Arsene Wenger faces another crucial weekend, another game on which everything depends.
Who knows what will happen if Arsenal lose again on Saturday, but it won’t be pretty and if things have been bad so far, they may get even worse. Is there anything Wenger can do? Probably, but the truth is that Wenger is unlikely to do anything that he hasn’t done before. And that’s where the anger comes from. But before that happens or while it’s happening, maybe he could try a few things.
1. Sell – Everyone is telling Wenger to buy, but as big a problem are the players he already has. Wenger likes resisting the demands of the supporters so maybe he should be counter-intuitive and sell a load of players instead. Theo Walcott, Olivier Giroud, Jack Wilshere, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could all go and Arsenal wouldn’t be any worse. These players have to take some responsibility for the belief that a top four place is as good as a trophy (In fact it’s better than some trophies, but a genuine league challenge or Champions League run is needed). Ideally Arsenal would buy some better players, but Wenger could just go with some players from their academy. If you’re going to win nothing, you might as well do it with kids.
2. Buy – Ok, spend some f***ing money. Buy the players the supporters all think you should buy. Turn around and take the A4 page from the supporter at the Emirates who has helpfully broken down the deal under various headings, hand it over to Dick Law and tell him you don’t want to see him again until he’s returned with Karim Benzema, Riyad Mahrez, Gonzalo Higuain and anyone else who may or may not be available. If this doesn’t happen, maybe the supporters should try a different approach. It’s clear that Wenger feels resisting the collective will is an important part of his job so instead of telling him to spend, they should tell him to save. They’ve tried everything else. It’s so crazy, it just might work.
3. Befriend Jorge Mendes – Unlikely to happen, but it’s not as unlikely as befriending Piers Morgan and Wenger has to start somewhere. Wenger has set himself in opposition to this approach to team-building as he doesn’t feel it includes team building at all. The romantic in Wenger sees the world differently, but the world has changed and a connection with someone like Mendes could increase the quality of the players Arsenal can attract. Look how things have changed for Ed Woodward since he got Mendes on speed dial. Actually, don’t make that point to Wenger.
4. Listen to the internet – All the answers are there, all the answers are on Arsenal Fan TV. This is the calamitous position Wenger finds himself in. Everybody knows what he should do and the more that everybody knows what he should do the more certain Wenger is that he should do the opposite. You can see his point. If everybody is an expert then nobody is an expert. Except Wenger.
5. A striker, good God man, sign a striker – The failure to sign Luis Suarez in 2013 may be the greatest mistake of the late Wenger era. Imagine Theo Walcott. Then imagine Theo Walcott trying to impress Luis Suarez. Everything changes. Suarez is mad, bad and dangerous to know. Arsenal made a mess of that deal and they failed to sign Jamie Vardy this summer, another player with unpleasant aspects to his personality who could have change the emphasis at the club.
6. Retire – Sadly, this may be the thing Wenger has to do to fix Arsenal. He isn’t going to change, he probably isn’t going to go on the kind of spree that supporters demand and having failed last season, it’s unlikely Arsenal are going to get a chance to win a major trophy Wenger’s way. The sadness is that the opportunities to fade away gracefully appear to have gone. When Arsenal won the FA Cup in 2014, this would have been the perfect chance to retire with thanks and good wishes. But there is a part of Wenger – a commendable part – which feels he can still win his way. The world would be a better place if that were true, but unfortunately the world is a nasty place. And it may be that Wenger’s way is no longer effective.
