What's coming in from the cold for Arsenal in 2011?

In the year of the World Cup, where the England national team crashed woefully and failed to live up to the hype of its overpaid footballers, one of the factors identified for that abysmal performance was rectified.

Five months after the 2010 World Cup, in which a lack of a winter break was mentioned as one of the reasons why England does poorly at international tournaments, that anomaly was corrected. By nature.

Everyone and anyone who owns a tv set or a radio at home would know by now that over the past fortnight, a blanket of snow has fallen over most of the United Kingdom, bringing normal life as we know it to a virtual standstill. For football fans allover the UK, life cannot be more normal than watching your favourite team play over the weekend and losing yourself in 90 minutes of indulgent passion. Last weekend however, mother nature took away that part of normal life for all football fans, along with huge chunks of the daily life that most British people have known.

Winter blues.....has an unprecedented break changed the equation for Wenger and Arsenal?

For the British football fan however, a weekend without football is as unheard-of as a Christmas without snow. The unthinkable happened last weekend finally – except for fans of Sunderland, Bolton, Blackburn, WestHam, Everton and Manchester City. Those six teams apart, every other team in the English premiership saw no action whatsoever. Including of course, Arsenal.

So, inadvertently, on account of mother nature, the ‘major malaise’ of the English game – a gruelling nine-month season without break -  was remedied.

It may have been unplanned and unforeseen, but coming at the time it did, many of the sides that benefited from this ‘mini-break’, would surely have welcomed it.

At Arsenal specifically, as Arsene Wenger has now revealed, the break allowed more troops to be added to the team. Cesc Fabregas, Abou Diaby, Lukasz Fabianski and even Kieran Gibbs used the opportunity of the break to get over injury woes and work their ways back to the team.

With the prospect of us playing six games over the course of the next two weeks, we will need all hands on deck, literally. So thanks to the ‘mini’ winter break, everyone has rested now for two weeks, before the mad fixture pile-up starts, which traditionally is a period that determines the fate of most teams in the premiership.

By the time we file out against Chelsea at the Emirates on Monday night, it would have been 14 days since we last took to the pitch – enough time to do some soul-searching amongst players and coach. In the hurly-burly world of football where time vanishes in a whirlwind of constant training, travelling and playing, those two weeks must have been heaven-sent.

It remains to be seen which side makes maximum use of that ‘mini-break’.

For Wenger and his troops, the first hurdle is to beat Chelsea on Monday night – pure and simple. This time no excuse can suffice. All the emotional baggage and psychological burdens of previous defeats to Chelsea cannot hold water anymore.

An opportunity to redress past errors has been further smoothened by the unforeseen hand of nature. A two week break in the middle of a season of so much upheaval and inconsistency, is almost too good to be true.

It’s like an insurance policy after a car crash. All the old frailities that have creeped back into our game since the start of the season and cast doubt on the team’s ability to deliver cannot be allowed to persist henceforth.

Because failure to deliver this season, will cast huge question marks on Arsene Wenger’s own ability as a serious, top flight manager. With a potential Carling Cup final within reach now and second place in the league, another trophyless season by May, 2011 will only mean one thing – the beginning of the end of Wenger at Arsenal.

Already, more rumblings have emerged off-field in the boardroom, where the gloomy, looming shadow that is Uzbek magnate, Alisher Usmanov. He has re-emerged to declare his intention to acquire more Arsenal shares. I’m sure it was his statement of intent that forced the hand of Danny Fiszmann to transfer his as well into a trust fund. Not too much of a financial wizard myself, I can only see the recent award of the 2018 World Cup to Russia as the catalyst behind such a move by Usmanov. Imagine what huge public relations coup it would be for the Russian oligarch if they could be controlling the largest club in Europe’s largest city by the time World Cup finals kicks off in Moscow in the summer of 2018. A club where they could call the shots; hire and fire the coach at will; buy any player they want; and still use it to launder their image among its millions of fans around the world.  Imagine that!

For Wenger and the board of Arsenal, events are about to take a turn for the unknown.

All the years of toil, careful planning and sensible house-keeping, along with the legacy Wenger has built in his 14 years at Arsenal will count for nothing, if nothing is added to the team’s trophy cabinet at the end of such an open and unprecedented season. Because success on the field of play will definitely strengthen the hand of this current board and with the considerable weight of American billionaire Stan Kroenke behind them, they all just might be able to withstand the Russians and keep their jobs at the club.

Failure to win though and only God-knows-what will become of the present structure at the club.

The ‘mini break’, welcomed as it seemed, has left very little margin of error for Monsieur Wenger.

If Wenger’s quitting, watch out for these signs

Punch drunk? The signs are growing

The body speaks a better language than the mouth. Just another way of saying actions speak louder than words.

This will be the case as regards Arsene Wenger, who is so many things to Arsenal football club. All through this season, which he described as a very important one for his ‘young’ team, he has watched as this bunch of players he’s probably invested the biggest amount of faith, have see-sawed between sublime football and implosion.

Arsene Charles Ernest Wenger – the wearer of many caps; the most successful manager of Arsenal football club; the builder of Emirates Stadium; the man behind the careers of scores and scores of fine players like George Weah, Jurgen Klinsmann, Victor Ikpeba and Glenn Hoddle to name just a few; the maker of Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Dennis Bergkamp; the Titanium Man (ala Myles Palmer); the beginning and the end of Arsenal’s youth project.  All those accolades and much more belong to this 61 year-old Alsatian whose German parents migrated to Strasbourg in France at the end of World War II.

His story and football CV are all well documented. How he emerged from little-known Nancy, to take  unheralded Monaco to the French title in 1988 and later all the way to the semifinals of the Champions League by 1992. It’s like taking Bolton Wanderers to the semis of Europe’s richest showpiece.

This was after Wenger accused Marseille of bribing opponents to throw league games in order for it to win the French Ligue. Those days, Marseille was the be-all and end-all of French football and despite going on to lift the Champions League with the likes of Marcel Desailly, Ghanaian Abedi Pele and Didier Deschamps, Wenger persisted in his one-man crusade that eventually led to the indictment of Marseille, their suspension from Europe and relegation to the second division. It was a classic David- Goliath story in football terms.

Wenger has built a career on punching above his weight. Taking on the big guys and challenging the establishment. Marseille was the establishment. At least in France. Since their tainted Champions League win in 1993, no other team from France has won it. Only Monaco got to the finals in 2004 where they lost to a rising star, Jose Mourinho and his FC Porto.

Almost a pariah in France after the Marseille scandal, Wenger emigrated to Japan in 1995, where he became the manager of another under-achieving side, Nagoya Grampus. Once again, he weaved his magic and led them to the Emperor’s Cup – the Japanese equivalent of the the FA Cup.

It was while there that he became friends with David Dein, the Jewish-born British aristocrat who also happened to be Vice-Chairman of Arsenal FC. When in 1996, Bruce Rioch was fired from his job as Arsenal manager, Dein had only one candidate as replacement.

So returned Arsene to the mainstream of European soccer. To the newly-formed English Premier League which was about to take soccer by storm and change the face of the game forever.

Once again, the Alsatian was coming to an under-achieving side which was playing second and even third fiddle to establishment teams like Manchester United and Liverpool. A team that romantically shares first name with him. It was a match made by the gods.The rest as they say, is history.

Arsenal was transformed so rapidly and astutely that it became a colossus in England. Winning three premier league titles, playing a brand of football pleasing to the eye which delighted all purists of the game and maintaining an almost-permanent stranglehold on the title with Manchester United in a see-saw duopoly. The achievements of his Invincibles, who famously went on to complete an entire league season without defeat remains the crowning glory of his managerial abilities. It’s something that will probably never be repeated again in any of the big leagues across Europe for a long, long time to come.

Since then however, things have not exactly gone according to plan for the Titanium Man.

Yes, he delivered an impressive stadium in the heart of Europe’s largest city. Yes, he has made millions of pounds for the club, which today stands as the second richest in the world behind only Barcelona.

But it is on the pitch, not outside it, that his legacy as a coach will ultimately be judged. And it’s on that same pitch that things seem to be going pear-shaped. The famed youth project hasn’t metamorphosed into the dream squad he hoped it would. Players in whom he has invested years and years of patient training and careful nurturing have not matured into the gladiators he would have wanted.

People bang on about our lack of silverware year after year, but is it any wonder that Wenger still refuses to splash out and buy the experienced and capable players that will end that drought? Doing so will simply mean that the young players on whom he has staked his name and reputation have failed.

To help the growth of his ‘gunnerlings’, he bought Andrei Arshavin who at that time was the most sought-after European player. But the Russian, to say the least, has gone backwards since he came here more out of disillusion with the calibre of players that surround him.

So after all the false starts on the pitch and perpetual humiliation at the hands of the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United, methinks Wenger may have had it. Looking at him all season long, he conveys a feeling of enough is enough. A feeling of , “I can’t do this anymore”. A sense of resignation.

The childlike, unbridled joy that he always expresses when celebrating Arsenal goals are suddenly missing. It would be almost correct to say he doesn’t care anymore, but let’s spare the man that label.

Ivan Gazidis, Wenger’s hand-picked CEO of Arsenal must know, just like Gooners everywhere have known for years now that this team, these players, this style of play and this present structure under Wenger would not deliver success on the pitch for the next millennium. The league that Wenger came to meet in 1996 has changed. The Chelseas and Manchester Citys have redefined the landscape. They have re-drawn the map. They have raised the bar.

In our last 11 matches against Man Utd and Chelsea, we have lost 10 times! In that period, we only managed a draw, scored five goals and conceded 23! Not too long ago – pre-Mourinho days that is – the same Arsenal had never lost in 17 games to Chelsea!

Playing catch-up may have now worn Wenger out. You can almost see it in his body language.

Now, we are doomed to another punishment at the hands of Barcelona next February when the Champions League resumes and a repeat of our 6-3 humbling last season is again on the cards. Because nothing has changed with Wenger’s team since that defeat. Yes, four, five players have been added to the team but the balance is still not right and the attitude remains one of a defeat-always-waiting-to-happen.

To bring matters to a head, this might also be Cesc Fabregas’ last season. The apple of Wenger’s eyes. The most-promising product of his youth project. It surely must be all too much for one man to accept after years and years of logic-defying toil.

After fourteen years of rolling with the punches at Le Arsenal, even a polymath like Arsene Wenger has limits to his ability. No one knows when it will be, but whenever that limit is reached, watch out for the body language to tell us that the great man is about throwing in the towel. 

The problem with Arsenal – By Cesc Fabregas

Not happy at all...El Capitano

 In the aftermath of the Stoke non-event over the weekend; the first game at the Emirates to be knifed by a snowstorm, it was a golden opportunity for the players, the bench, Arsene Wenger the polymath and the press that feeds off his hands at every opportunity to take stock and look at what we’ve done well and what has been lacking in the season so far.

The Stoke game would have been our 18^th of the league and one match later, we would have reached the halfway mark of the league season. That game is against none other than Chelsea – the rolling juggernaut created by Roman Abramovich in 2004 – who have contributed more than any other club to knock us off our perch and keep us trophyless for the past five seasons.

So, what better time to take stock of where we are at the the halfway mark of the season before the business end of things kickoff in the New Year. And who better to put things in perspective, than our skipper himself.

His interview over the weekend very much belled the cat and brought to the fore, issues which Wenger, in his calculating manner and keen sense of double speak, would never mention in a million years.

An intense and passionate character, Cesc laid the blame for all our recent reverses against the likes of Chelsea and Man Utd and lack of progress in the silverware department, on fear. Read him:   

“Sometimes we seemed scared of losing these big games – we don’t really go for it and we’re tempted to drop back and see what the opposition does. We look to see if we are capable of beating them by what they are doing and how good they are on the day. Instead of us going forward, causing them problems and dominating the game ourselves”.

His comments highlighted what can easily be described as a psychological problem that has afflicted the team since Wenger’s youth project started about six years ago. It’s all in the head, Cesc was saying.

He is definitely spot-on in his assessment. Success breeds success. Lack of it leads to self-doubt, uncertainty and ultimately unbelief in your own methods. The lack of success of the youth project has planted great swathes of doubt in the minds of the very players on which the success of the project itself depends. No one knows what Wenger tells his players in training and the control freak that he is, no one outside London Colney will ever have a clue.

Whatever it is however that he feeds them on, the message doesn’t look to be getting through. Because despite the worldwide acclaim that the team often enjoys when they brush opponents aside with often lopsided scorelines, they immediately forget all of Wenger’s tutorials and freeze like rabbits when the likes of Chelsea and Man Utd are lined up in front of them. Add Barcelona to that list as well.

Is it an inferiority complex? Or a second class citizen thing? Methinks that is exactly what Cesc is saying in very diplomatic language.

Wenger’s bunch, contrary to what he keeps telling them day and night, simply cannot believe they are as good as the Drogbas, Lampards, Terrys, Giggs, Rooneys and Iniestas. They cannot believe they are occupying the same pitch as those exalted names and automatically lose confidence in themselves when these names turn up.

Cesc, who along with Andrei Arshavin and Samir Nasri are the only genuine world-class players in Wenger’s team, drives the point home:

“I’m realising more and more that football is all about confidence and mentality. Sometimes you do the right thing, but if people tell you it’s not right, you start believing them even though you were right the first time”.

Because Wenger’s bunch haven’t won a nickel in five years – which for a club of Arsenal’s stature is an eternity – they have slowly lost the belief in their own abilities. Wenger’s tutorials and remonstrations which they are fed on daily, are only good enough to pummel the Blackburns and Blackpools of this world when they get it right. Against the big, battle-hardened brigade from Chelsea and Man Utd, those tutorials become meaningless.

 Wenger of course knows all this but will never, never admit. Faced with a revolt at the June 2009 Supporters’ Forum, where an enraged fan described Mikael Silvestre as ‘geriatric’, Wenger boasted that his youth project would surely deliver at the end of 2009-2010 season. “Don’t judge me now”, he said then, “judge me at the end of 2010 season”.

He was of course forced to eat his words at end of last season, when Arsenal again ended the season empty-handed. His response? The likes of Silvestre were released from the club, while he immediately signed-on Marouane Chamakh as an experienced, hotcake purchase – on a free.

Yes, Chamakh has so far gone onto justify his goalpoacher reputation in world-record time, but he remains just a drop in an ocean of mediocrity. Just like he did with Arshavin two-and-half seasons ago, Wenger dilutes his acquisitions with cheap imitations, which eventually overwhelm the gems he bought. Sooner than later, the gems see no point in fighting and dishing out their best as their efforts eventually amount to little and the team makes little progress. Surrounded by artisans, a genius will ultimately look like the rest of the crowd. Gradually, the lack of success afflicts everyone in the team and therefore where the artisans naturally fail to perform, the genius in their midst loses the motivation to take responsibility and drag the rest through matches.

Cesc himself, despite his 23years of age, has done a lot of dragging-of-the-rest especially since the captaincy was forced upon him exactly two years ago. That task has obviously wearied him, particularly as he’s got zilch to show for it.

Like I said earlier, success breeds more success. Lack of it just creates a poisonous atmosphere where everybody accepts that they are just not enough. It is that feeling of negativity that is currently plaguing this team. That feeling which makes Wenger’s bunch freeze like mice caught in a blaze of lights.

Speaking just days before we meet Chelsea, Cesc’s words are very well-timed. It is now left for his mates to digest them and take a second look at themselves. Otherwise, el capitano will keep casting admiring glances at the likes of Barcelona.

Arsenal football club deserves better than this constant humiliation at the hands of Man Utd, Chelsea, et al.