Time for Wenger to Go and Take Kroenke With Him

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:04:20:13:14:30 by eduardo.

The Club is bigger than the manager.

The Club (and the fans) will thrive long after the manager is gone.

AND, we got stuck with the wrong American owner.

We are very unlucky to have Kroenke - all of his sports teams are mediocre to poor. No championships. He is naive and lacks ambition or pride.

I wish that he had bought Liverpool and John Henry had bought Arsenal instead. We would be SO much better off right now.

If Liverpool hangs on to win, it will be a resurrection of a franchise commensurate with what Henry did with the Boston Red Sox in baseball. He demands excellence and pursues championships aggressively. After 86 years without a title, the Sox came under Henry's stewardship and have won three World Series titles in the last ten years.

A Championship organisation starts at the top.

posted this in another thread but think its apt for here too.

I love how the goalposts get moved, have been hearing for years that all most wanted was for us not to sell any of our better players in the summer for a change, for us to actually buy a top player, to at last show some ambition with our targets and not basement shop, and then maybe a good league campaign (many said and still do, that they don't care if we make top 4), and for AFC to win a cup now and then, even a league cup, well we kept all out better players, in fact signed nearly all of them up to new contracts, signed the world class Ozil, tried to sign other players of the highest quality (Bender, Suarez, Higuain, Di Maria) plus attempts for lesser players too, and the minute we make it into an FA Cup final, its just not good enough, all the self entitlement comes pouring out of the usual crew.

Yes there has been managerial mistakes again, over use of our better players, having Diaby in the 25 man squad too has been a massive mistake, keeping Bendtner when the manager clearly has not enough faith in him to play him was not ideal, but Wenger fully expected to sign a top quality striker last summer.
Our season has been ruined by injuries to key players - Ramsey and Walcott - and not helped by injuries to Ozil and Wilshere at the same time, I see the usual bleating about replacement should have been signed, this totally understates the actual quality of both Ramsey and Walcott, you can't just make another club sell you a player of their quality, especially mid-season, and yes even though many like to ignore the facts on these things, we can not afford to carry two quality players for each and every position, and again I will point out that apart from the mistake of having Diaby in the 25, that very 25 is actually overloaded with attack minded midfielders, yet I've seen so many complaints that we should have even more of them in the squad. It's a FM type mentality.
Wenger has screwed up the make up of his 25 man squad, but the odd thing is that he actually did it last summer trying to follow a blueprint so advocated by so many of those now lambasting him. Namely, keeping our best players and going for the really top quality players, but of course unlike Wenger, those that advocated such a strategy and now blast him for failing to pull it off, unlike him don't have to carry the can, they can pretend its something they never advocated at all, and that we don't need top quality players at all, just good ones.

We have very good players, lots of them, we have a good manager, we have finally a budget that allows us to sign some real top quality players, and so who ever is manager next season, be it Wenger or someone else will if they can keep vast majority of squad again, especially our best players, will have to only add that 2 or 3 top quality starting 11 players to improve us greatly.

Personally I want Wenger replaced this summer, but guys please stop with all this over the top nonsense about what actually is the state of Arsenal FC, I've supported AFC since the late 60's and have seen us when we really were on our knees and something to be pitied, I seen us lose to Third Division Swindon in a league cup final, lose to them again, Hereford and Wrexham in cup games too, seen us lose to Luton in a league cup final, fight relegation in mid 70's, lose to Ipswich and second division West Ham in Cup Finals, not mount a title challenge of any kind from 72 to 87, seen many a season we failed to qualify for any of the 3 European competitions of the time, and I seen the time Tottnum actually had a better team than us for a few seasons, and all this when there was no sugar daddies, no oil clubs, when you did not need mega money to make hugh improvements to a squad, and so I can tell you we are in rude health.

I will admit that although I want Wenger to leave, I actually fear what could happen to AFC if his replacement does not work out, it takes less to go wrong for us to become Tottnum than it does for things to go right for Tottnum to become us. Now that would make Arsenal something to pity or be ashamed of.

*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Feck off with the usual crew I could level that at the AKBs the fact that he continually makes the same mistakes is seemingly ignored.
He has @#$%& seasons up by trying to be smart and tight Silvester,Squillaci not signing a CB when TV was injured in the Jan,keeping Almunia in when he was a calamity,and then this summer /Jan going with two strikers one of whom is an average Joe and the other a young average Joe.I will not apologise for my critique of a manager who was an innovator but has become a dinosaur with myopia.

What is an "FM type mentality?"

For the record, like you, I do not think that we need wholesale personnel changes ... just the 2 or 3 obvious ones that are consistently left unaddressed.

FM type mentality is one where you can buy who you want without any problems, where if said purchase does not work then you just go out and buy someone else, its how wild and weird tactics or selections that work in a computer game means it would work in real life, where if a player is good in the computer game or even in edited TV highlights or youtube then he will be good in real life, and would of course fit in to our team, where you never have to consider facts like a club refuses to sell, a player does not want to join, where a players private life etc does not have to be considered, where a player being signed for large money should not be a short term deal, where fees and wages have to be paid and accounted for and big financial mistakes have real life long term consequences

*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Kroenke isn't going anywhere unless someone offers a f.uck load of money to buy Arsenal.

Eduardo, youre one of the more considered persons on here or any other Arsenal website, but you do love to lay on the old condescending tone. Almost eveyrthing you say nowadays starts with 'I love it how...' in this kind of 'oh not again, the tw*ts are out again' manner.

The fact is, as made abundantly clear by the article which points out there were fans laying into each other during an FA CUP SEMI of all things, is that Wenger has outstayed his welcome. Which you actually agree with, so I am not entirely sure what you are feeling so clever about.

Its not that we are in a particularly bad state, as you acnknowledge. A nice cup final, which nobody in their right mind can complain about, and perhaps a fourth or fifth placed finish. Very nice indeed. And as you observe, we didnt lose any of our big players last summer (although Im not sure which big players were likely to go anywhere, were you expecting Real Madrid to come in with a 45 million pound offer for Tomas Rosicky?).

If you take every single season in isolation, Wenger would get his contract renewed each and every year. His excuses, in isolation, make perfect sense. Injuries, fatigue, other clubs with more money, and all the rest of it.

But the fact is, that in the current big money panorama of the modern premier league, more needs to happen that that. As has been well documented, it costs hundreds to get to all but the most insignificant of games, hundreds to keep up with the club, to keep your kids involved in the club. Arsenal has very happy to keep up with the big boys in terms of merchandising and pricing. But only until very recently it wasnt too interested in balancing it up with the playing side.

We know all the stuff about self sustainability - and the reasons for keeping spending low - jolly good, all makes sense, then we go and buy Ozil - again, hard to complain about that either - he cost 42 million quid so he was the big stellar signing we all cried out for

But the problem with the Ozil signing, is that it exposes Wenger completely. I have long suspected that Wenger doesnt plan anything at all nowadays, his transfer activity is dictated entirely by available bargains, and he just assumes he can stick the players in a team and get a tune out of them. Lets consider the current squad. When you consider how much Ozil cost, did we even need him. COnsidering just how many diminuitive, ball playing midfielders we have on our books, did we need another. Could we have bought someone else with that money? Even our defensive unit in midfield, comprises er, small diminuitive midfielders. Quite bad ones actually. Now Podolski, can someone explain what the point is of him? What thought process led to his signing. Why is our club captain not in our first team? What is Oxlade Chamberlains preferred position?

Then theres the COMPLACENCY - Saturday against Wigan, to many fans the biggest game for many years, and Wenger plays our second choice goalkeeper (yes he played well but how many other managers would do that in an FA cup semi) and a striker who HASNT SCORED FOR THE CLUB YET. ON HIS OWN, UP FRONT. Now I quite like Sanogo, for the future at least, but if anything says 'f*CK off' to the fans, that does.

The fact is, Wenger has begun to stink the place out like a piece of aged Camembert deposited down an air grate. He has done for about 4 years. There is such a thing as OPPORTUNISM and TRAJECTORY. LIverpool may well not have a great season next season. Theyll have the CL, which will cause them problems with injuries, they might lose a player. But if they win the league this year, nobody will care. Except Arsenal fans perhaps, who like to see football in terms of a kind of economic flow chart, with 100 page addendum, to justify our complete lack of anything exciting on the football front.

Wenger could have won the league this year, if he had taken stock of things at xmas. You can claim he has had bad luck with injuries to top players, which rings true, until you consider that he has raised the same excuse for absolutely every other season as a reason for not winning anything, since 2005. Yes, you cant go and buy ready made replacements for Walcott and Ramsey, I think everybody knows that. But at least have some players in the squad who can offer roughly the same things. If the club achieves great things through Walcotts pace, how about another player who can offer the same? Just in case, you know, Walcott gets injured for half a season. WHat about tactics anyway - we've got two lumbering 6 foot something forwards, or three actually, if you count the mysteriously disappeared Bendnter, and no f*cker on either flank who can get a half decent cross into the box.

The recent history of Arsenal is littered with strange, idiosyncratic transfers, mostly on transfer deadline day, or thereabouts, and strange, idiosyncratic decisions. The mans demonstrated absolutely no progress whatsoever and has thrown away countless promising situations through outright pig headedness.

Im going to take some childish credit now as well - in just the way that really gets up peoples noses. I saw all this YEARS AGO. I wrote many many pieces about it, theyre in the archive. the problem with spotting the way things were going to go (or not go as, the case may be), about 5 years before everybody else, is that football has become extremely boring to me. You can tell what Wenger is going to do, before he does it, you can see what our failings are going to be, about 6 months before we fail. And a lot of people have come round to it now, and they are fighthing each other out of sheer frustration at spending £2000 a season to watch the football equivalent of groundhog day.

Agreed celine.

Celine

Good writeup. Basically Wenger is trying to win things his way - on the cheap. I would not be surprised if Ozil was forced upon Wenger to salvage the summer transfer season. Other than Ozil, players are brought in for their low value and made to play in Wenger's system. A case of the system will compensate for any quality shortcomings buying lower valued players. Unfortunately this season, that approach got found out by the better clubs - to the tune of 20 goals conceded and only 4 goals scored. In recent seasons, Wenger will say that his team is top of the league if it only consisted of the top 4-5 teams. He can't use that logic anymore. And the issue of overplaying players is not new. Wenger has done that since the days of Cesc culminating in Cesc breaking his leg in the games against Barca.

Frankly I don't see things changing in the new year if Wenger sticks around. I look forward to a new manager for changes even though there are risks involved.

Celine, Sorry to just jump in like this but having read your comment about what thought process led to Wenger's signing of Podolski, you could also ask the same question about the Ozil signing. The point being that literally days beforehand, we were trying to spend the same amount of cash on Suarez?

Now I'm guessing that Wenger didn't have £80m to spend on both but I might be wrong about that. If not then what thought process did he follow to reach the decision that actually we don't need a '30 goal a season' striker so we'll spend the £40m on another midfielder instead???

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Because a new generation of fans who have only known Wenger think we support the manager not the club, anyone who dares to question the manager is a glory hunter.

Total rubbish. For me it's the younger generation who were brought up on Arsenal's success who moan the most. They were used to Arsenal winning when they were younger and think that should be the status quo now.

As for supporting Wenger over the club. What utter nonsense. We all support the club but some of us think Wenger has actually done an amazing job in what he's achieved.

If you don't think Wenger has done at least a good job then you just don't understand the job he has done.

The club wanted to reinvent itself, to grow, to become one of Europes Elite clubs. This process was always going to be a painful one.

Wenger has helped us achieve that, without the "tediousness" of qualifying for the CL year on year, we wouldn't be were we are now.

I agree, the question now is can Wenger spend some of that money. Can Wenger take us forward from here after he's put so much effort getting here.

Despite what some say, the man has integrity. If he feels he can't do it, he'll walk away himself. He could have easily signed his new contract at any point this season knowing full well, if he ends up sacked he'd get a nice pay off. He wouldn't do that, he'll appraise the situation with more knowledge than any of us. He'll make the right decision for the club.

Very interesting post and even more interesting comments. I also have supported the club for over 35 years. I understood completely the financial restrictions imposed upon the team when the stadium was built. I was always of the attitude "wait until all the commercial deals are renegotiated before making any conclusions, only then will we truly see where we are".

That period is now over. I think now we as fans can be as harsh in our judgement as we want. And last January one has to say that Wenger left us terribly exposed, considering we knew that Walcott and Ramsey were out at that time. Now I will also agree that finding replacements in the Jan transfer window is difficult at the best of times.

Which brings us to this summer. The most important summer of AW's reign as manager. This is it. We are rich now. We have money to spend. We know the holes in the squad. We know which players we can build around and which ones we cannot. AW MUST fill those holes. If he wants to stay, I think we, as Arsenal fans, should support that decision and rally behind him for one more season, because this is the first summer when we truly have as much cash as is needed. But there can truly be no more excuses. Celine is absolutely right, the past 5-6 years have been like groundhog day, and it has been awful. We need to see that things are changing. Otherwise, no matter how much I love AW and respect everything he has done for the club, he must go.

"ime for Wenger to go." Yawn.

Quote:

seanski
"ime for Wenger to go." Yawn.

Glad to see you've seen sense finally.

If it came down to a choice between Kroenke and Wenger, I'd rather see Kroenke go. Can't really see a new manager spending the kind of money that needs to be spent to make Arsenal competitive without the owner's permission. Look how much difference the 'proactive' owners of Chelsea and Man City has made since their takeover. They have taken two team that were basically mid-table teams to the elite levels of the premier league. Does that mean that we need an owner who'd be considered a sugar daddy? I don't mind that term at all. I'm sure Chelsea and Man City fans don't mind their filthy rich teams stomping all over us every time we play them. We're not going anywhere, no matter who's the owner as long as we keep buying mediocre players to compete with the elite clubs of the Premier league and the other leagues in Europe. As the old say goes, "money talks, bullsh!t walks."

That is where you and I HG differ, I never want to see us go down the sugar daddy route, and I would also add that if we ever hire Mourinho as manager I'd lose nearly all my interest in AFC, no matter what he won with us.
On the ownership issue, I would prefer the club owned by the fans and run on our own income, but I can't see the fans ever getting the shares, I will accept at least us having the second part and being run on our own income.
I would love an ex player or two to be part of the board now, but I do think the options on that are very limited, Overmars, Bergkamp, maybe Brady would seem to be the limited options for that and doubt the Dutch boys are interested in that end of the game yet.

*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Quote:

On the ownership issue, I would prefer the club owned by the fans and run on our own income, but I can't see the fans ever getting the shares,

I would prefer Arsenal having Messi, Pogba, and Yaya Toure. Eddy, you have to be more realistic. Don't give us these idealistic, pie in the sky notions that will never happen as you said. It's a noble thought but come on.

that's it HG ignore the accompanying point,

" I will accept at least us having the second part and being run on our own income."

*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

I'm with Ed on this.

I never want us to go down the "suger daddy" route.

Those clubs are nothing without there owners, nothing.

I like the way our clubs generates it own income and refuses the overtures Usmanov has made in the past (if there was ever anything to them, anyhow).

Football is trying to arrange it's house along the lines of how we do things, it's trying to make it harder for owners to come along and just throw cash at clubs. That should tell you something.

I've followed this club through good times and bad times (far worse than currently, it's not even really bad now), to hand our club over to a "sugar daddy", for me, would make any following success kind of hollow.

We dont need a sugar daddy do we supposedly self sufficient with funding in the bank,we need a manager who will try something different and change things when they are obviuosly not working.That could be AW but I do not think he will ever admit he has ballsed up.

Say rubbish, and say them really well until everyone forgets you're saying rubbish. Ignore facts and logic, and be blind to realities. Every single line in an entire post can be complete falsehood with only a few half-truths. It doesn't matter, you're just moaning after all.

"A club is a union between players, supporters and directors". - Wenger.
Arsene wenger has done an absolutely masterful job within the constraints he has... Every single year, he has outperformed our spending every single year he has been manager. It is extraordinary. -Gazides.

Finally someone is making sense. I am really sick and tired of making excuses.it's not justifiable. its laughable and damn right pathetic. Frankly its best to cut our loses and move on. we can't convince a kid anymore. my 7year old nephew says he doubts Wenger will win us the league in his life time for crying out loud.

Can We Now Trust The Process 🤔🤷🏿‍♀️ or Should We Still Remain Cautious 🙇🏿‍♀️

Err... "Time for Wenger to Go and Take Kroenke With Him".
The question is: WHY?

"A club is a union between players, supporters and directors". - Wenger.
Arsene wenger has done an absolutely masterful job within the constraints he has... Every single year, he has outperformed our spending every single year he has been manager. It is extraordinary. -Gazides.

Padre, this thread is an anachronism. Why rehash old, stale, sentiments? This is the new Wenger. The stadium is payed for or almost. Wenger bought Ozil, we win the FA cup and almost the league if Theo and Ramsey had not been injured. Now that Wenger has bought Sanchez, there's no limit to what we can achieve.

Now that we have added another couple of quality players (with, seemingly more on their way), your concerns with regards to injuries have been addressed. Add Shad Forsythe to that equation too, it seems that we have a far better chance of avoiding the injury plague.
Whaddya know? The 'police investigation' may have had a positive result. Who'd have believed it?
Well, me for one.

Knee jerk reaction? We have been having this discussion again and again, and on this ocassion Eduardo wanted Wenger gone at the end of season.
Read the posts here its a more coherent argument with no threats of walking out.

"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.

frankly our biggest challenge is how to get them out cos none will go....Wenger is like the typical Nigerian politician who has failed the community who he claims his representing yet is not honourable enough to design..

Can We Now Trust The Process 🤔🤷🏿‍♀️ or Should We Still Remain Cautious 🙇🏿‍♀️

Reading that article again, I noticed the part where you mention that Wenger allowed us to start the 2013/14 season with Olivier Giroud as our only "proper" striker (Bendtner and Sanogo don't count, obviously, and Walcott and Podolski are more wide players). We were so lucky Giroud didn't get injured all season, that would've been a disaster.

Flash forward to the 2014/15 season, we sell Vermaelen, don't replace him, and end the transfer window with Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker as our only "senior" centre backs.

Also important to remember that both seasons saw no investment at all in the central midfield area, unless you count Mathieu Flamini on a free transfer lul, despite the fact investment was needed.

It is getting so hard to sympathise with Wenger when things go wrong because it is almost like we're intentionally left at a disadvantage, trying to do things on the bare bones.

I can understand managers wanting to get their first choice targets, but you need to have a plan B and a plan C, because you aren't always going to be able to get your first choice targets.

Exactly Matty, its groundhog day, the same mistakes again and again its not about individual results are not the issue. Every season we start off with a squad lacking quality, why have Bellerin if you dont trust him to play?
Why havent we got a quality back up keeper, because he bought another crock.
Every year we fail to win CL group and go out early as we play the big boys.
Its not a knee jerk response, you can see it in advance.
I am not going on Wednesday night - why - because its meaningless, they could win the match but they will still be second.
Wenger is happy with 4th and group stage only every season.

"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.

Who is going to pay 1.5-billion quid to get rid of Silent Stan?

You want to get rid of Wenger?

Then attack Silent Stan Wallet by staging a consumer's boycott of bad products.

- Stop attending Emirates matches;
- Stop travelling for away matches;
- Stop buying Arsenal products and patronizing all franchises.

Then, look at how successful is DC United in boycotting OT and ManU.