Press Arsene

Today has seen much activity and palaver in the press about Arsenal. They’re too young, they’re too inexperienced, Arsenal Wenger is obsessed with building his own great players rather than buying them – all to the exclusion of the real prize… trophies & titles.

I’m not even going to quote the articles, but you can’t miss them (if you’re in England – if you’re not, visit LeGrove for a start).

While I uphold the right of all supporters to have their views (as I’ve said on here many times) whether I support/agree with their views or not – I am also entitled to disagree.

There is a middle ground though which makes things tricky… I kind of agree with some of the truth in some of the points. There’s nothing I would say wholeheartedly I agree with, but too much of it contains little bits of the truth to truly disagree with it either.

Yes, Arsene Wenger is a stubborn man and yes, he wants to build his own players rather than simply buy them. The first characteristic is not admirable but typical of great men, and arguably he wouldn’t be where he is today without that. The second characteristic is admirable. Not only from the desire to not spend massive amounts of money, which benefits the club, but also because (a) he can breed into them a way of playing that could be considered ‘his’ way (and is now considered by many to be “the Arsenal way”), and (b) growing up in the club makes them much more loyal to the club than many of the mercenary types (and yes, we know that doesn’t always work from examples like Anelka, Flamini, Hleb, Adebayor, etc).

Arsene also has a firm belief in his own sense of what’s right  – what’s right for Arsenal Football Club and what’s right on the field of play. Sometimes of course…. many of us (and many more of the footballing world) might disagree with his opinion – at least on the field of play.

Yet is Arsene really so much different from a less persecuted manager like Sir Alex Ferguson? Fergie is a more successful manager of course, and many would argue a ‘better’ manager – but he has the same attributes that Wenger has: that stubbornness, that steely belief in his own sense of right, that refusal to acknowledge anything against his team.

SAF however has shown something AW has rarely displayed – flexibility. The willingness to change the team and the tactics to deal with a new threat. Arsene has remained intractable, very rarely, if ever, changing the style of play and being unwilling to lose faith in his players, even when they have repayed him badly. Let’s call it ruthlessness. I actually admire that in Fergie – he gets the job done.

Arsene on the otherhand is less ruthless with the team, with his players, and with himself. Himself? Yes, I don’t mean in terms of the sacrifices in time and effort he puts in – in that regard he has been selfless. I mean in terms of looking at himself and saying “maybe I’m wrong”, “maybe I need to change something here”.

That, out of all of his admirable attributes and characteristics, is what his critics would say is his downfall (and consequently Arsenal’s downfall). That unwillingness to change.

Personally I hope Arsene Wenger continues to be Arsenal’s manager for many years – but (of course you knew there would be a caveat) – I would like him to change it up a little. When players have demonstrated a lack of desire, or continuous lack of concentration – change them out – give someone else a try. When your tactics have failed time and time and time again (as against Man Utd), try something different… don’t do the same thing all over again, because we’ll get the same result all over again.

That’s all.

It’s all very well the rest of us having opinions, and even to shout them loudly in the press – but there comes a point where all shouting does is unsettle and cause chaos. Sometimes you need to whisper. I’d like to whisper some of those things in Arsene’s ear – and I’d like to take away the noisy clamour demanding his removal.

I’m not going to make a plea for those who want him out to get behind him. I will ask you to consider that the things wrong are not as fundamentally wrong as you may think. We’re not in a relegation battle – far from it (although you’d think so to hear some people). We were battling for the league right up until the last few weeks. Just like last season and the one before. We’re just a bit short – can’t get over the final hurdle. But you don’t jump over that final hurdle by going back to the beginning to start again.