too cautious to ever challenge for the top again. It's not impossible we could do a Liverpool and snag a title (almost) on the back of everyone else being shit. But we'd have no chance of retaining it. There's a difference between a Liverpool or Utd dynasty and an up and down cash machine like the gypos. We were somewhere in-between during Wenger's good years. His philosophy was better then. He was more expansive in his style. Now he brings on Flamini and sets up to scrap it out with Burnley because he values the 3 points more than the football. It doesn't suit him and it hasn't worked in ten years of trying.

[The Emirates Gallactico]

I agree Letters. It'd be a shame to jeopardise or risk all the work we've put in to get to this point by bringing in a new guy at this stage.

The thing that worries me about Klopp I have to admit is that he doesn't have a good track record of building successive great teams like say a Wenger, Ancelotti or SAF have. He built one amazing team at Dortmund (which got to the CL final and won the league a couple of times) but after that was dismantled he's struggled as evidenced by how awful they've been this year. And let's not forget he prior to that he relegated Mainz and couldn't get them promoted back the following season.

Plus for all the talk of Wenger's lack of flexibility in terms of adapting the team's playing style I'd actually argue that Klopp's a lot worse at that. He seems to have only one setting (high pressing transition football) which when it get's figured out, he doesn't have a counter for it. It also results in players getting over stretched and subsequently picking up a lot of injuries.

Granted like I said in my previous post he's extremely talented but don't be fooled; going with Klopp would be a massive risk; there's the potential for it to fail spectacularly as well.