Au Revoir, Arsene

Hey everyone, Josh here. We yet again have a guest submission from my brother, Joel, who was the driving force behind my family supporting Arsenal. With Arsene Wenger’s last match done and dusted, Joel took the time to share his thoughts on Arsene’s departure. 

As an American kid who didn’t have the channels to watch the Premier League growing up, I lived for the World Cup. My first memory of top-level soccer was France 98, and the player who most quickly caught my eye was Dennis Bergkamp. After suffering through a dismal performance by the US team in that tournament, I adopted Bergkamp’s Holland team and rooted for them all the way to the semi-finals.

Bergkamp’s sublime skill was a sight to behold, and after Holland lost to Brazil on penalties, I decided I wanted to support whatever club Bergkamp played for, too. With a little research on my FIFA 98 video game, I found out that Bergkamp’s club was the Arsenal.

For years I considered myself an Arsenal fan, but I didn’t have the channels to watch any of the games, so my fandom basically extended to video games and keeping tabs on results by periodically checking the Premier League website. For all intents and purposes, I didn’t truly become an Arsenal supporter until I went to college in the fall of 2005, when I was introduced to shady Chinese websites that could stream Arsenal games on my computer at 6 in the morning on a Saturday.

I give this background to explain that I was not fortunate enough to experience the insane highs of Arsene Wenger’s first 8 years at Arsenal. I knew about the great Arsenal teams of the late 90s and early 2000s, but I didn’t get the chance to regularly watch them. And I think my perspective on Arsene Wenger’s recent resignation is different than most Arsenal supporters for this reason.

The “Wenger era” I experienced was a decade of mediocrity, underachievement, excuses, indulgence and a deteriorating football product. 

I watched a team whose flaws were consistently and ruthlessly exploited by every half-decent manager in England, and even a few bad ones. A team that let its fans down horribly in 4 out of 5 big games against top opponents every year. A team that could only narrowly secure Top 4 finishes against average Tottenham and Aston Villa teams led by Harry Redknapp and Martin O’Neill. A team that celebrated achieving the minimum expectation for the season like they had accomplished something special every spring. A team that consistently could not convince world class players to stick around.

Without a doubt, English football would not be the global juggernaut it is today without Arsene Wenger. When Wenger was hired 22 years ago, English football was in the stone age–dismissive of foreign coaches and players and lagging behind the rest of the world as a result. Wenger’s swift success forced English football to broaden its horizons and open its doors to the most talented players and coaches from all over the planet–they had to in order to compete with Wenger’s Arsenal.

As a result the Premier League became the deepest and most exciting league in the world during Wenger’s reign, and its global commercial power has exploded in recent years. New broadcast contracts in the American and Chinese markets have made English clubs the richest in the world by far. So all English football fans–no matter what club they support–have benefited massively from Wenger’s influence on the English game.

But as the quality of football steadily improved in England, Wenger’s teams could no longer compete at the top level. First Chelsea, then Manchester City, and now both Liverpool and Tottenham have surpassed Arsenal in the English pecking order. Financially, Arsenal grew into one of the 5 biggest clubs in the entire world under Wenger. But competitively, Arsenal stagnated and declined, and today the club isn’t even in the top 5 of England.

Wenger’s resignation is long overdue. His last two contract extensions were colossal mistakes made by Arsenal, especially the 3-year extension in 2014 when Jurgen Klopp was out of contract and available. The Arsenal team was much younger and deeper–ready to compete at the highest level–in 2014 than it is today.

Wenger’s mismanagement of the club’s resources in the last 4 years has made the job a lot more difficult for his eventual successor. Sizable financial investments were made in very mediocre players, such as Shkodran Mustafi and Granit Xhaka, who look unlikely to ever live up to their hefty price tags. Past-their-prime veterans such as Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal and Olivier Giroud were entrusted very late into their careers by the manager instead of finding and developing younger players who could lead the club forward in the future.

The end of Wenger’s reign at Arsenal is strikingly similar to the end of Sir Alex Ferguson’s tenure at Manchester United. Ferguson, determined to “go out on top,” mortgaged the future of his club in order to achieve immediate success. Talented prospects like Paul Pogba sat on the bench behind veterans Ferguson trusted completely, like Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs. The only reliable defenders on Ferguson’s final teams were all well past 30 and on the downside of their careers. Ferguson bought Robin van Persie right after making a gigantic financial investment in Wayne Rooney, disrupting the chemistry of his attack and relegating one of the highest-paid players in the world to squad player status. In all, Ferguson’s final teams were built to win right away, and worry about the consequences later. As a result, when David Moyes took over, Manchester United plummeted down the table.

Wenger has done the same thing, but without Ferguson’s success. Wenger prioritized veterans he trusted over new better options for the future. The key defenders in Wenger’s final team are all at the end of their careers. And Wenger spent over 100 million pounds on two players who play the exact same position in the last 10 months. Like Ferguson, Wenger has prioritized the present above the future for the last 4 years. But unlike Ferguson, the risk did not pay off. The club has dropped down the table under Wenger and now has no chance of making the top 4, just like United did with Moyes.

In the past few days I’ve seen, heard, and read a lot of emotional eulogies thanking Wenger for his service to the club. Without a doubt, Arsenal–and all of English football–should be grateful for the influence Arsene Wenger had on this club–and on the sport as a whole–20 years ago. But the recent years shouldn’t be glossed over, either. Arsene Wenger has not pushed this club forward at all in the last decade. He’s held this club back.

So the only emotion I feel today is sympathy–sympathy for the supporters of whatever club Wenger manages next.

Au revoir, Arsene. Better late than never.