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Saturday, April 9, 2011

Decision time looms for Wenger’s weakest links



This Sunday, April 10, our season will either grind to a familiar but necessary end depending on the outcome of the game against Blackpool. Or we live to fight again.  Whatever slim hopes Gooners everywhere have of us resurrecting our title aspirations, will either be boosted or buried for good on Sunday.
With us lying seven points behind Manchester United, Sunday’s game will determine whether this season was another false dawn or the sum of all our expectations. Arsene Wenger, more than anyone else, knows it. I’m not too sure if all members of his pampered ensemble realize it, or actually care enough. Players the world over know that no clubside ever clears the deck of its entire playing staff in the consequence of failure. Rather, it is always the coach or manager who gets the chop while the players ride through the carnage.
Well, we all know that  at Arsenal FC, Wenger is too important, too spinal, too fundamental to the fate and direction of the club to be sacked because of the failings of players. He towers over and above the entire club and its kow-towing directors. Forget Ivan Gazidis. Forget the five-man board. They all owe their fat allowances and sumptous annual dividends to the genius and vision of Wenger. In the particular case of Gazidis, he must be the only football club CEO in the world, who was handpicked by the coach. So clearly, there won’t be anyone calling for the head of the coach of Arsenal FC, if our trophy barrenness enters its seventh season.

Forever crocked....perennially fragile Rosicky succumbs to yet another injury
Rather, it is the players who may bear the brunt of another disappointing campaign. Of course, no wholesale,  firesale will be happening, but surely Wenger has to act to save both his reputation and avoid alienating the fans. That action will surely mean that some players, identified as perennial under-performers, will have to be moved on.
Already, the players must know who they are. Serial scapegoats such as Denilson, Manuel Almunia, Nicklas Bendtner and Emmanuel Eboue must be high on that list. Already, there is talk that Eboue is attracting interest from Tottenham Hotspurs. Well, it is just that – talk. But it is an indicator of who will be leaving the club as the transfer window swings open in June.
It doesn’t need a rocket scientist to identify that we have always been three-four players short all season. It was why we lost to the Carling Cup final to ‘little’ Birmingham, soon as a couple of key players succumbed to injuries. It was also why we got flogged by Barcelona and also why Man Utd ended our FA Cup dreams. Soon as the likes of Alex Song, Wojciech Szczensy, Theo Walcott and Cesc Fabregas – all starters – were knocked out by injuries, we never had capable replacements to fill their large boots. In the space of three weeks, the mythical ‘quadruple’ dream shrunk to a ‘singleple’ – if there’s any such word.
Since the weekend of January, we’ve staggered around like a bunch of drunken sailors. Goals have dried up and the players have lost their collective self-belief.
Martin Keown, an ex-player who has an inkling into what goes on behind Wenger’s ever tightly-shut doors at the Emirates, put it best during the week, just after the cowardly draw against Blackburn last Saturday. His words:
"The fans have become disenchanted with certain areas of the team and they want players to be replaced. But the club went with a five-year plan to invest in youth because of the constraints of building the Emirates Stadium. However, if the players don't win the league this year, there will be more money ploughed in. And there's nobody I'd sooner have spending money than Arsene Wenger because he spends wisely. He hasn't really been able to compete because of the demands of the new stadium but that must be changing now. I know from experience that Wenger invests a certain amount of time in you as a player and once he feels you are at the end of the line he gets someone else in to do the job."
Well said by Martin. And despite what may happen to the league title, Wenger must know that some of his well-trusted players don’t give a toss about the directions and aspirations of the club.
Now, clearly the under-pressure Alsatian is fast losing his aura of invincibility and endless latitude with the fans who have stayed faithful since he arrived here in 1996. That, simply put cannot be allowed to happen. Not even the bootlicking board members can stand up for him if the fans turn against him.
Which is why some of Wenger’s very-trusted players will have to pay the price and look for new employment elsewhere, regardless of whether we win the ‘singleple’ or not.
On a last note, add Tomas Rosicky to the afore-mentioned list.

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