'Wenger out' - Only way forward for Arsenal

Not even accomplished soothsayers can foretell what the future holds for Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, but even a pop-corn seller at Hornsey Road can assert with confidence that there is not an ounce of scope for sporting advancement for Arsenal, let alone silverware, under Wenger's reign. The north-London outfit last won the league in pre-historic times when Lionel Messi was yet to get a first team debut (October 16, 2004) for FC Barcelona and Zinedine Zidane was still a Los Blancos player. 

Since the last decade, Wenger has managed to successfully drive home a myth that Arsenal no longer can bid for the Premier League title and a top-four finish is equivalent to achieving silverware. This mentality needs to change. Back in 2014, when Wenger signed a three-year contract for £22.5m, he urged to be judged on Arsenal’s sporting success in terms of silverware and progress in Champions League at the end of his tenure. Three years hence, Arsenal have crashed in league games to teams like Watford, West Brom, and Crystal Palace which have crashed their hopes to even get a hand on their ‘fourth place trophy’. On the European front, they have not progressed further than the Round of 16 stage, and in the recent edition they have been down-trodden and humiliated by Bayern Munich putting 10 past them over the two legs. 

Wenger’s relations with senior players have turned sour and Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Hector Bellerin have started to sniff out possible exit routes from the club. Missing out on a top four finish would further embolden their decision to head for greener pastures as bigger clubs with heavier pay packets are encircling like scavengers on their prey.  Financially, they would lose around £50m if they miss out on the Platinum membership of European football and get relegated to Thursday-night football. Although for a team like Arsenal, who can delve deep in their purse, the financial loss might not burn a hole in their pocket but for the 'Wenger Out' brigade this would be the final nail in the coffin. 

Wenger, was at his defiant best after Chief executive Ivan Gazidis’ proposal of working with a director of football and said, "As long as I’m manager of Arsenal football club, I will decide what happens on the technical front. That’s it". It’s evident that Wenger is sounding like a losing tyrant who is desperate to continue his monopoly even if the club suffers in the long race. It seems that the sun has already set on the Frenchman’s days of tactical innovation and his policy to switch to a back three against Tottenham has only exposed Arsenal’s defensive hollowness. When Arsenal stood second in the league in the previous campaign, they were already out of contention by March, but Wenger’s team took the moral high ground that their football is fluid, fluent and not punctuated by defensive tactics like Mourinho’s ‘parking the bus’ ploy. But in this campaign, they have lost their fluency on the pitch and each tactical revision has seemed nothing better than a clown strutting and fretting in a musical opera. 

The ‘fab four’ have long been dismantled. But Chelsea and Manchester United, and to some extent Liverpool, are doing all that they can to ensure that they bounce back with verve and gusto. United first pinned their hopes on David Moyes as ‘the chosen one’ but were swift to replace him with Louis Van Gaal, and thereafter brought in Mourinho to change their fortune. Chelsea, on the other hand did not hesitate to sack Mourinho when they finished 10th and roped in Antonio Conte who would then lead them to the promised land. It’s not that playing musical chair with the managerial position is the solution but sometimes when you come to a stand-still and start gathering moss, you realise that things need to be changed to start rolling again. Arsenal’s balloon of self-imbibed complacency has been pricked as they have been jostled out of the elite club of top four which they stuck to in the entirety of Wenger’s 21-year rule. 

A strange circus continues at the Emirates, where the performance of the ring master is not judged by the audience but by the ring master himself. He himself sets the goals, he fails to deliver despite spending fortunes at transfer windows, but still sticks to the chair. Although there is a board of directors who remain at the helm at Arsenal, their opinions hardly count. And even though Arsenal's chairman Sir Chips Keswick assured that “Wenger will not decide his future alone”, it is well known that the man who can decide Wenger’s future is Stan Kroenke, who continues to be a fan of the Frenchman and still believes that Wenger is the right man to take the club forward. 

Can things change? 

Reports surfaced that, Alisher Usmanov, a Russian steel magnate, who owns a minority stake at the club has offered $1.3bn to take over the reins from Stan Kroenka, who at first was not dismissive of the idea but later showed little enthusiasm to dispose of his shares to either Mr. Usmanov or any other bidder. So, Wenger who was to announce his decision “very soon” has now decided to halt the announcement until the board meeting after the FA Cup final, where Usmanov’s bid is set to take the board members by storm. 

Wenger’s Arsenal at 2017 lack the urgency to lift themselves up and pull out the fatal knock-out punch after they were painted flat by Bayern and Chelsea. They are far from being the perfectionist that characterised the “Invincibles” of the 2003-2004 season. Sol Campbell got into a dressing room brawl with goalkeeper Jens Lehmann after they drew 2-2 at White Hart Lane in the final game of the season, just because Lehmann gave away a penalty at the dying moments of the game. Now, even when they find themselves not only behind Tottenham in the league table but also out of the top four, players will remain busy with their agents seeking a possible departure rather than huddle together and introspect on their slip-ups.