Damage limitation

Has any manager been consistently keep a team in the top four apart from Ferguson? It takes a quality manager to constantly do this.

I honestly feel the players let him down tbh.

 

Remaining in the top 4 is not an achievement and is only useful if it gives you (a) CL glory and/or (b) the means to do something with the funds it brings.

We do neither. We get nothing with our top 4 finishes apart from playing 6 group games, 2 ko games and not a lot else. Getting top 4 means nothing. It is not an achievement.

 

Well it puts you in an elite competition so it is an achievement.

Would you be able to obtain Sanchez/Ozil/Cech without having champions league football?

 

What have they helped us do exactly?

 

Thats why i said in the original post that the players have let him down

Wenger has consistently kept you as a big side but when the big games come the players don't perform but then they put that as the managers fault.

Losing to Watford at home is only the players fault and thats just one example.

 

I would say consistently remaining in the top 4 Clubs in England for such a long time is an achievement of sorts.

What's the bets he will finish above Klopp and Mourinho? Both of whom have outspent him in the transfer market. (for the second year running) If he does - is that an achievement in itself? These are two managers often cited as amongst the best in Europe.

It's an interesting league right now - very difficult on a weekly basis but does seems to lack a truly elite side.

 

So the only constant in all of years of failure is NOT the issue? It's all the dozens of players at fault, many of whom have won major trophies before and after playing for us??

 

No, I don't see it as an achievement because it's got us nothing. The only argument I'm seeing is that top4 under Wenger is great because it helps us finish top 4. Great.

 

It got us nothing?

That's interesting. Arsenal are clearly a much bigger side now they we were before Wenger joined us.

But I would also argue that 6-7 years ago our reputation was better than it is now.

 

Wenger has won major trophies at his peak and now in his 'decline' so whats your point?

 

My point was that getting top 4 is not an achievement in itself. What's yours?

 

That people want Wenger out but he has constantly kept in you in the top 4, won trophies and have kept the club at a top level.

Players have let you down when getting to the league, not Wenger.

 

The first Champions League final you get too and your keeper fancies getting sent off.

The last time you got seriously close to the league and you lose to Birmingham and your captain loses his head and bursts into tears. This season you go 3-0 down and draw 3-3 to Bournmouth but Sanchez ends up having a melt down as if this isn't his fault.

The frustration is clear to see with your manager when the players dont produce.

 

Take it from a supporter of a club that has waited patiently and built slowly towards regular top 4 finishes for decades now that it is bloody hard to do it in consecutive seasons, let alone manage it 20 years running. Wenger deserves a heck of a lot of credit for keeping you there when in that same time frame formerly irrelevant clubs such as City and Chelsea suddenly received billions in petrol money and became relevant overnight. To an extent, Wenger has benefited from ourselves, Chelsea, Liverpool and United having extremely poor seasons at some (or multiple) point in the last 5-10 years, but by the same token: competition for a top 4 place gets stronger every season and still Arsenal remain.

However, at the same time it is a mistake to view top 4 as an ends in and of itself. That is the mistake that the Arsenal bigwigs seem to be trapped in. It is a means to an ends: achieve top 4, global coverage and CL money increase, wage ceiling is raised, better players join, press onwards towards challenging for major trophies on a regular basis. The PL isn't standing still for anyone anymore, and with TV deals getting bigger year on year, what we're seeing this season with a handful of points separating 2nd-7th will become the norm. By settling into this relative mediocrity, Arsenal run the risk of being overtaken by us, Liverpool, United... even Everton are banging on the door nowadays, throwing around serious wads of cash.

Top 4 should be a stepping stone to greater things. Wenger's activity in the market in recent years (i.e. from Sanchez onwards) firmly reflects that he understands this. Your wage bill and net spends reflect that of a team which sees itself as a title contender and major player in the CL. Problem is, that isn't being translated into results on the pitch. Which boils down to a simple conclusion: the manager has to walk. Either he is bringing in the wrong players, or bringing in the right players but setting them up ineffectively (I think it's a mix of the two). Either way you look at it, he is failing the club and every season gets closer to being the 'wake up call' that has been looming on the horizon for the best part of 5 years. With so many teams vying for positions, you could well miss out on top 4 this season.

 

Good post. Wenger is under valued for getting top 4 every season, because arsenal fans have become used to it and expect it. But it is still a tough challenge to achieve it (ask Spurs, Liverpool and even Utd and Chelsea who have missed out)

Overall though I agree, we need to make the next step up, and as easy as that is to say it is hard to deliver. Wenger, though has been given ample opportunity to take us to the next level but seems to have reached a level that he cannot go beyond.

We've had some terrible luck with injuries to key players, but we can't blame that alone. Rigid tactics, playing players put of position, sticking with players who simply aren't good enough or don't have the right mentality, missing out on key transfer targets have all amounted to Arsenal becoming the 'nearly' club over the last decade.

It's time for a refresh, but the problem is some people underestimate how far we could fall if we appoint somebody who isn't as good as Wenger. Some Arsenal fans might be frustrated with top 4 and last 16 of the CL, but they could come to view these years as privileged if we spent a decade outside of the top 4.

 

I know a number of Arsenal fans who are currently hiding behind the 'better the devil you know' argument. And to be honest, it does carry some weight. Look at United since Fergie. I'd say your squad is in better shape than the one he left behind, but your spending power and level attraction is microscopic compared to theirs.

I can only see 2 ways out of the catch 22:

A) (my personal choice ) Finish 5th this season and this essentially forces the board's hands. It is no longer sufficient to argue about knowing the devil if there is every possibility that you will be permanently usurped from the top 4 under his continued leadership.

B) Wenger selects his own successor. Similar to Fergie handing over the reins to Moyes, I think Wenger moving upstairs while publicly backing a successor will placate his die-hard supporters and they will accept the decision pretty happily. If the devil you know recommends a mate for the job, sounds fair.

Scenario C, which is Wenger getting the sack and being replaced unilaterally, is highly unlikely anyway. Unless Kroenke and Gazidis grow a pair in the next few months, it ain't happening.

 

Wenger won't get sacked. The one thing he's always done is put the club first before his own personal needs, so I think he will only go if we end up outside of the top 4, or if the club have managed to negotiate a deal for a top quality manager to come in.

What we need to avoid at all costs is getting rid of him simply for the sake of change. Because that would be foolish, negligent and a dereliction of the guardianship of this club.

If we finish in the top 4 and nobody of the right calibre is available, then Wenger should stay at least another year.

 

Fans need to remember that owners see Arsenal as a business rather than a football club. They continually make profit and stay in competitions which provide them the most money, why sack a man who has guaranteed this every year he has been at the club and take a gamble on a new man with those objectives?

If Wenger was to throw 100 million every summer and still in the same boat and they lose money then the board will make there decision but for Arsenal as a business everything is great.

 

What do you mean? What fan ISN'T already aware of that? And what has any of that got to do with fans being pi55ed with our current situation?

Because they have their business interests coming first, that makes it all OK?

 

I think in the grand scheme of things it is OK at Arsenal. But if you want the owners to sack Wenger its not going to happen because of the reasoning i gave in my last post.