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| 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.
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