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It is with a sense of sadness that I wrote this as there is a high probability that Arsene Wenger may go after his contract expired in 2008.
Fundamentally, with a limited budget, he had transformed Arsenal into a team beyond recognition, a team of the 21st Century and able to compete at the highest level at Emirate Stadium in 2006.
In the beginning, with a limited budget, he bought unknowns and failures at various clubs.
- Overmars was thought to be finished after recovering from a serious knee injury.
- Manu Petit, an unknown.
- Veira who?…… who languishing at Milan Reserve.
- Grimandi and another Frenchman (I forgot his name).
- Poached a 16-years old Anelka from France.
With these ingredients, he won his first EPL title, except for his first season, did not finished lower than second.
Moreover, he introduced scientific football management, controlling every aspect of the players’ well-being and diets, and extended the career of old warhorse like Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and David Seaman.
When Anelka being too greedy, he sold him to Real Madrid for £22 million and in its place bought:
· Henry, unwanted and playing in Juventus Reserve.
· Pires.
For the first season, everybody laughed and said Arsenal will never be the same again. Pires is just a pale shadow of Overmars and Henry is not suitable for EPL style of play.
And yet he brought Arsenal to a higher level than before.
But the greatest achievement of Wenger is the trust and respect he earned from his superstars. Without that he can never build Team Arsenal 2003/04 who played breathe-taking football that make the whole football world sit up and "discover" Arsenal.
Without Arsene Wenger, Arsenal is just a middling team without flair and style,…..just boring, boring up-and-away typical English football team coupled with its drinking culture.
Without Arsene Wenger, America and Asia will know only Liverpool and ManUre, …..Arsenal who?
Now, the name of Arsenal is synonymous with flowing and fluent attacking football, thanks to Arsene Wenger.
Year 2005.
Arsene Wenger is on the verge of building another great Team Arsenal 2005/06 akin to Team Arsenal 2003/04, but with deeper reserves from the rank of Young Gunners. And all these without the richness that is available at ManUre and Chelski.
The foundation was laid with Aliadere, Clinchy, Reyes, Fabregras, Flamini, Senderos, Eboue, Toure, Justin Hoyte, Bentley, Quincy, Lupoli, Ryan Smith, Ryan Barry, etc ready to step in as a continuation to Team Arsenal 2003/04.
It is Arsene Wenger who is holding Team Arsenal together, especially the French Spine (Henry, Viera, Pires) who stayed at Arsenal simply because of Wenger, and not because of the salary paid to them. They can earn much more at Real Madrid or Chelski.
This is one of the greatest gifts that Arsene Wenger brings to Arsenal. The ability to motivate superstars, especially Henry, to play at Arsenal.
And also the ability to groom ordinary players and nurture youngsters to superstardom, and all within the limited budget and salary ceiling imposed upon Arsene Wenger by the Board of Directors.
If not for Arsene Wenger, I am sure that Bergy would have retired in 2004. Viera to Real Madrid without a second thought, Pires and Henry to Chelski , and Sol will not join Arsenal.
Promising youngsters like Toure will not be discovered; neither Aliadere, Clinchy, Senderos, Van Persis, Fabregras, Reyes and Lupoli will sign with Arsenal.
Unfortunately, it is perceived that Arsene Wenger is rigid and cannot make tactically decisions quickly to change the course of the game, the blindness to see the faults of his players and his obsessive loyalty to the French players. Is it true?
Rigid Tactics and Blindness to Players’ Faults?
But the whole team is built around Henry attacking flair. When things are going wrong, we all see the petulance of Henry on the pitch. How to handle it?
By recognizing the fragility of Henry’s ego, by catering to all his whim and fancy within reasonable bound and by making sure he knows he is very much loved, never mind his petulance and other shortcomings.
This is Wenger man-management at his best in keeping Henry motivated and most importantly, cultivated within him a love for Team Arsenal and Henry will never dream of going to Real Madrid or Chelski for money. No other manager will be able to draw the best out of Henry and still keep him at Arsenal.
Simply that Henry loves to play for Wenger who understands his needs and provide freedom for Henry to roam all over the pitch.
Viera is frustrated as he felt that Arsenal, due to its limited resources, has reached its limit in competing against Real Madrid and his obsession to be the best in Europe is what make him dream of Real Madrid. A Champion League medal to complete his collection. A salary increase will also do nicely.
I guess that the special togetherness of Team Arsenal 2003/04 is what makes him decide against a move. And of course, the insult from Perez in so publicly put him down just as a journeyman and not of Galactico status.
But all in all, those "rigid" tactic is specially designed to cater to the desire of his French Spine, to draw the best out of them, and to ensure that he will have a happy and highly-motivated French Spine to drive Arsenal forward.
The result?
The Invincibles and 49-0.
Any other method will be too confining for Henry, like at Juventus. An unhappy Henry will leave for places where his salary is easily doubled.
"Rigid" Tactic?
Looked at the way Arsenal demolished Aston Villa, with wing switching play, Henry free to roam, Reyes moving inward and outward and Bergy just sitting in the "hole" , a bridge between attack and midfield……and of course, finally, Viera has a partner in Edu whose physical presence imposed Arsenal’s authority in mid-field in the face of ManUre kicker like Jerkba-Jerkba trying out the same old ManUre tactic of "kick and dive" to upset Arsenal fluent rhythm.
That is, Team Arsenal 2004/05 is not so lucky as 2003/04 (where the team is virtually injury-free) and injuries and Summer of Discontent virtually destroyed our season.
That is, Year 2005 was horrible, as Wenger does not have the number of fit players to follow his philosophy in fluent and attacking football. He does not have like ManUre or Chelski two quality players for each position and does not have the luxury to refresh his team when players are fatigued or lost form.
Nothing wrong with his "rigid" tactics like at Villa Park, just that he does not the necessary players to change tactics in the 2nd half. Just look at the bench.
Salary Ceiling
But all these came to naught as vultures set to pickup the pieces due to the Summer of Discontent 2004.
Edu wanted £50,000 per week but Arsenal is willing to pay only £50,000 per week, which is on par with Joe Cole’ salary at Chelski. Who is better, Edu or Joe Cole?
Cole is looking forward to £60,000 per week but the Arsenal’s offer is £55,000 per week. Real Madrid is willing to pay £75,000 per week and Chelski £90,000 per week.
Imagine Arsene Wenger’s frustration on the Team Arsenal 2003/04, which he built to dominate Europe but died in stillbirth in 2005 due to limited finance and self-imposed ceiling cap.
Peter Hill-Wood is of the "old school", then Arsenal will died of the "old school". Like West Ham, on the verge of greatness with a new 40,000 seater and because of the "old school" thinking of the Chairman in refusing to invest in new players, dropped out of EPL and got to sell players to survive.
In 2007, with a new 60,000 seater, an "old school" thinking Chairman, will Arsenal suffered the same fate as West Ham?
That is, not recognizing the harsh economic realities of modern-day clubs like ManUre, Chelski and Real Madrid that are willing to spend to get the players required to drive the clubs towards more successes, which mean greater commercial values and generate more incomes for clubs to spend on more quality players.
Chelski and Real Madrid had distorted the market and Arsenal got to pay the price to compete or else die. It means paying top players top salaries. Loyalties do not count anymore, either way, as the shameful treatment of offering a good servant like Lauren one-year extension or superstar like Giggs being offered one-year extension.
That is, Arsene Wenger had reached his limit desperately competing with those rich clubs on limited finance, which is amply demonstrated by the "lean" benches and Young Gunners stepping into the senior team to cover the injured key players.
It is like trying to cover 11 dustbins with ten covers. Arsene Wenger is now using the 10th cover but where is the 11th cover?
Put it this way, isn’t it frustrating for Arsene Wenger that while he is fabricating the "11th cover" and in need of finance, the "old school thinking" Board of Directors, said, "no…we will not break the bank to retain Edu or Cole".
It is a snowballing effect starting with Edu, Sol, and now Cole.
Who next?
Freddy demanding more money to sign an extension?
Unable to offer an extension to Bergy due to limited finance?
The danger is that it will destroy that special togetherness that took Arsene Wenger years to build and bonded this team together.
If we cannot retain this team with its special togetherness, then we will surely see the departure of Reyes and Fabregras and Lupoli as well and destroyed all the good works of Arsene Wenger ready for 2006/07 at Emirate Stadium.
That is, to retain Arsene Wenger beyond 2008, certainly, the Board of Directors must understand what drives Wenger to stay on. It is his desire to complete the work in making Arsenal the domineering team of Europe. That is the legacy he wanted when he retired one day. With no chance whatsoever of achieving his life-long ambition, then the lure of managing the French National Team is too strong to resist in 2008.
One of the key components is to remove the salary ceiling and give Arsene Wenger the carte blanche to buy the players he needed to strengthen the Team Arsenal 2005/06. And that was what make ManUre so domineering in the 90’s and became what it is today when Ferguson was given the same facilities to buy whatever players he needed to strengthen the team.
Arsene Wenger had already done an excellent job in nurturing unknowns and "failures" into superstars; spotting and developing youngsters.
Add in the facilities to purchase and retain the players he desired would really drive Arsenal to another level to compete successfully in the Champion League and domineering EPL.
We had a brief glimpse of how domineering Arsenal can be in the first 6 games of this season.
That I believe is the frustration of Arsene Wenger in that, every time he won EPL Title and on the verge of developing a great team, he was hauled back by the Board of Director, which refused to go into debt to purchase the quality players needed to strengthen the team to retain the title.
Arsene Wenger is too much a gentleman to express this frustration in public and I do not believe a word of those statements that funds "are available".
In the worst scenario, say Cole leaves, Reyes wanted to return home, no funds to strengthen the squad in the summer, and a trophyless 2005, Henry and Viera expresses frustration over the thin squad, etc….and Arsene Wenger saw all his 10 years of work goes down the drain due to the salary ceiling. No chance at all to build Team Arsenal 2005/06.
Do we all see it?
That is, it is Arsene Wenger man-management skill that kept these team of superstars together to achieve so much previously and still more to come in the future.
Therefore, the question is not WENGER MUST GO but will be stay beyond 2008?
Without Arsene Wenger, certainly Arsenal will return to mediocrity and unable to compete even with Jol’s Spud or Moyes’ Everton or Benitez’s Liverpool.
Fundamentally, with a limited budget, he had transformed Arsenal into a team beyond recognition, a team of the 21st Century and able to compete at the highest level at Emirate Stadium in 2006.
In the beginning, with a limited budget, he bought unknowns and failures at various clubs.
- Overmars was thought to be finished after recovering from a serious knee injury.
- Manu Petit, an unknown.
- Veira who?…… who languishing at Milan Reserve.
- Grimandi and another Frenchman (I forgot his name).
- Poached a 16-years old Anelka from France.
With these ingredients, he won his first EPL title, except for his first season, did not finished lower than second.
Moreover, he introduced scientific football management, controlling every aspect of the players’ well-being and diets, and extended the career of old warhorse like Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and David Seaman.
When Anelka being too greedy, he sold him to Real Madrid for £22 million and in its place bought:
· Henry, unwanted and playing in Juventus Reserve.
· Pires.
For the first season, everybody laughed and said Arsenal will never be the same again. Pires is just a pale shadow of Overmars and Henry is not suitable for EPL style of play.
And yet he brought Arsenal to a higher level than before.
But the greatest achievement of Wenger is the trust and respect he earned from his superstars. Without that he can never build Team Arsenal 2003/04 who played breathe-taking football that make the whole football world sit up and "discover" Arsenal.
Without Arsene Wenger, Arsenal is just a middling team without flair and style,…..just boring, boring up-and-away typical English football team coupled with its drinking culture.
Without Arsene Wenger, America and Asia will know only Liverpool and ManUre, …..Arsenal who?
Now, the name of Arsenal is synonymous with flowing and fluent attacking football, thanks to Arsene Wenger.
Year 2005.
Arsene Wenger is on the verge of building another great Team Arsenal 2005/06 akin to Team Arsenal 2003/04, but with deeper reserves from the rank of Young Gunners. And all these without the richness that is available at ManUre and Chelski.
The foundation was laid with Aliadere, Clinchy, Reyes, Fabregras, Flamini, Senderos, Eboue, Toure, Justin Hoyte, Bentley, Quincy, Lupoli, Ryan Smith, Ryan Barry, etc ready to step in as a continuation to Team Arsenal 2003/04.
It is Arsene Wenger who is holding Team Arsenal together, especially the French Spine (Henry, Viera, Pires) who stayed at Arsenal simply because of Wenger, and not because of the salary paid to them. They can earn much more at Real Madrid or Chelski.
This is one of the greatest gifts that Arsene Wenger brings to Arsenal. The ability to motivate superstars, especially Henry, to play at Arsenal.
And also the ability to groom ordinary players and nurture youngsters to superstardom, and all within the limited budget and salary ceiling imposed upon Arsene Wenger by the Board of Directors.
If not for Arsene Wenger, I am sure that Bergy would have retired in 2004. Viera to Real Madrid without a second thought, Pires and Henry to Chelski , and Sol will not join Arsenal.
Promising youngsters like Toure will not be discovered; neither Aliadere, Clinchy, Senderos, Van Persis, Fabregras, Reyes and Lupoli will sign with Arsenal.
Unfortunately, it is perceived that Arsene Wenger is rigid and cannot make tactically decisions quickly to change the course of the game, the blindness to see the faults of his players and his obsessive loyalty to the French players. Is it true?
Rigid Tactics and Blindness to Players’ Faults?
But the whole team is built around Henry attacking flair. When things are going wrong, we all see the petulance of Henry on the pitch. How to handle it?
By recognizing the fragility of Henry’s ego, by catering to all his whim and fancy within reasonable bound and by making sure he knows he is very much loved, never mind his petulance and other shortcomings.
This is Wenger man-management at his best in keeping Henry motivated and most importantly, cultivated within him a love for Team Arsenal and Henry will never dream of going to Real Madrid or Chelski for money. No other manager will be able to draw the best out of Henry and still keep him at Arsenal.
Simply that Henry loves to play for Wenger who understands his needs and provide freedom for Henry to roam all over the pitch.
Viera is frustrated as he felt that Arsenal, due to its limited resources, has reached its limit in competing against Real Madrid and his obsession to be the best in Europe is what make him dream of Real Madrid. A Champion League medal to complete his collection. A salary increase will also do nicely.
I guess that the special togetherness of Team Arsenal 2003/04 is what makes him decide against a move. And of course, the insult from Perez in so publicly put him down just as a journeyman and not of Galactico status.
But all in all, those "rigid" tactic is specially designed to cater to the desire of his French Spine, to draw the best out of them, and to ensure that he will have a happy and highly-motivated French Spine to drive Arsenal forward.
The result?
The Invincibles and 49-0.
Any other method will be too confining for Henry, like at Juventus. An unhappy Henry will leave for places where his salary is easily doubled.
"Rigid" Tactic?
Looked at the way Arsenal demolished Aston Villa, with wing switching play, Henry free to roam, Reyes moving inward and outward and Bergy just sitting in the "hole" , a bridge between attack and midfield……and of course, finally, Viera has a partner in Edu whose physical presence imposed Arsenal’s authority in mid-field in the face of ManUre kicker like Jerkba-Jerkba trying out the same old ManUre tactic of "kick and dive" to upset Arsenal fluent rhythm.
That is, Team Arsenal 2004/05 is not so lucky as 2003/04 (where the team is virtually injury-free) and injuries and Summer of Discontent virtually destroyed our season.
That is, Year 2005 was horrible, as Wenger does not have the number of fit players to follow his philosophy in fluent and attacking football. He does not have like ManUre or Chelski two quality players for each position and does not have the luxury to refresh his team when players are fatigued or lost form.
Nothing wrong with his "rigid" tactics like at Villa Park, just that he does not the necessary players to change tactics in the 2nd half. Just look at the bench.
Salary Ceiling
But all these came to naught as vultures set to pickup the pieces due to the Summer of Discontent 2004.
Edu wanted £50,000 per week but Arsenal is willing to pay only £50,000 per week, which is on par with Joe Cole’ salary at Chelski. Who is better, Edu or Joe Cole?
Cole is looking forward to £60,000 per week but the Arsenal’s offer is £55,000 per week. Real Madrid is willing to pay £75,000 per week and Chelski £90,000 per week.
Imagine Arsene Wenger’s frustration on the Team Arsenal 2003/04, which he built to dominate Europe but died in stillbirth in 2005 due to limited finance and self-imposed ceiling cap.
Peter Hill-Wood is of the "old school", then Arsenal will died of the "old school". Like West Ham, on the verge of greatness with a new 40,000 seater and because of the "old school" thinking of the Chairman in refusing to invest in new players, dropped out of EPL and got to sell players to survive.
In 2007, with a new 60,000 seater, an "old school" thinking Chairman, will Arsenal suffered the same fate as West Ham?
That is, not recognizing the harsh economic realities of modern-day clubs like ManUre, Chelski and Real Madrid that are willing to spend to get the players required to drive the clubs towards more successes, which mean greater commercial values and generate more incomes for clubs to spend on more quality players.
Chelski and Real Madrid had distorted the market and Arsenal got to pay the price to compete or else die. It means paying top players top salaries. Loyalties do not count anymore, either way, as the shameful treatment of offering a good servant like Lauren one-year extension or superstar like Giggs being offered one-year extension.
That is, Arsene Wenger had reached his limit desperately competing with those rich clubs on limited finance, which is amply demonstrated by the "lean" benches and Young Gunners stepping into the senior team to cover the injured key players.
It is like trying to cover 11 dustbins with ten covers. Arsene Wenger is now using the 10th cover but where is the 11th cover?
Put it this way, isn’t it frustrating for Arsene Wenger that while he is fabricating the "11th cover" and in need of finance, the "old school thinking" Board of Directors, said, "no…we will not break the bank to retain Edu or Cole".
It is a snowballing effect starting with Edu, Sol, and now Cole.
Who next?
Freddy demanding more money to sign an extension?
Unable to offer an extension to Bergy due to limited finance?
The danger is that it will destroy that special togetherness that took Arsene Wenger years to build and bonded this team together.
If we cannot retain this team with its special togetherness, then we will surely see the departure of Reyes and Fabregras and Lupoli as well and destroyed all the good works of Arsene Wenger ready for 2006/07 at Emirate Stadium.
That is, to retain Arsene Wenger beyond 2008, certainly, the Board of Directors must understand what drives Wenger to stay on. It is his desire to complete the work in making Arsenal the domineering team of Europe. That is the legacy he wanted when he retired one day. With no chance whatsoever of achieving his life-long ambition, then the lure of managing the French National Team is too strong to resist in 2008.
One of the key components is to remove the salary ceiling and give Arsene Wenger the carte blanche to buy the players he needed to strengthen the Team Arsenal 2005/06. And that was what make ManUre so domineering in the 90’s and became what it is today when Ferguson was given the same facilities to buy whatever players he needed to strengthen the team.
Arsene Wenger had already done an excellent job in nurturing unknowns and "failures" into superstars; spotting and developing youngsters.
Add in the facilities to purchase and retain the players he desired would really drive Arsenal to another level to compete successfully in the Champion League and domineering EPL.
We had a brief glimpse of how domineering Arsenal can be in the first 6 games of this season.
That I believe is the frustration of Arsene Wenger in that, every time he won EPL Title and on the verge of developing a great team, he was hauled back by the Board of Director, which refused to go into debt to purchase the quality players needed to strengthen the team to retain the title.
Arsene Wenger is too much a gentleman to express this frustration in public and I do not believe a word of those statements that funds "are available".
In the worst scenario, say Cole leaves, Reyes wanted to return home, no funds to strengthen the squad in the summer, and a trophyless 2005, Henry and Viera expresses frustration over the thin squad, etc….and Arsene Wenger saw all his 10 years of work goes down the drain due to the salary ceiling. No chance at all to build Team Arsenal 2005/06.
Do we all see it?
That is, it is Arsene Wenger man-management skill that kept these team of superstars together to achieve so much previously and still more to come in the future.
Therefore, the question is not WENGER MUST GO but will be stay beyond 2008?
Without Arsene Wenger, certainly Arsenal will return to mediocrity and unable to compete even with Jol’s Spud or Moyes’ Everton or Benitez’s Liverpool.
Сообщение отредактировал LeXuS R.: 12 December 2012 - 11:27
