Ordinarily, my column is about a particular match that
occurred during the week and my thoughts on an aspect related to the match in
question.
However, something happened in the world of football this
week that was so unexpected, so mind-boggling, and so astonishing that,
although it was not related to any match, I just had to write about it.
Of course, I am referring to the resignation of Arsenal
head coach Arsène Wenger, who will step down at the end of the season, having
been in charge of the Gunners for almost 22 years.
To put in perspective how long Wenger has been at the
helm of Arsenal, consider the following:
When Arsène Wenger first took over at Arsenal:
The reigning FIFA World Player of the Year was George
Weah.
The Czech Republic had just reached the final of the
European Championship.
The Atlanta Olympics had been held just a few months
prior.
The #1 song on Billboard was “Macarena”.
The highest-grossing movie of the week was “The First
Wives Club”.
Montenegro and Timor Leste were not even independent
nations yet.
In hindsight, although Wenger’s time at Arsenal has been
eventful as well as fruitful, at least in its early days, it is clear that
Wenger will leave his position at Arsenal about seven years late.
Over a seven-year span between 2006 and 2013, Arsenal
were never in the top two in the Premier League and never reached the final of
the FA Cup or Champions League.
In the early days of the Wenger era, Arsenal had been a
club that attracted star players, such as Thierry Henry, Giovanni van
Bronckhorst, Marc Overmars, and Robin van Persie, among others.
However, at this stage, Arsenal are more known for losing
star players, with names such as Cesc Fàbregas, Alexis Sànchez, Bacary Sagna,
and van Persie having slipped through the club’s fingers since the turn of the
decade.
This is unacceptable for a club that is not only among
the world’s most famous, but is also a big-market team, as they play in London.
A sizeable amount of the blame for this has to be given
to Wenger.
Time and again, especially since the mid-2000s, he has
failed to bring in the appropriate players, either by refusing to adequately
spend money or by spending the money on the wrong players.
He has also insisted on playing a certain way, and this
rigid adherence to the “Arsenal way” has been to the detriment of the team.
Since 2005, Arsenal have only won three FA Cups, have
only finished in the top two of the Premier League once, and have not even been
close to winning the Champions League.
For a club of Arsenal’s stature, reputation, and
resources, this is certainly underachievement.
Although Wenger led Arsenal to some extremely impressive
seasons from the late 1990s until the mid-2000s, he has done almost nothing
positive of note over the last decade.
So dire was the situation that the club endured a
nine-year trophy drought from 2005 to 2014.
Here is a sampling of some of the clubs from one of the
four major leagues that won at least one domestic league or cup title over this
timespan.
Espanyol. Lazio. Nürnberg. Portsmouth. Stuttgart. Wigan.
Wolfsburg.
The fact that clubs such as these won at least one
domestic honour in a period in which Arsenal could not speaks volumes.
A while ago, I wrote about who I consider to be the
greatest coaches in football.
My “Mount Rushmore” of football head coaches includes the
following: José Mourinho, Rinus Michels, Helenio Herrera, and Carlo Ancelotti.
Arsène Wenger would not even crack my top 25.
Although he achieved much in his first eight years at
Arsenal, those eight years gave him a free pass for all the mistakes he would
go on to make.
The results, or rather the lack of them, speak for
themselves.
As Arsène Wenger leaves Arsenal, fans of the North
Londoners everywhere should rightly honour all that the long-serving Frenchman
has done for the club.
However, they should also look to the future with
optimism, because in many ways, Wenger has contributed to the destruction of
the club that he once laboured to build into a powerhouse.
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