A plea for patience with Arsenal and Wenger. This is a reign that can be reasonably split into three distinct eras, each one with its own associated level of realistic expectations. The first were the glory years, his approach innovative enough to give Arsenal a significant advantage, the club also able to rely on a transfer budget as high as any other club in the country. The second era was one of financial limitation. With the move from Highbury to the Emirates, Wenger was forced to operate under relative austerity as Arsenal looked to continue inside of economic sustainability. In both of these first two periods, Wenger was undoubtedly successful. Arsenal may have not won a trophy since 2005 (as you may have heard), but for the majority of this time simply keeping the club in the top four (and therefore reaping the rewards of the Champions League) was a successful return as the investment from Chelsea and Manchester United made title bids incredibly difficult. Such a scenario makes a mockery of Jose Mourinhos specialist in failure assessment. However, Arsenal have now entered the third era of Wenger. This is now a time at which the club once again has the ability to flex their financial muscles, and thus expectations must also change, both of the clubs achievements and of the manager himself. That will not be an instant transformation, but there seems little reason to suggest that Wenger does not possess the capability to manage through such a shift in ethos. By the very least, he has earned the chance to have a go. This was a performance far removed from the capitulation of last weekend, and a match played without four first-choice midfielders (Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott and Mesut Ozil) and a first-choice central defender (Laurent Koscielny). Take those sort of talents out of any squad in the division (Nemanja Matic, Willian, Ramires, Hazard and John Terry, for example) and they would struggle - take them away from a comparatively threadbare squad and Arsenal simply couldnt have an expectation of anything other than a plucky draw. As it stands, this is a side heading for Champions League football for the 17th consecutive season, second only to Real Madrid in Europe with Manchester United surely failing on that front. Given that Real have spent approximately £748million on players in the last eight seasons alone, thats a hell of an achievement.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 14:13:41 +0000
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