This will be my last post of the season, and probably the last Wenger-related post until he leaves. I was hoping he would leave this season, which is the only reason I returned to blogging, but it’s becoming clear that Wenger has made his lamentable excuses and will sign his contract no matter what happens. In my eyes, 2014/15 has been nothing short of predictable, highlighting exactly why Wenger should not be given a new contract. A normal club would find a way to let Wenger leave without making it look like a sacking. Alternatively, you’d like to think the Frenchman would have the guts to own up to his clear and obvious deficiencies as a manager and hand the reigns over. Unfortunately, Wenger’s greed for money and power, and the board’s contemptuous ignorance seem to be indefatigably tied. In terms of the season itself, Arsenal led the Premier League when it mattered least, then collapsed as per usual with humiliating and predictable precision. The result of Steve Bould’s defensive coaching has undoubtedly seen a marked improvement in Arsenal’s defending against the weaker Premier League sides, but it’s not enough. Meanwhile, after a string of disastrous thrashings against most of the division’s top teams, the widening tactical gulf both at home and in Europe is becoming little short of an embarrassment. Always looking for a scapegoat, or an event deemed to be out of his control, the cowardly Wenger has chosen to blame all of Arsenal’s woes on injuries – injuries that are often his fault because Wenger has always been guilty of overplaying individuals until they are physically incapable of performing. Unlike intelligent managers, Wenger refuses to rotate his squad, (a) because every season he misjudges what is required to challenge for major trophies, and (b) he has no clue how to beat the opposition other than by fielding what he deems to be his strongest players ALL the time. However, the key reasons for Arsenal’s continual underperformance remain a combination of Wenger’s imbecilic tactics and total failure to inspire his players. In Europe, nothing’s changed, Arsenal have no chance of competing for the Champions League under Wenger’s clueless administration. Once again, the Frenchman has proved to have nothing remotely resembling a game plan. Bayern Munich was another perfect example of Wenger’s seasonal failure in Europe, his players entering the tie tactically underprepared and demonstrating yet again their perpetual inability to cope, react and respond to pressure. Anyone that still thinks its mere coincidence - or bad luck - that Arsenal get taken out of the Champions League in exactly the same way virtually every season, virtually 17 seasons is a row, is either spectacularly dumb or as irrevocably deluded as Wenger clearly is. On the barely positive side, Arsenal have reached the FA Cup Final, which brings some hope of an end to the club’s tiresome nine-year trophy drought. Long-suffering Arsenal fans deserve that, but nothing about the path to glory has been impressive, quite the opposite, as Arsenal bundled through a series of home draws with mostly unconvincing performances and had the good fortune of facing relegation candidates, two championship sides and a league one team in the closing stages. Needless to say, winning the cup against a dismal Hull side with two suspended strikers will not be a stepping stone to a glorious new era. The club remains hamstrung by Wenger’s absurd decision-making, such as hoping to challenge for major honours banking on one striker that’s incapable of scoring a goal against a top club and a 19-year-old injury-ravaged-nobody from France that had hardly kicked a ball in his entire professional career. Wenger then compounding his miserable lack of ambition by not strengthening in January despite having enormous funds available. As if that wasn’t stupid enough, we also had to witness the senseless tactical incompetence that led to the downgrade of record £42.5m signing Mesut Ozil from a world-class player to a witless underperformer with a dismal attitude. Unless Wenger changes his tactics, don’t expect much more from Ozil next season. Meanwhile, the decision to buy a midfielder with a broken back in January because it was ‘better than nothing’ is quite simply risible management – unfortunately, such absurd decisions in the transfer market have become commonplace under Wenger’s tenure. In terms of what Arsenal’s criminally overcharged fans pay to see, good football is now a long, distant memory, replaced by functional, dull, sideways passing - a result of Wenger’s hideously moribund tactics. You can virtually predict every movement as it plays out before your eyes, to the extent where even the goals are predictable. As for summer signings, I won’t be around to report on them. You can guarantee it will be the same old botched nonsense it has been for years. Whoever Wenger signs, expect the same old failures to occur next season, and the same old excuses to go along with it. What Wenger cannot blame, however, is lack of money. First, the half-year accounts showed £140m sitting in the bank last summer; probably a lot more now since the Puma deal. Second, Liverpool’s title challenge has totally blown Wenger’s excuses about not having sufficient funds to match the likes of Man City, Man Utd or Chelsea out of the water. When Wenger embarked on Project Youth, he blamed lack of resources and team building for Arsenal’s failures, yet relative novice Brendan Rodgers has made him look a fool, and still has a chance of winning the league with an array of young and inexperienced players such as Sturridge 24, Coutinho 21, Flanagan 21, Henderson 23, Sakho 24, Allen 24, and Sterling 19. What Wenger lacks is not money, but Rodgers tactical intelligence and the ability to both inspire and invoke confidence and composure in his players. In Spain, meanwhile, Atletico Madrid have done very much the same, as they challenge for La Liga against the financial might of Barcelona and Real Madrid on a budget more akin to Everton’s. Atletico are in the Champions League Final too, which proves that Europe is not necessarily an impediment to domestic success. So, Arsenal are stuck with the clueless tactical berk for another two to three years, led – or perhaps followed would be more apt - by a boardroom full of clueless berks who haven’t the first idea what they’re doing when it comes to managing a football club of Arsenal’s size and stature. A large number of Arsenal fans should also shoulder some responsibility for their cowardly refusal to apply pressure to the existing regime and their negative small club mentality that only ensures indefinite mediocrity. And so the misery continues, with no hope on the horizon whatsoever and nothing remotely resembling ambition or leadership coming from anyone within the club. I have no idea when I will write Arsenal Truth again and I’m not going to make the mistake of claiming I won’t - I write on impulse and always have. My impulse at the moment is to never watch 90 minutes of Arsenal again until the cancer eating away at the club is removed. My support would only ensure Wengers continuity, and, seeing as Im a man of principle, thats not a road I intend to go down. Neither is sitting on the fence writing a blog to exploit money out of people, which is relatively easy - and remarkably commonplace - these days.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 07:13:38 +0000
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