Articles
Wenger's 'rebuilding' has just begun, it is not a failed 'experiment'
Date: 23 Apr 2010By Mean Lean
Hardly anything if at all has been spoken about the Wigan fiasco by Wenger or the players which is unusual. I remember a time last season when we were going through a difficult patch and the same silence was deafening. Perhaps it was during the whole Gallas captaincy strip time but I could be wrong.
I can imagine plenty of 'that was not acceptable' speeches going around from Wenger and Pat Rice after the game and back at the training ground. As we know, it wasn't good enough but for me, this has to be addressed and then forgotten about. It has happened and the players will have to make sure that it does not happen again.
Many questions have been asked since then and it is understandable. But some of what is being said doesn't make any sense to me and I just wanted to give my view to the arguments floating around.
Wenger's experiment has failed
That has been a very common saying over the last couple of seasons. Especially after last weekend.
Almost as if Arsene is going to London Colney with a white scientist's outfit, purple potion in one hand and green frogs in the other. It is not an experiment, it is a plan. A plan to rebuild Arsenal from the foundations upwards. Having to rebuild a club is not an experiment it is a very difficult and brave plan which has not failed, it has only begun. Why exactly has this long term plan failed? Has someone blown up the training ground while all the youth players and scouts have walked out?
So many fans have different views of our situation and it totally depends on which angle you are looking at it from. The media have fed many people what they want us to hear. When Arsenal have a player sent off then it is the x number of red cards in Arsene Wenger's reign at Arsenal, this is not compared with any other manager in the league. When the media talk about Arsenal, it is the x number of years that Arsenal have not won a trophy.
If you go up close then you see a manager who had a team that went the whole season undefeated in the league and ended the season as champions. Now five years later, we have a young side who haven't won a single trophy, that is awful from a manager who is feeding his own ego, attempting to prove that he can win trophies without spending money. This is how the picture has been painted. False.
Close your eyes, take some steps backwards then reopen your eyes and the picture becomes much different when you are not fed rubbish and you are given facts.
When the club decided to build the Emirates stadium a strategy had to be in place. The club have decided to pay off the stadium debt as quickly as possible. It looks very much as if Arsene had to generate his own funds in the transfer market. We have balanced the books or made a profit during every summer since the building of the stadium. It is no coincidence that while we have left Highbury, our spending has dropped.
Roman Abramovich's millions of pounds poured into Chelsea whilst we were in the middle of our move. Jose Mourinho already had eyes looking in the direction of Arsene Wenger's summer targets. Competing with Chelsea during that period would prove to be almost impossible without equalling the millions of pounds exchanged in the transfer market. Wenger had a choice, bring in 28 year olds worth £7-£10 million players to compete with the likes of Drogba and Essien. Even the best scouting system in the world would find it difficult to match the big money signings from Chelsea or Manchester United. The other choice was to bring in players that he hoped would be as good for a fraction of the price, the problem was these players would need time, it would need an awful lot of patience from everyone connected with the club. That includes the fans.
With arguably the best Arsenal team to ever play for the club coming to the end of their cycle, Wenger had to rip apart the squad and pretty much start again from scratch. Imagine if Chelsea no longer had a penny to their name and they had to rebuild their side, would Carlo Ancelotti be able to bring in the same quality of player as Lampard and Essien for under £10 million? Would he be able to keep Chelsea competitive and play Champions League football every single year? I have my doubts.
I am sure the Ajax supporters did not consider their development of players a failed experiment in the early nineties when they produced the likes of Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert and our very own Dennis Bergkamp and Marc Overmars.
The Barcelona team of 2010 are seen as the best club side in the present day. They have taken the same approach as Arsenal but have the advantage of starting their development a good few years earlier. Big names like Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Gerard Piqué, Pedro Rodríguez, Sergio Busquets and Bojan Krkic have all come through their ranks. I am sure the Barcelona supporters grew impatient from 1998-1999 to 2004-2005 when the big money of Real Madrid dominated the league title whist Barcelona worked on picking up talented players from Spain.
As long as quality footballers are brought through into our squad then the system cannot fail. The ones who do not make it are sold on for a profit as well as those players gaining some of the best coaching in the world. Our youth system is now one of our biggest incomes, along with gate receipts, merchandise and television money.
Some Gooners seem to assume that this route means that the only way we can build a team is through the youth system, this is not the case. Wenger has now said pretty much for the first time that he is able to spend the money to compete with other clubs where as he has been restricted in the past few years. Like I have said recently which manager would not do the best that he could for himself or the club he is working for just to prove a point that he can win another way. When has Arsene Wenger ever said that he is attempting to do that
Criticism thrown at Wenger for not spending is simply untrue. He has added to the squad pretty much every season. Tomas Rosicky, Eduardo, Sagna, Nasri, Arshavin and Vermaelen are all players who are not teenagers, brought in to be members of the squad. Established players who can do the job today.
Top quality players can now be brought in to supplement the talent we have organically growing at London Colny.
In which way is this a failed experiment?
These foundations have been built and I suspect that it will be the man who replaces Wenger in future that will benefit the most. I am sure by that time, those who rubbish Arsene's direction will be lauding that manager for picking the likes of Chuks Aneke, Connor Henderson, Emmanuel Frimpong and Benik Afobe, hugely talented kids who could one day be our very own Iniesta's and Pedro's. Players that many disgruntled Barcelona fans wouldn't even have heard of in 1999.
Match preview and perhaps a Your Vision article up tomorrow.
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it is an experiment, same one he tried and failed at monaco
you telling me he deliberately bought denilson who is possibly the worst player in the world?
Due to lack of intelligence and respect.
all those kids wenger bought, apart from fabregas - and maybe song - have failed. clichy, diaby, denilson, fabianski, vela, walcott, eboue, bendtner, merida - they've all been useless. and what about lupoli, senderos, aliadiere, hoyte, reyes, bentley, larsson, pennant, abeyie - failed.
ok, so maybe you can argue the toss on a couple, but is three 3 or 4 youth players coming through in 6 years been a worthwhile plan? ridiculous. the ones that haven't been sold will very slowly but surelty be replaced in the next three years by mature, exwerienced players, and then we might win something.
Thank you all.
We've been in the title race 2 of the last 3 seasons. We've played finals & semi finals. 3 seasons ago we were running away with, best team in the country....
If these players are so bad, how do they do it? Why is it we've lost fewer games than Man United, lost just 1 less than Chelsea this season? Why do we win by far most of our games? Why do teams feel they have to use extreme and violent means to stop us?
Get your arses out of your mouths.
‘I personally feel that we have about nine or ten players who are really close to the first team and to able to say that is fantastic’.
‘I am talking about the players who are aged between 18yrs and 21yrs. For example we have, David Bentley, Jeremie Aliadiere, Ryan Garry, Jerome Thomas, Sebastian Svard, Moritz Volz, Jermaine Pennant, Graham Stack, Kolo Toure and others too, there is also a young Swiss defender Philippe Senderos who will be joining us in the summer’.
‘When you look at that list there are ten or so players who are the top level, that is great for the future of our club and is a guarantee for us. The condition of our young players look tremendous.’
Arsene Wenger 2003
Nuff said.
Too many gunners can't accept money is proportionate to success.
We are a skint club compared to chelsea and man city. even tottenham spend more on transfers. It's not stingy wenger, its the company is low on cash due to the stadium. Things are getting better now financially but with the amount on transfers we spent we should be relegated (no joke from 2004-2009 we were 20th on the premier league spenders, check transfer league site). This season is the funniest. We overachieved to get near the title and yet its failure.
Do me a favour and support the chavs or manciti if you want that instant success nonsense.
A very well written article and I agree, either we risk being broke and perhaps have a slightly better chance at having a trophy, or we stay in the top 4/champions league, and be the only top 4 club which has a good financial future outlook...
Revenue of 3,000,000 GBP every home game. The most expensive season tickets of any team in the Premier League. Don't worry though Silvestre's on a good wack!!
Or in fact let's get rid of Wenger and bring in a new manager. We can tell the new manager that 3rd place and reaching the quarter or semi-finals of the Champions League isn't good enough.
Instead he'll be expected to win the league or the Champions League in his first season. To help him achieve this he'll be provided with a transfer budget smaller than that of Everton's.
Good luck with that Wenger haters.
I think you've hit the nail on the head this isn't about Arsenal FC. Founded 1886. It's an Arsene Wenger love in.
Why does that bother you?
Yes and 9 of them weren't even Kolo when you took away Campbell and asked him to step up as a senior player was found wanting shipped out at the age of 28 one of Arsene's better bits of business of late. Do you really think of Kolo in the same terms as Adams, Dixon, Bould, Winterburn, Keown and Campbell. I certainly dont!!
Kolo Toure de de de de
Top notch player.
We love Kolo around here.
Why does that bother you?
Arsene Wenger could leave Arsenal and pick his next job.....there's be a scramble to his door.
It dosent in the slightest. I have many happy memories of Wengers Arsenal, Grahams Arsenal, Neill,'s Arsenal, Howe's Arsenal ( well maybe that's stretching it a bit) and my fondest memories were of Bertie Mee's Arsenal it meant so much more to a six year old. Why does it bother you that I can envisage life after Wenger for Arsenal Football Club?
What do you do that makes Arsenal do what Wenger hasn't managed?
I can envisage it too....come to think of it, that's what Mean Lean did in this article. Very intelligently, with great insight, and well in the future, leaving the club much much better off than he met it.
Can someone who wants Wenger out please explain why he's underperformed? Would we have been better off with Benitez? A manager who's managed to spend more money and take Liverpool down to 7th place.
Remember, Benitez was one of the top managers in Europe before he came to Liverpool. And now people want Wenger out so we can bring in one of these so-called 'top managers'.
Won the Champion's League. NEXT!!
There's no doubt that watching Arsenal has been a hugely frustrating experience. I myself have spent the last 4 years slagging off Almunia and our hilarious attempts at defending to all and sundry (laughing helps).
But people need to realise two things. Firstly, that Wenger's decision to bring through cheaper, raw players was a pragmatic one based on our financial constraints rather than some mad experiment. Second, that ultimately Wenger's 'experiment' can't be judged until we look back on it rationally in the future. Even if Wenger fails to win a trophy over the next 5 years, he will have left behind a club with a culture of passing, attacking football, a 60,000 seater stadium and one that is exploiting commercial opportunities abroad.
At the very least, our next manager will inherit a club with some serious firepower and we'll look back on Wenger as being the man that put in place the infrastructure for future success. I am hopeful that Wenger will be the first man to benefit from this simply because he deserves it for his superhuman work ethic.
By all accounts, this is the first year that we have some serious money to spend so lets hold fire with the obituaries.
After all, the season before Wenger went the whole season unbeaten (achieved how many times in the past 100 years?) and since then we've won the FA cup, reached the Carling and Champions League finals, and always been in the top 4. Not to mention that Liverpool are dire to watch.
I have to agree with you. People get so bloody down and depressed as if we are bloody Burnley. The ironic thing is those supporters for the relegation sides do not behave like some of our own fans. The route that Arsenal have taken is pretty self explanatory, if you do not agree then there is just no point in arguing.
Is everything perfect at Arsenal? No of course not. We have issues that we have to address.
That also goes for Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Tottenham etc etc all teams have areas that they have to work on. We are stronger in certain areas than Man U and Chelsea, they are stronger in others.
We have competed for the league this season and have slipped at the end. Does this make us a poor side? If so is the whole league poor or is it just Arsenal and Wenger?
Wenger's 2010 vintage are not rubbish they are pampered, naive and immature. Just reflect for one second, we still had a chance of winning the league yet managed to surrender a two goal lead to the mighty Wigan in under 10 minutes. That is simply unacceptable If Wenger was buying inferior players because of financial constraints I could accept that but players who don't give 100% and who roll over as they did on Sunday do not deserve to wear the shirt. That performance was simply unacceptable.
You may want to review my posts, trust me following Arsenal through the 80's required the patience of a Saint.
What do you think should happen because of the Wigan defeat? Scrap the whole team.
The performance was not good enough, it was bloody awful. Manchester United's defeat at home to Leeds United was also disgraceful, I don't think we need to go overboard with either of those results.
How do you know that the players are pampered? Is this because Myles Palmer says so? Has this now become fact?
OY!! Less of the old. I prefer to think of it as maturity and experience. Hey maybe I should give Arsene a calI maybe I have a few qualities the team could benefit from LOL.
If he was to leave there's a reasonable chance that we'll end up like Liverpool or worse, Spurs.
Lots of money No money we tried to buy him
were buying no one I believe ! Potential !
Please Just be Honest with Us we dont give a XXXX about stories just the truth,
Then we will come every year until the whole of the debt is paid & you're all multi millionaires we dont mind if we win nothing
Please Please just be HONEST WITH US
I want to change the question for a second..
If Arsene had funds to spend while we were building the stadium, does anyone believe that we would have won a trophy sooner?
Or is it that Wenger has forgotten how to win like he did during his previous two doubles and collection of FA Cup victories?
That's fair enough - the board haven't been straight about transfer funds.
I'm not really sure why. Perhaps they were worried that some of the better players would want to leave if they discovered that we have no money for transfers? And it might make it difficult to attract players?
ABSOLUTELY.
Unfortunately now we are so engaged in Project Youth that to buy ready made players now would "kill Diaby ( too lazy) Denilson ( too slow) and Walcott ( too Naive) well that's Arsene's reasoning and he,s sticking to it,
I am off. Involved in the Arseblog 5aside tournament tomorrow, so need some sleep.
Catch up tomorrow.
I know professional footballers aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the box but don't you think they would have worked that one out by now.
Wenger might or might not have won trophies, but one thing I know is that if ANYONE can win trophies in Englang it is he.
Despite all the chorus of how many years without trophies and all that, he's still the second winningest (to borrow an Americanism) manager in the Premier League era.
"I know professional footballers aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the box but don't you think they would have worked that one out by now."
I would have thought so. But it seems that a lot of fans haven't. They seem to think that Wenger's been hoarding transfer funds. The fact that we now only have £30-40 million this summer illustrates that he hasn't.
If Adebayor and Toure hadn't been sold last year then our transfer budget for this summer would be zero.
I am no fan of Pyles he has his own agenda. My point is that these players have no experience in professional football outside of Arsenal FC and unfortunately there are not enough winners around the first team now to educate them and instil a winning mentality. In this day and age a professional footballer is made for life when he signs his first professional contract the hunger just isn't there any more. Twin that with a lack of competition for places and you have a recipe for what happened at Wigan you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work that one out.
If you're not happy with 2nd then what should we do, organise mass suicides?
Or outsource our thinking facilities to the tabloids, shock jocks, and failed human beings like Palmer so that we lose all sense of perspective, or even all common sense?
No, we're leaving you alone to go that way.
A comprehensive rebuttal from a reasonable person: http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/2010/04/this-team-will-have-its-day/
I also disagree it's a media knee jerk among supporters, there has been a fair number of supporters predicting continued regression under the current policies for a few years now.
.We shall see. I can see a demand for the red faced.
He's a proven winner. He doesn't waste time over the asthetic beauty of soccer. He does not indulge in a thousand passing game.
If Arsene goes to another club it aint going to be a bed of roses.He will not have 100% full control or act as a virtual dictator. There will no yesmen around. There will be plenty of powerful no men around.
In short after a run of ten to twenty games with poor returns with pretty soccer the culprit the proud FM willbe axed.
That is the start reality facing him.Yes he may won trophies but if your track record compared to the latest aint good,it makes for bad cv.I maybe wrong.
I totally agree with your views. In Singapore, all my friends who are man utd, Liverpool or Chelsea supporters are totally impressed by wenger.
In a team who debts and budget, wenger can pull a rabbit out of the hat. Is 3rd/ 4th a disgrace for arsenal? Never! Look at Liverpool, they spend but they are outof champion's league. A lot wrote off arsenal and say man city and spurs is going to overtake them, however we never challenge for top with our best striker out for so long
let's be realistic is life! With no money, who can we do?
And yet, either through stubbornness or myopia, Wenger refuses to strengthen those areas. And to add insult to injury, he bought useless Silvestre and used him virtually in all the last few matches. Some may say that Wenger was forced to play Silvestre because of injuries, but I beg to differ; Silvestre shouldn't even be in the squad in the first place. Would Ferguson have sold him to us if Silvestre were any good ? In every match that I have seen him play so far, he has made on average one mistake that led to a goal.
This match has been an improvement over the last, but as Liverpool has proven, one season's good performance does not mean you have arrived. The winning mentality and the level of consistency have to be built year after year. Remember, winning is a habit, and so is losing....
Oh n i would like 2 see us play counter-attacking football that is soo very important during big match days. Gone r the days when we see henry viera n co. bursting forward on a classic counter tat trust me even barca would struggle 2 contain. The formation this season has made it such tat we hv 2 move forward as a team tat counter-attacking is not viable anymore. Surely walcott n clichy bursting forward with a speedy striker would bring in much more goals... 4-3-3 only works with rvp n captain fab in the team. Go back to 4-5-1 or better 4-4-2.REMEMBER MILAN WHERE 2 GOALS WERE SCORED BY COUNTERING ALONE!!! Wenger doesnt know how to change tactics when needed (especially when injured players r out) . He could learn something here... This season has made me envy the likes of liverpool with torres, chelsea with drogba, n mu with rooney, n mancs with tevez counter attacking soo often that goals 4 them come up soo easily while we put in soo much effort 2 get just a goal or 2 !!!
Needless 2 say defensively we need soo badly 2 be disciplined but that can only happen if we change our style of play... ITS baffling we hv one of the speediest wingers in walcott but dont manage 2 score enough goals!!! Keep d faith u gooners! I trust wenger Knows every word im sayng... I trust him more than anyone 2 do the right ting
If Wenger gone, then I dont have any interest anymore for Arsenal. And I'm pretty sure Arsenal wont get better and better, so go on sack him !!!
Sadly i feel this also applies to Arsenal fans.Whether its the up and coming generation and the younger fans i do not know clearly but even my friends and I carry on argument for hours about the Arsenal and Arsene.I usually have to argue for Arsene and the players but what i debate against is usually something that would seem a bit daft and irrational,which is usually born after a match has finished.
I think the majority of people are turning into this. This is very worrying if you look at it carefully. Being articulate and quite intelligent, when it comes to certain discussions and scenarios, is becoming more and more difficult in justifying yourself when the opposing person wont understand where you are coming from let alone debating against your opinion or fact properly.
Now i am starting to see this only when i talk about football and read blogs but imagine a world full of people like this. I for one would not let my future kids mould into something like this.
Scary.
Can you imagine the "response" from the players if Wenger was to announce something along the lines of: "yes, I know all our players are crap, but we don't have any money to buy better ones for now".
Does anyone think we'd have kept up in the top level after a stroke of genius like that?
Don't get me wrong, there are problems at the club, especially with lack of concentration and discipline, but that's something to be sorted out on the training ground, and maybe with a judicious dip into the market.
Not wholesale changes, that's just panic, and panic never helped anything.
an experiment is a test, trial, or tentative procedure; an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown or of testing a principle, supposition
the the definition of a PLAN:
a scheme or method of acting, doing, proceeding, making, etc., developed in advance: battle plans. a design or scheme of arrangement
Now i agree with author this journey arsenal have embarked on is indeed a plan because its not gunna change or fail the plan is to develop the club from inside and lay the foundations for the future
there is no point in buying players for the sake of it we couldnt handle the wage bill and as arsene always says he will only buy players who will improve the team and are better than the players we already have but for the right money which up until now was around 10 million a season and rightly so
things are changing look at our title push this year compared to last that is the only fact fans need to know to prove that are journey has only just began and each year we will become a more dominant threat to our high paying rivals whilst we try to find the next messi they will be trying to buy the title
Luckily no one that matters or with any brains thinks that either Wenger or the current plan has failed.
Under the current plan
- we are now the 3rd richest club in the world,
- have a tremendous amount of young talent which will feed the team over the coming years,
- a reputation which gets people like Ramsey and Cesc to want to join,
- great stadium which will generate cash for many years,
- Champions League football every single year etc. etc.,
I really don't care what Liquorice or anyone with similar views 'thinks'
Spot on. I've noticed this as well - society seems to be creating adults who are impatient, ungracious and brainless.
When you look at the facts no manager could have done as well as Wenger given the budget he's had to work with. That's not even an opinion. It's fact. What other clubs in Europe are in the Champions League every year despite spending less than the likes of Birmingham?
failed experiment? NO unfinished plan? YES. it hasnt been 5 years its been 3 the team that made the champs lg final contained many last generation players like pires henry lehmann ljunberg gilberto capmbell(i know) toure. also wenger would have wanted to keep cole and flamini 2 players who could make us so much stronger right now and probably adebayor if it wasnt for problems with his character and ego
Oh Paul I feel deeply wounded that such a great thinker as yourself dismisses my views so readily.
Now after only 5 years withovt silverwear people want to abandon the man who single handedly oversaw ovr move from Highbvry to Emirates, bvilt ovr state of the art training facilties and has kept vs top 4 every year since he arrived, who took vs to ovr 1st CL final, won 2 dovbles, the leagve vnbeaten, the FA cvp winning more silverwear for vs than anyone manager in ovr history. All that and we ain´t in massive debt like loads of the others like the manver, the pool etc. We now often play football that has abromovic drooling over ovr style wishing he covld bvy someone who covld make his expensive team play like vs.
From this old Gooner I can´t believe yov lot are Gooners. Ovr loss to wigan was not like the Arse, yov lot ain´t like the Arse! Well not like the Arse I know. Nothing like those of vs who´ve svpported thovgh thick and thin. We can still see where we are going and we still trvst the driver. Thankfvlly yov fickle lot weren´t arovnd when we weren´t winning anything or ovr core svpporters wovld be like yov lot, spinless!
If my memory serves me right manver won only 1 title in 5 years between 2000-1 2006-7 they nicked the 2003 EPL; I wonder if dvring those years that 1 title was enovgh for them to hold their nerve? Eh Gooners?
Anyway my point is this. ML, you will defend Wenger against any charge no matter how serious. Unlike some others who think like you however you do nopt engage in silly name calling of those who think differently which is why I do respect your views. However you wrote broadly the same things last season and the season before.
Wenger IS a stubborn man, he is also a hypocrite. His charge against other clubs that they are 'financially doped' is a classic Wengerism to detract from hos own failures. He worked for years at the most 'financially doped' club in World football for years at FC Monaco. The fact that he repeatedly failed to win the big trophies despite all the riches (on the back of 5,000 crowds!!!) makes his comments ridiculous.
Arsenal are a financially VERY strong club, that is why we can pay exorbitant wages to poor footballers (Denilson, Vela Merida) from all over the world. He likes players to owe him something as well which is why whe won't buy the likes of Shay Given who are already established in the Premiership but prefers to stick with a guy who struggled to get a game in the Spanish second division.
ML plaese address why we are appalling defensively, why we collapsed winning one game since mid March (1-0 at home to Wolves with 10 men) and why every timec we have a big game he delares that we will show taht we are now ready, before we get the customary thrashing.
Plaese address these points, don't repeat platitudes don't talk about walking into a glorious sunset and DON'T say how lucky we are to have him. He is lucky and priveliged to manage our great football club and he (and his worshippers) should bloody well remember that.
i do hope the bandwagon fans who only started supporting arsenal during the henry & bergkamp days can go & support someone else now..you can do worse than read the article ole gunner linked above..good read.
if you havent read it already:
http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/2010/04/this-team-will-have-its-day/
this whole sky mega hype culture is rediculous..