Where do you stand on Arsene Wenger? He certainly divides the opinions of Arsenal fans, but you can't deny some of his achievements. There's a great article here on the numbers behind is 20 year reign - http://www.thestatszone.com/articles/20-years-at-arsenal-wenger-by-numbers Nice to see some proper stats rather than biased journalism. I for one think Arsenal are lucky to have him!
I think too much fault of the Arsenal club is laid at the feet of Wenger. I think the true problem is more on Stan Kroenke who seems to have forgotten just how good Arsenal can be. How Arsenal can be one of the largest, most successful clubs in the world. I think Kroenke only cares really about making money, and the move from Highbury to Emirates. Wenger said that he wanted to offer Antoine Griezmann 100million this year but the board wouldn't approve. Its a line of thought that is "top 4 is all we want". 15 years without a title for a team that used to be as dominant as they were isn't good enough. I also think Wenger isn't given the credit for navigating the move from Highbury to Emirates and the financial issues it created. 20 years of UCL football. Go look at the inconcisistency of Chelsea and Man City - look at how much Man City spent last year and Arsenal still finished above them. Man U even missed UCL this year. I think Wenger is a very good manager. I think he understands you cant just buy the best players because egos don't work like that. His move to using Alexis as a false 9 type role this year is paying dividends like none other. The addition of Xhaka and Mustafi have now combined for 4 clean sheets in a row. Then you have the emergence of Iwobi and other youth guys and Perez really starting to get acclimated. I think if you paired Wenger with a guy like Dangote, who has a plan to buy Arsenal in 3 years, and offer a little more flexibility you could put together a team that is DEADLY. I kinda did it with my Arsenal CM on Fifa... You could feasibly offload Cazorla (getting old), Monreal (Old), Mertesaker (old) and maybe make some money on Joel Campbell and turn around and go get a guy like Marco Reus to pair with Ozil... You could pair Olivier Giroud with cash for Griezmann Could you Imagine Wenger with this: Griezmann Sanchez, Ozil, Reus Xhaka, Coquelin/Ramsey New LB, Mustafi, Koscielny, Bellerin Cech But Kronke wont shell that out.
I'm not going to blame Stan for running a business profitably. That's his prerogative, and it's not like he's hurting our competitiveness or anything. He's not making us service any non-Arsenal debt, or taking out such large amount of money that we can't compete. Any football club that runs as a business will always have a disadvantage against teams that run as playthings. Among the "run-as-a-business" club, we're one of the most financially powerful in the world already.
Yes, but this is ultimately about silverware. Its about winning the league, something we have not done in 14 years. I mean sure we managed to see some success in the FA cup but that really means jack. You can be financially powerful all you want....but Arsenal charges its fans more for tickets to see the type of players we have than Barcelona and Real Madrid. Compare the personnel and trophies of those clubs. Last year was literally the perfect year for us to finally win the BPL and we came in 2nd 10points..... yes 10... behind Leicester.... You see it in all of the teams the Kroenke family owns.... Denver Nuggets (NBA) - Colorado Avalanche (NHL) - Colorado Rapids (MLS) - LA Rams (NFL) Arsenal (EPL) What do all those teams have in common in the past 15 years? All have money, but haven't wont jack shit. Being happy with Mediocrity instead of striving for greatness.
I don't know about his non-Arsenal holdings, but was Stan the reason we didn't win the EPL last year? Are we going to dislike any owner who refuses to run a loss on his business? There is no evidence whatsoever that Stan is the reason for us not winning, unless we set the bar Abramovich high. Wenger's job is to win with the resources he's been given, which is quite a lot, definitely more than Dortmund or At. Madrid.
There are imho in brief two sides to this story (as far as I can tell or know). One is that a lot points at a declining overperformance during his 2nd half of his EPL stay - but so did Ferguson after the first 10 years. The 2003-04 unbeaten team is probably the 2nd most overachieving team after Leicester of past season (measured by budget, transfers and wages). The other side of the mirror is the new stadium and the infusion of 'unlimited' money by the oil barons (including unscrupulous business practices - Wenger has been for a top tier manager fairly outspoken about integrity issues during the past 10 years). Add to this the inflation in wages and transfer spending. I read somewhere (if necessary I can find back) that the spending for one of Henry or Bergkamp would equal 95+ million pounds today. That seemed absurd to me but then I thought "hmmm, top 10 player of their generation (born 1977 and 1969 respectively) - maybe 95+ million would make sense". On top of that a player as Sol Campbell would earn at least 200000 pounds a week today. I read that both Ozil and Sanchez are eyeing 250000 a week each (70000 above the earlier offer for improvement), but the current inflated and pyramidal wage 'market' will require those type of wages for positional greats as a Campbell (top 10-15 of their generation in their own position). Currently none of the Arsenal players earn more than 140000 pounds a week. That number might be inaccurate, but it's a long way off from what it would be if the earlier years are extrapolated to today. This doesn't rule out as well that Wenger is still overperforming somewhat. Please correct me if I'm wrong or incomplete. That's right, but Wenger is also dealing with more competitors on about equal/similar footing. While e.g. Valencia and Sevilla are in turn some way off from Atletico. Atletico their wage bill is some 40-50% higher as the one of Sevilla! More money to spend on players, bungs whatever.