Will Wenger get this season right or is it adiós?
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 12:33PM First off, in case you've been living in a cave, last night's World Cup Final finished in misery for Robin Van Persie, but delight for Cesc Fabregas - whose assist enabled Iniesta to win the tournament for Spain.
The fact that Fabregas went straight over to Van Persie at the end of the game to commiserate shows how the lad has a touch of class about him - particularly as if I were a Spanish player I wouldn't have given two hoots about shaking hands with any of the Dutch players following their behaviour during the match.
For a country famous for playing football the right way, Holland's footballing reputation was pretty much dragged through the mud for two hours last night with some vicious tackles and constant foul play that pretty much ruined the game as a spectacle.
I can understand the referee's reticence to start dishing out red cards - he was probably under strict orders by FIFA to keep it 11 vs 11 - but Holland definitely took advantage of that leniency to make a mockery of the rules. Unfortunately, such clemency only sets a precedent for future tournaments.
Still, despite getting booked, Van Persie was not one of those players - his tackle was only inches late, and you have to feel for Robin. To be honest, despite reaching the final he did not have a great tournament, more often than not cutting a lone and isolated figure up front.
Holland's central midfield did not supply Van Persie with sufficient support or creativity, instead preferring to crudely kick their way through the tournament, particularly that disgusting animal Marc van Bommel of whom I'm delighted did not get the opportunity to pick up a winners medal. Meanwhile, the selfish Robben and Schneider played mostly for themselves, shooting or dribbling at every opportunity.
Van Persie will need a rest, I can imagine he's mentally and physically shattered.
To be honest, Fabregas did not have a great tournament either as the Spaniard spent 90% of the World Cup on the bench. Of course, what will be remembered, however, was his assist for Iniesta's goal; it's that which will go down in the history books, not Fabregas's virtual non-participation, and for that at least I am sure he's feeling immensely satisfied.
Spain could have used Fabregas more throughout the tournament, but they played mostly tight games meaning manager Del Bosque was reticent to substitute Xavi or Iniesta until results were secured.
In fact, Arsenal players all round had a pretty poor experience at the World Cup. France were the biggest joke, with Gallas doubtless a chief instigator of the in-fighting that decked the team's performances. Clichy only played in France's final game against South Africa, and made his customary error leading to an opposition goal, Sagna seemed pretty much lost, while Diaby was his usual self - flattering to deceive.
Nicholas Bendtner did ok for Denmark, but seemed prohibited by a knock that he carried for as long as his team survived the tournament. Carlos Vela was very poor for Mexico and Eboue was reasonable for the Ivory Coast, who could only manage a single win against whipping boys North Korea, albeit in a tough group.
Many Arsenal players did not even make the plane, Nasri, Koscielny, Silvestre, Denilson, Traore, Almunia, and Walcott were deemed not good enough for their respective squads, whilst national teams containing Arshavin, Rosicky, Eduardo, Vermaelen, and Fabianski failed to qualify.
Overall, I will remember the 2010 World Cup as being below average, basically due to too many teams playing defensive 4-5-1 formations married to the increased fitness levels and tactical awareness of the smaller nations, now able to hold out longer under duress.
The newly-designed ball may have also played a part, as it seems more than a coincidence that hardly any free-kicks managed to find the target - instead flying aimlessly high and wide of goal time and time again.
The final was a damp squib, only made interesting by my huge desire for Spain to overcome Holland's vile antics and their complete unwillingness to get the ball on the deck and try and play football. I tipped Spain from the start, and they've won it - but I still expected them to perform better than they did.
Meanwhile, back home thoughts return to the domesticity of the Premier League, with Arsenal's first pre-season friendly arriving on Saturday with the club's customary visit to Barnet.
Following another 5 friendlies, the new season will kick-off with a tough game at Anfield on 15th August.
How am I feeling right now? Fairly despondent.
I want my team to challenge for the title, but don't feel the club will make sufficient improvements and Wenger will yet again let us down with his signings - or lack of them - and tactically, as I feel many players are underperforming due to one-dimensional coaching/management.
Will Arsenal still concede countless goals at set-pieces, on the counter, and show a limp-wristed inability to hold onto leads? Will they still get annihilated by their main domestic rivals and waltz the group stages of the Champions League only to falter at the first difficult hurdle?
Will the message be hammered home to the players that lack of effort/willingness to put their body on the line will not be accepted or will they continue to be pampered and protected to their own psychological detriment?
Will Arsenal's rivals underachieve as mysteriously as they did last season, giving the illusion of competitiveness - or are we now in a more competitive league?
Can Van Persie manage a season without injury? Will Fabregas stay or go, and if he goes what sort of hammer blow will that be to this team and if he stays what sort of Fabregas will Arsenal get?
Will Bendtner, Denilson, Walcott, Clichy, Diaby, Nasri, Eboue, Fabianski, and Djourou finally emerge as the quality players that Wenger has continually sold to us?
And will I have to piss and moan my way through another season? I have been blogging for two years now, and unfortunately for me I have picked up a reputation as a whinger, a complainer, a refuge for the negative.
I won't pretend that when I first started Arsenal Truth I was affected by the continual insults and the barrage of abuse that most of you never get to see. I have had to grow a backbone, and I thought of giving it all up, but now it's all water off a duck's back, and if anything I revel in the opportunity to tease that criticism.
I am proud that I have stuck to my principles and, like 90% of Arsenal blogs I read, have not cowed to the demand to be neutral merely to be accepted.
What is certain is that my blog has coincided with the worst two years in Arsene Wenger's 14-year reign, but I can't be doing with appeasement. I am not here to appease supporters or sit on the fence, I am here to tell my truth as an Arsenal man - for that is what I am.
I don't want my team to just take part, I have a very high expectation of Arsenal, and believe that all Arsenal supporters should too, not only because the excessive ticket prices they pay elicit high expectations, but because it's that very expectation that drives the club forward and makes for a successful, competitive, and ultimately winning club.
If I supported a club with less of a history, less of a reputation, less of a stadium, less of a rhetoric, then my expectations would be that much lower, but for some reason Arsenal was the club I chose when I was a young lad and that's my club for life.
I still happen to believe that Arsenal are the third biggest club in England, behind Manchester United and Liverpool. But Arsenal do not act like the third biggest club in England - there is a continual drip-feeding outwards of quality and experience replaced mostly by youth that appears not nearly good enough to help the club achieve its supposed aims, and not educated in anything other than pass and move, whilst progressively lacking in mental and tactical acumen.
Rather than identify and act on this obvious fallibility, I feel the club is too readily accepting the status quo, which is becoming an unacceptable policy - especially in the light of Arsenal's vastly improved financial situation over the past 12 months, which hints at an ability to pursue an alternative strategy and leaves no further room for excuses.
Still, I have backed Wenger for one more season - and, as explained, it's not all about winning trophies, it never has been for me, it's about competing for trophies.
My definition of competing is not being in the top 4 for 6 months albeit always 6-10 points off the top, or outsiders for 6 months only to perpetually collapse in the final 3, or chucking domestic cups because Wenger perceives Arsenal as "above" winning them.
And if we're going to lose in the Champions League how about making a fist of it and giving the fans a performance to be proud of, and not returning having fulfilled a predicted hammering. What happened to pride in defeat? Arsenal almost never show that now - rather they leave a trail of repetitive debris that can so easily be picked apart and faulted.
I just want a good honest challenge and signs of genuine progress - otherwise I will demand that it's someone else's turn to try and bring back the glory days, whilst never forgetting what this current manager has achieved.
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Reader Comments (17)
A good honest post i think. the way the team collapsed at the end of the year was a disgrace. i want to see more hard work, more effort to win the ball back from the players and better tactical awareness from arsene against the top teams. sometimes its better to sacrifice philosophy to an extent in order to win a game.
i think your totally wrong as i think we have competed, we did the season Edwardo got done at Birmingham and to a certain extent we did last season.To do this whilst we have not had the money compared to what Chelsea and Manu have spent, i think AW has done well..ok so we got battered in the C.L but that was against the best team in the world..It just shows how far AW has taken us when we are expected to compete and beat the best teams in the world..and we will compete this season as well
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Everyone has a definition of what competing is, evidently yours is different to mine. You seem to use money as an excuse for where you feel Arsenal is obviously falling short, whereas I see a lack of tactical acumen as being equally responsible.
I don't think anybody "expected" Arsenal to beat Barcelona, least of all me, but Arsenal weren't just beaten, but completely annihilated. Even the score of 6-3 does little justice to Barcelona's outrageous dominance, a dominance that was not repeated in any of their Champions League games either before or after.
Truth- keep up the great work.
Don't the Asshole knows braige, disturb you. You telling the truth about how crap Arsenal and particularly on how wenger has been fooling us
we have poor for the last 4-5 years and i for one would like to see wenger FIRED!! . We will not win with him
keep up the good work
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I wouldn't say Arsenal were "crap". We are a good team, but there are lots of "good teams" in the Premier League and dozens across Europe. My expectations are higher than being just a good team and feel we could be a lot better were it not for such inflexibility in the transfer market and poor implementation of tactics.
I can't see Wenger ever being sacked at the club but I do think this should be the definitive year. We fell away very easily last season towards the end dropping points in matches we should have won. The most important thing to me is that he sorts out the Fabregas situation early. I don't want to wake up on August 31st to see Fabregas sold to Barca nd wenger struggling to bring in a replacement only to get someone who is out of shape and having to adjust to a new team and new league. N
"woe is me"
"I" am not going to, "I" dont think, "I" have not...
a bit too self indulgent
Arsene has been doing a great job but "I", meaning you, is too busy focusing on "I", meaning you, to see it.
ARSENAL!!!
You sound like the bias blinkered BBD pundits granted Holland foulded but what about Spain's antics. Also Cesc didn't have a poor tournament. Every game that he came on in he was the best player.
are you really an arsenal fan? why do I even read your crap? somehow i am always delusional it might get better but i guess I am the stupid one
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Thanks for your magical, constructive insight.
I agree 100 percent.Unfortunately Wenger is not in it to win anymore he is in it to make money,three or four seasons ago he realised that it is impossible to compete with Chelsea and manure and now City combine that with the fact that he is probably the most stubborn man in football and it is a recipe for disaster,how he fails to realize that Diaby and Denilson is not a championship winning midfield is beyond me what is more worringly is he keeps playing them year after year even though they are not very good that is so unlike Wenger in his early days as a manager of Arsenal.
Demand away to your hearts content, my guess is AW has a far brighter future and will be around longer than your blog, but we shall see
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Bad luck, I intend to do this blog for at least another 30 years.
I've read the blog for a while and been excluded because you couldn't handle reasonable criticism, actually pretty much any criticism.
Where you go wrong is instead of giving your opinion based on what you've seen and sticking to that, you've decided that you need to be outspoken and overly critical just to get your foot in the door of the blogging community in almost every post.
This is displayed when you bring up tactics and formations, because instead of being able to accurately analyse and project where we are going wrong, you just look for patterns that fit your mistaken preconceptions.
You're the Jamie Redknapp of football blogging.
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As you well know, the reason you were banned was for being vulgar and abusive. It's quite simple, if you don't like the blog, don't read it - read whichever other ones fulfill your Arsenal fantasies, leaving plenty of room for you to go to bed at night with nice dreams about Arsene Wenger, surrounded by flowers and fluffy bunny rabbits and puppies.
AT:
On World Cup final, I thought Van Bommel was not as bad in Final as he had been in earlier games and also thought game was fairly called; if anything, Spaniards could have gotten an additional yellow or two whether for their own fouls or exaggerating purported injuries. That said, Spain was better even though had Robben finished, Dutch would have won in regulation.
On Arsenal, I do agree with your view about what constitutes success, i.e., competing for trophies; I also agree that past five seasons has seen very little actual competition for trophies other than year where Arsenal was in CL final and year where team fell away after Eduardo injury.
Also regarding Arsenal, unless something unexpected happens, you have been proven wrong about Fabregas leaving Arsenal; it even appears that he's staying voluntarily and without ill will based not just on his Arsenal comment after World Cup final but also supposed purchase of new 2 million pound house in St Albans. If that is indeed the case, here's to hoping Wenger does pick up additional central defender, goalie and holding midfielder. Like you, I'd prefer latter two not be Schwarzer or Melo.
I think upcoming year will foreshaddow next few years for Arsenal; i.e., if Arsenal does well, we can expect at least 3 more years of AW but if not, all bets are off.
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The Eduardo tackle had nothing to do with Arsenal failing to win the league that season - they beat AC Milan the week after 2-0, so why couldn't they beat Wigan and Middlesbrough in subsequent matches?
Having said that, I felt Arsenal were finally heading in the right direction that season and was generally supportive until Wenger flogged off Hleb, Flamini, Lehmann and Diarra and left us with the worst goalkeepers in Britain and a powder puff midfield that entirely revolves around one player.
A player who, if stays, I will be glad to be wrong about - assuming he actually wants to stay and performs like a player who wants to stay.
I guess you tell the truth as you see it and although I´ve no doubt that you´re a true gooner I think you´re valuation of AW is pretty unfair.
He HAS taken the club to a higher level and its only Chapman from the thirties who can compete with his achievements as a manager.
Even though Arsenal haven´t won a trophy since 05 our performances in the Champions League (Final, QF, Semi, QF) have been the best ever.
Arsenal made a serious title Challenge in 07/08 until march and in the one just passed we were pretty close outsiders too. But on both occasions we lost momentum in the final two months. Some has to do with injuries. We lost three keyplayers at home to Barca and It was really a b-team that challenged them away Truth! Silvestre against Messi!! But part of the reason for losing momentum is mental. I admit you can have a point there.
Strengthening winners attitude in the Ferguson way (never thought I should honour him) would add a lot to this team. A genuine squad-depth in all places could help this on the way.
Last season I also think Wenger was a bit excused by less-than-expected-performances first of all from the goalkeepers, Arshavin, Eduardo, Denilson and to some extent from Clichy and Theo. Of course low playerperformances are a concern and (partly) a responsibility for the manager, but how many predicted that Almunia would fall two whole levels during a summer vacation and drop important goals on an assembly line?
I think Wenger is doing a good job adressing the challenges so far in the transfer market. Laurent K. is a top quality defender and Chamakh will add a lot of skill to our attack. Get a new keeper and hold on to Sol (and Fab) at the same time and I think we will have the right material. Getting Joe Cole would only be no neccesary luxury - but it will keep him away from Spuds.
Then its up to Wenger to install the needed winning mentality again. Like he did so well not to many years ago.
And by the way you London-Gooners should come much more in voice during the home games. A lot to be learned from the away support there.
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Personally I would love to see Wenger get it right - I hope he makes a fool of me and wins something big next season, however improbable. But Arsenal is a big club, and we can't keep looking into the past and have to stop with the excuses - especially injury-related excuses, which are complete nonsense. Every team has injuries; so you develop a big squad, if you fail in that objective then your team wasn't good enough - end of.
It's been six seasons now with only an FA Cup final win on a penalty shoot-out to show for it. Some progress was made two seasons ago, but it's all fallen away and I personally feel Arsenal are further away than they have ever been under Wenger to winning a major trophy. It would help if they could genuinely compete, but they don't - any challenge is half-hearted and lacks conviction, and falls away when the lack of squad depth is exposed or a major tactical challenge is presented.
You can almost draw parallel's between with what Wenger is doing at Arsenal and his time at Monaco, where he also got off to a fantastic start but soon became very idealistic and entrenched in a youth philosophy that resulted in him being sacked in his last season at Monaco when they finished 9th, and I can see that happening this season if Fabregas is sold.
Arsenal and Wenger have to treat this situation with urgency, we know the money is there, and this is not a time to be idealistic, but simply get the players that are needed and start to make some serious progress.
Danish,
if this is true how does Arsene Wenger still have a job at Arsena?. It strikes me that the only he would make money by not spending it is if the Board were paying him additionally not to spend it, no? Otherwise if he was doing this on his own and against the Board's wishes surely he'd have been sacked already, wouldn't he?
And how do you explain the clear shift in spending policies since 2005 from the spending he did from 1998-2005?
Mr Truth, good for you. Personally I could never blog about Arsenal. I couldn't cope with all the abuse from so called fans that gets thrown around. Some AKBs are worse than religious fundamentalist, say something less than positive about Mr Wenger and they swam at you.
I hope this is Wengers last year, we are in a rut and need someone with a new vision and way of doing things. I'm not hopeful of winning anything this season. We are still not as good as Man United or Chelsea and I don't see any major quality being lined up
Firstly dont talk rubbish ,who would you replace AW with so stop there .When you have been a supporter for over 60yrs of the Gunners like myself you will understand you have no devine right to win anything,Most of you are a bunch of new boys and have had to much glory already ,I watched 16yrs without a tin pot so get used to it.Now I must agree with some supporters ,Denilson ,Diaby will never be good enough and there are a few more that will never make the grade Eduado move on and Walcott ,dont think so .AW spend please
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Shame that older doesn't = wiser, now hop along and go patronise somebody else.
You said we'll concede a lot in set pieces, actauly i think that'll b one of our strong points , Vermaelen, koscienly, Djorou, Diaby, Song, v.perise, Chamakh, Bendtner, are all tall and most are great in the air. We might be a bit like Brazil was, score a English goal, then let our flair do the rest and clock up an impressive score
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You can be 6'10, but if you're not told who to mark or how to mark you will let in set piece goals, and this Arsenal side looks a mess when defending any set piece and has done for years.
You mention Van Persie but his poor marking twice nearly led to goals in the World Cup final, especially when he allowed Ramos a header that he somehow missed from 5 yards.
Neither is Arsenal a threat at set pieces, it's obvious Wenger simply doesn't bother with them at either end, which means he isn't doing his job properly.
Great Post!