WENGER, 30 YEARS ON
Come on, let’s start thinking about real football that will return to us next weekend.
Arsenal vs Leeds.
It’s hard to imagine a period of my Arsenal writing life where I’ve spent more time reading what the nerds have to say about something. In fact, it gave me some of that Banter Era nostalgia when I’d be live-tweeting The AST view on Arsenal finances so we could work out why we weren’t spending money every summer.
NOT the good OLD days. Not at all.
It was 30 years since the day we hired Arsène Wenger last week. I’m not sure I am quite down with all these weird days of reflection. But Arsene Wenger is deserving of a regular mention, especially as reputations are evolving as we find out about who was and was not cheating. Arsene was hit by two distinct periods of adjudicated financial doping, with Abramovich and now Man City. We don’t have to guess anymore, it’s done. Both clubs took our best players, both clubs took our targets, all during Wenger’s time.
It is a little more complicated than both those clubs wrecking Arsenal alone. There were two problems that the club were navigating during this final decade or so. The first was that we were moving stadium and had to shutter off investment to our first team, we dismantled the Invincibles at a rapid pace to prepare for the big move. That was going to damage Wenger regardless. I’m not sure exiting any of the monied clubs from the league was changing that particular dynamic. It was always going to be nightmarish to challenge with next to no investment in the first team. Project Youth operations struggle all over the world. Chelsea, the most expensive project youth operation on the planet is not working. Young players rarely win you major trophies. Wenger was always up against it because of that.
But… it might have been a little less damaging. We might have had a little more success. Won cup finals, had less competition. But overall, the biggest weakness of that period is that we didn’t have an ownership group prepared to plug the gaps the stadium was draining from us. Why? There was definitely not an intent to go the extra mile from KSE during that period. But, more importantly… Arsenal followed the rules. Yeah, I know, novel idea, right?
The second issue during that period was that the new money, and the old money, was bringing in managers on the rise, as Arsène was on the decline. I know people desperately don’t want that reality to be true, but it’s hard to avoid it. Arsène didn’t shake up his backroom team, he didn’t adjust his rigid view of how the game should be played despite mounting evidence his ideas weren’t working, and his odd decision to walk away from power and pace in a league that he dominated with those exact ingredients didn’t put him in a position to get titles over the line.
I also think the other thing that faded in his advancing years was his ability to identify good characters and manage them. I’m not sure if he was just dealt a strong hand in the early years with leaders who’d manage that side of things, or he just softened as players got richer and more badly behaved. But he let some stinkers into the dressing room.
Those banter years ultimately shaped Arteta’s tastes in winning teams.
Same high standards for technical players, similar professional demands, but Mikel demanded warriors in every role. He saw players shirk away games, now he demands they play through pain. He watched players lose careers because they were bullied, so he signed beast players that bullied with discipline. He wanted win-at-all-costs players, the likes Wenger was famous for.
Let’s end on PEAK Wenger, because what he gave us, as fans, were some of the most fantastic years I’ve ever witnessed. This unknown French genius was a mythical professor of the game we were not expecting. A scout, fitness coach, and an artist who saw the potential in the great red and white of Arsenal.
The demands of his players were different to predecessors, his belief that old dogs had new tricks carried the early years, his incredible knowledge of the French market gave us edge in the transfer market, and his outrageous views on footballing aesthetics had him taking us to new heights very early on.
The football was unreal, I remember watching us top the league thinking, this won’t last, no way, this is not Arsenal.
But it was…
He reinvented Arsenal. Made us cool. Showed top talent that North London was a destination to grow.
There was no one-trick pony about him. Every time he lost a star, he made a new one. The most devastated I’ve ever been as an Arsenal fan was losing Anelka to Real Madrid. But, after a little wait, up popped Thierry Henry and the rest is history.
This is a man who won the league at Old Trafford and White Hart Lane. This is a guy with an unimpeachable record against Spurs. Wenger told the world we’d go invincible, and he did it, a one-of-a-kind achievement that’ll never be matched. Cups, cups, and more cups. Defiant until the end. He was so good, hoards of Arsenal fans would shut down negative conversations about with Arsene Knows. Even to this day, there are grown men, who call him Papa Wenger. It’s weird, you have to know that… but that’s some impact. I just hope people don’t say that when they are, you know, out on a date with someone? It’s odd.
Regrets? You can’t have too many. The life of a football fan is defined as much by the bad times as the good. I got my writing break covering Arsène Wenger at great lengths, and when it all played out, we did, eventually, win a Premier League. So why would I be sad? It’s the same with the cheating. Yeah, it’s nasty stuff, but would the outpouring of global Arsenal love have been that good if we’d done it any other way?
Should we reimagine the impact of Wenger? No way. He was always a top three in the league great. Should we assess who doesn’t get into big conversations moving forward? You’re damn right. Pep Guardiola, no sir. He’s not part of the pantheon of greats, especially given the scandal with refs unfolding in Spain (‘it could never happen here’ sure). His success was built on perfection, not on the mucky realities of how Arteta and Klopp were winning leagues. He doesn’t hold a candle to Fergie or Wenger. José Mourinho, I think we have to consider him, even though he played in a doped team, mainly because what he did happened so fast, and he showed that he could win under tough circumstances with Inter and Porto.
But Wenger? Always a top three manager. A true great of the game. Just wish he’d let someone else ghostwrite his book. I could have written a better one from memory. Maybe he’ll reconsider? Someone put out the bat signal, let’s get this done.
Ok, that’s the blog over. See you in the comments. x