I think Sunday afternoon was, by some distance, my favourite home game since Arsenal moved to Emirates Stadium. Perhaps ‘favourite game’ isn’t the right phraseology, ‘favourite occasion’ seems more apposite. There was an unashamed air of celebration, of nostalgia and of gratitude. It was as close as the Emirates has ever come to a carnival atmosphere.

The mood of joie de vivre provided a stark contrast to the more typical mood music of recent seasons as Arsenal’s decline gathered pace. Since the New Year, banks and banks of empty seats have grown ever more visible, as apathy gnawed away at the fanbase. Those hardy souls that did turn up, seemed to do so out of a sense of obligation as opposed to enjoyment.

Around me, I began to form the impression that some people actually revelled in the misery, that it became their reason for going in the first place- to vent some spleen. And yet, it feels, to me at least, like the mood of the Emirates has been miscast in recent seasons. There has definitely been some grumbling, some empty seats and a general undercurrent of discontent.

But none of it ever really boiled over en masse beyond some loud tutting and sighing. If the Emirates had been a person, it would have been Mark Hughes- permanently wearing the grimace of a man who is mildly inconvenienced. It never became truly mutinous- and a lot of that was down to the level of reverence that Arsene Wenger still holds with the majority of Arsenal fans.

I have watched him rescue enough AGM’s from the ghastly forked tongue of Sir Chips to see that the undercurrent of respect and affection always remained for many. The Emirates is not and never has been the bubbling cauldron of hatred and loathing that many would have you believe. In April 2016, prior to the ‘It’s Time For Change’ protests, I predicted that they would not gain much traction on the Arsecast.

This was because the home fans are not for turning in this way (and this isn’t me cocking a snook at those that did protest). The make-up of the Emirates crowd just never felt to me like a fertile ground for active protest. The away fans turned some time ago, and volubly too, the atmosphere at away games turned audibly sour.

Though no longer outwardly supportive of Arsene Wenger, the Emirates never broke ranks into outright opposition. On Sunday, all of that pent up anxiety and desperation melted away in the North London sunshine. No matter your position on the manager, Sunday was a chance for thousands of people to leave their reservations at the turnstile and celebrate.

Sunday showed us not to view the foam mouthed minority as representative, it showed us not to conflate a handful of people on twitter with the stadium. Those that clacked their tongues and accused Arsenal fans of hypocrisy for showing thanks to their long serving manager not only lack the capacity for nuanced thought, but they are guilty of believing the hype.

They are guilty of reading one too many “Arsenal twitter reacts” articles and tarring an entire fanbase with the same brush, of believing the darkest recesses of their twitter mentions represent anything other than splinter factions. On Sunday, the long silenced majority sang up in tribute to Arsene Wenger in recognition of his past achievements.

Those that very vocally wanted him to leave got their wish and had every reason to join the celebration. Those, like me, who have wanted Arsene to leave for a little while but refused to take against him out of respect, were able to untie that knot in their stomachs and express their gratitude again. If I could describe Wenger’s Emirates curtain call in one word, it would be ‘liberation.’ (If you were especially unkind, you might even call it an ‘exorcism’).

And that also goes for the man himself, who finally looked happy again. It has been painful to see him so pained so often in recent years. From my perch in the East Stand, he looked at ease on this occasion. In fact, during the lap of appreciation, he looked as though he was lapping up the appreciation in a way that slightly surprised me.

I expected him to feel uneasy about what was ostensibly a wake for his tenure. Even in Arsenal’s worst season for nearly a quarter of a century, without a Europa League Final to look forward to, the occasion did not lose any of its gravitas. Suddenly it felt ridiculous to have fretted so much about the epilogue of this particular opus.

I don’t doubt that the sudden timing of the announcement in April was concocted with the Atleti tie in mind. I think Arsenal and Arsene probably wanted to try and create some momentum for his sagging players. In the end, it proved in vain, but as much as it would have been nice to see Wenger leave with the FA Cup hoisted above his head last year or in 2014, at least on Sunday, we knew it was the final curtain call and it created an unforgettable occasion- an outpouring even.

There was a palpable sense of history in the air as a result. That’s why programme queues snaked endlessly near the stadium walls. Arsene Wenger’s final home game was an historic occasion- especially in the social media age of instant documentation. Just saying you are there is enough in the ‘experience economy’.

It’s also true that much of the atmosphere was driven by excitement for the future again. Wenger’s presence had become obstructive to optimism, as groundhog seasons piled upon groundhog seasons. His departure sets us free, it allows us to speculate and wonder how things will be done differently next season. It might not even be much better, but it will be different and that feels like enough.

That baked itself into the generous mood on Sunday afternoon. Little things that had all but disappeared, like applauding the subs as they came to warm up, like imploring the manager to “give us a wave” all came gushing back again. Wenger has always looked and felt a little awkward about being the centre of attention, but he genuinely seemed to enjoy it on this occasion (and rightly so).

I hope that was a manifestation of his own internal liberation. I’m glad he got the opportunity to see that, for most of us, it was never personal and that the respect for his achievements and his personality remained. I hope that he no longer views a life without Arsenal with trepidation. I hope he begins to regard his future with excitement and anticipation again, now that he no longer has to drag this sizeable ball and chain at his ankles.

But most of all, I hope he is happy in whatever it is that comes next. He deserves it. Merci Arsène. It won’t be the same without you.

Follow me on Twitter @Stillberto– Or like my page on Facebook.

Renowned Arsenal historians Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews and I have written a book about the tumultuous early years of Arsenal Football Club covering the period 1886 – 1893. ‘Royal Arsenal- Champions of the South’ is available for pre-order here.

Welcome to another episode of the Arsecast – the Arsenal podcast.

This is a bit of a strange one: the last ever Arsecast with Arsene Wenger as manager. He’s been a constant throughout the lifetime of this show, so I chat with James from Gunnerblog about that, this long goodbye we’ve had with him, some typically wonderful press conference stuff from the boss, and what comes next.

Then I chat with writer Tom Williams about his excellent new book ‘Do you speak football?’. This is a glossary of football words and terminology from around the world. How many different ways can you say nutmeg? Why is a clean sheet unique to English? And what on earth is a BATTLE PIG? Find out more in the show. There’s also a final farewell to a long time Arsecast character, not so regular anymore, but he pops in at the end to say his goodbyes.

Follow James @gunnerblog, Tom is @tomwfootball, and if you can’t find his book in your local independent bookshop, you can get it here (but if you can, get it from an actual shop, it’s better for everyone).

You’ll find all the download and subscription links below, and you can always subscribe in your favourite podcasting app by searching for ‘arseblog’ or ‘arsecast’. All our archives are found on site or via our Acast page, and if you are a regular listener via iTunes, if you would be so kind as to leave a review/rating that would be greatly appreciated.

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“I have some work to do in France on Monday and Tuesday and after I will come back and clear my office. And that will be it. After, I don’t know.” – Arsene Wenger 10.05.2018.

In all the sentiment of the manager’s departure, that line from yesterday’s press conference really hit me yesterday. We’ve dealt with the success, the failure, the ups and downs, the highs and lows, but I’m not sure how much time we’ve given to considering the practicalities of it.

For example, if you had to clean out your office after 22 years of working in one place, what would it be like? How much stuff have you accumulated over that time? Bits of paper in drawers, a ‘filing system’ that only you understand, odds and ends, bits and peices. All of that has go in a box, or boxes, and then what? And where?

When you recall what he said a couple of weeks ago about how he works ‘seven days a week, not six, not six and a half, seven …’, then this is going to be a difficult thing for him. He is so tied to this job and this club. We all know it, of course, but even so yesterday’s slip of the tongue when talking about was still really quite endearing.

“Yes, you have see the real Arsenal Wenger,” he replied to a question about whether he’d kept some of his emotions in check down the years, hiding away the ‘real Arsene Wenger’. It felt kind of fitting really, because his name is basically synonymous with ours. Or at least it has been for so many years.

Your work is your life, your life is your work, and your routine becomes your safety net in a way. Whatever happens you get up and concentrate on that, you don’t have to think too much about anything else because it’s set in stone. It’s why, I think, he keeps saying ‘I don’t know’ when asked what he’s going to do in the future. He genuinely has no idea because this is as much a change for him as it is for the club and for us.

How could you know what you’re going to do when what you’ve done for so long is not an option anymore? It doesn’t just apply to his work either, but home. Another job could mean moving house, moving country, speaking a different language every day, there’s a lot going on and a lot to consider, and it can’t be easy.

Nevertheless, Wenger was in great form at his press conference yesterday. If you haven’t had a chance to watch it, you can do so via the official site, and we have a full transcript of it over on Arseblog News too. Speaking about his departure, he said:

It’s difficult because this is my life every year. There are 20,000 trees out there. I saw every one like that [makes small gesture], now they are massive. I will greet every one of them before I leave and say thank you. This is my life and I don’t know anything else. That’s why it will of course be difficult.

I so like the idea of Arsene talking to the trees. My dad tells a story about how, one Christmas Eve, he found me in the front garden talking a tree, but those were very different circumstances. The manager talked about the growth of the club, where it can go from here, and even the future of the Premier League:

The next evolution? Maybe I will see you in a few years and you will have certainly a European League over the weekends, the domestic league will certainly be played Tuesday and Wednesday. I think that’s the next step that we will see.

Whether that’s good or bad we’ll have to wait and see. I suspect it’s bad for the game, bad for fans, probably bad for players, but good for clubs and those who hold broadcast rights. Football as entertainment more than sport, but that’s the way it’s been going for some time now anyway.

He even had some fun with the press when asked why he has his press conferences at 8.45am (most clubs/managers tend to have them later in the day than that):

First, I like that you have to get up early. I know that in the press, nobody likes to get up early, they usually started at 10 or 11. So it’s to make you suffer a little bit as well. I know if I start early, you won’t all turn up so it’ll be a bit easier for me.

The best part, of course, is that they’re set for 8.45am but he usually made them wait. ‘Arsene Wenger late for his press conference bingo’ is a game you can play on Twitter if you follow some of the people who are going to be there. Wenger has had some scraps with members of the press down the years, but beyond a minority of dickheads, I think most of them would admit he’s been an engaging, interesting, honest and decent manager and man to deal with.

It’s going to be a strange thing writing this blog and doing the podcast with a new man in charge. He’s been here for the lifetime of this website and next week will be the very first time we do a podcast without him as manager of Arsenal. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just different and something we’ll all have to get used to.

There was but the vaguest mention of Sunday’s game against Huddersfield, a match which has little significance, but one I hope we win because I want Wenger’s last game to be a victory. It means very little in the grand scheme of things, but after all this time it’d just be nice to go out with three points.

Then out into the grounds of London Colney to say goodbye and thanks to all those trees.

—

For extra reading this morning, Tim’s column this week is excellent, looking back at last Sunday’s celebrations, and I also really enjoyed this from the official site about the manager and his dealings with the in-house web/media team.

For now though, I’ll leave you with this week’s podcast in which I chat to James from Gunnerblog and Tom Williams about a superb new football book which I think you’ll enjoy. Happy listening, more here tomorrow.

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Morning all. I’m sitting here with a very energetic and very mischievous puppy at my feet so writing is something of a challenge. Having already dug up half the garden, she is now in the process of chewing anything, and I mean anything, that she feels like chewing.

Tables, cables, a basket, my foot, her bed, the skirting board, basically anything other than the numerous things that are in the house that are meant for her to chew. Still, just like Arsenal lose away, that’s what puppies do.

Ahead of the final game of the season, Arsene Wenger has been reminiscing again, firstly about Higbury:

Highbury had a special spirit. It’s a cathedral, a church. You could smell the soul of every guy that played there. The Emirates was like buying a new house. It took us a while to feel at home there. It’s a fantastic stadium but there was something special at Highbury that you could never recreate when you build something new.

That was always going to be the trade-off. You lose that sense of history in your ground when build a new stadium, but when you look at what some of our London rivals are doing right now, you have to give credit to the club for making it happen when it did. Sp*rs are spending an absolute fortune on White Hart Lane, something which the manager believes will cost them more than cash, but some of their best players too when the financial realities of spending £800m+ to turn it 90 degrees kick in.

Chelsea too are set for a big job with the price of their work listed as over £1bn in some reports. Roman Abramovich has not been anywhere near as generous with the cash in recent years, this may well be part of the reason why, but even with a benefactor that wealthy, it’s still a massive amount of money for what is, like Sp*rs, a remodelling – whereas Arsenal built an entirely new stadium.

I know it’s coming up on 12 years since we moved to the Emirates, and if we did it now we’d face higher costs, but Wenger and the board saw the way football was going and decided we had to go bigger to compete. What nobody foresaw was the likes of Abramovich, the oligarchs, the nation states, and the rise of the hyper-rich owners.

I don’t know why, really. We’d had people like Jack Walker plough millions into Blackburn Rovers to help them win the league, but he was a fan buying into his own time. The idea of a Russian oil billionaire buying a football club seemed absurd. I mean, we all know the reasons why. It wasn’t about sport or football or love of Chelsea, but a way of adding a veneer of respectability and public presence after the great money grab which saw them become so wealthy (good podcast here from a few months ago if you like).

Even so, there was a sense that new stadium might help us compete, but David Dein summed it up perfectly as Chelsea made an approach to buy Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry from us:

Roman Abramovich has parked his Russian tank in our front garden and is firing £50 notes at us.

He could see that in order to compete while paying back loans on a new stadium, Arsenal needed more. He invited Stan Kroenke to buy the ITV share-holding, then offered to sell him his own shares on the proviso that he be allowed continue at Arsenal, angling for a move from vice-chairman to chairman. He wanted to call the shots.

Arsenal viewed the approach as hostile, Dein was out, and he then tried to do the same with Alisher Usmanov. He sold his shares to the oligarch, this was viewed as hostile again, and the cold-war ownership structure we have now was born. Ironically, neither of the billionaires who own 96%+ of the club have ever put a penny in to make the club more competitive, and while David Dein could see Arsenal needed more, it was a plan which was built around getting more for him too.

The relationship he had with Wenger was a good one though. There are many varying reasons as to why we’ve been less competitive since the move to Emirates, but there’s no doubt that having to operate without Dein made the manager less effective. He no longer had someone who could, in effect, overrule him and make things happen.

Like when he expressed an admiration for Gilberto Silva and Dein went to Brazil, camped out, and came back to London with the World Cup winning midfielder. It’s in stark contrast to Dick Law getting the run around in Costa Rica trying to find the real agent of Joel Campbell and Arsenal signing a player who then couldn’t play for them for work permit reasons, didn’t play for them for three years, and when he did he really wasn’t worth all that hassle.

Speaking about Dein yesterday, Wenger said:

Ideally, I would have loved to continue working with him.

It probably would have been better for Arsenal, but Dein made his bed and had to lie in it, while the club prevaricated and took an age to replace him. Eventually Ivan Gazidis was the man chosen, and there’s no doubt that he and Arsene are a long, long way from the effective, dynamic team that came before.

The relationship between the two men has been strained for some time, and obviously now with the approval of the Kroenke’s Gazidis has been allowed to change the power dynamic at the club. Darren Burgess, for example, was brought in last year as Head of High Performance, without consultation with the manager.

This season we’ve seen the appointments of Sven Mislintat as Head of Recruitment and Raul Sanllehi as Definitely Not Director of Football, and this is the new structure the new manager/coach will work in. I’m told Gazidis himself wants to take a more prominent role in football matters, so that will certainly be interesting.

Some of Wenger’s staff have been informed their jobs will go, as their contracts are tied to the manager’s. We’re heading into a new era, we are where we are because of what has come before, but it’s in our hands now as a club to move forward in the right direction. It’s up the people who have made it clear they’re taking responsibility for that to do it and do it well, and I sincerely hope they do.

Right, that’s that for this morning. Back tomorrow as we preview the final game of the Premier League season and, of course, the final game of Arsene Wenger’s time as manager of the club.

Until then.

Seaman, Dixon, Bould, Adams, Keown, Winterburn, Vieira, Platt, Merson, Hartson, Wright

Subs: Lukic, Linighan, Morrow, Shaw, Parlour

Arsene Wenger’s team for his first game in charge in October 1996. Fast forward (slow forward?) to now, and today’s line-up will also become a pub quiz question. I’m going to see if I can predict it.

Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Chambers, Monreal, Xhaka, Wilshere, Ramsey, Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang, Lacazette

Subs: Ospina, Kolasinac, Holding, Maitland-Niles, Iwobi, Cazorla, Welbeck

Let’s see how many I get right. Also, Cazorla. I know Arsene Wenger said it was ‘too risky‘ but football is about dreams and surprises and even if it’s just 60 seconds at the end so he can get a reception and a chance to pull on the shirt one more time, I think we’d all love to see it.

That’s my wildcard though, I don’t really think it will happen but you have to have some romanticism. Arsene Wenger has had that down the years at Arsenal, particularly in that period after we moved to the new stadium and he tried to build that young team. His idea of collectivism, learning together, growing together, developing together and ultimately winning together didn’t quite come to fruition.

I often wonder if one or two things had gone a different way how the Wenger story might have gone. The 2007-08 season when Eduardo’s injury had such an impact, but also injuries to Bacary Sagna and Mathieu Flamini played a part as we fell away and United won a title that we should have.

2011 when the trophy drought stuff was in full effect and we played Stoke a week after beating Barcelona 2-1 at the Emirates. Sebastian Squillaci scored the goal, but Cesc Fabregas went off with a hamstring injury and then missed the Carling Cup final against Birmingham that Sunday. With him I think we’d have won that game, and perhaps that might have changed the trajectory too.

It’s IFs and BUTs though, those things didn’t happen, and they’re as much part of the Arsene Wenger story as everything else. I’ve often thought back to 1980 as season which, unwittingly to me at the time, provided me with some real education as a football fan. My first vivid memory of Arsenal is 1979 and the FA Cup final. That was wonderful, one of the most famous finals ever, with one of the most incredible endings ever.

When you’re 8 years of age it’s easy to think that all finals will be like that, and it’s easy to assume that Arsenal, just because they’re Arsenal, will succeed. A year later we lost the FA Cup final to second division West Ham, lost the Cup Winners Cup final on penalties to Valencia, and then Liam Brady left to go to Juventus.

As a young Irish kid living in England, Brady was my idol. I never saw him play on anything other than the TV, but I knew he was a special player, and the Irish connection to Arsenal made him even more so. So, in that short period of time, we lost two finals and my favourite player and I suppose I was heartbroken, but then come August there was a new season and off we go again.

It gives you some grounding, I think. I often wonder if some of the frustration of the Wenger era comes because the expectations were so high. He set a remarkably high standard from day one, and the first 10 years of his reign we littered with trophies and achievements. As he famously said himself, “If you eat caviar every day it’s difficult to return to sausages.”

22 years at Arsenal – Arsene Wenger’s best quotes

Personally, I much prefer a sausage party to a caviar one, but we know what he means. There’s been some sausage in recent years, but also some caviar too. This insistence on downplaying the FA Cup wins is bizarre to me. There’s a demand to win trophies and when we win them they’re not good enough. I had amazing days out at Wembley with my mates and I watched us win three finals. If that’s not something you can enjoy, I think you might need a new pastime.

The point I think I’m trying to make though, is that anyone who has known Arsenal only through the Wenger era has experienced the ups and downs. Winning things, losing things, seeing your favourite player leave, all of it. More than once. Perhaps – and I say that guardedly – it will be a benefit to the new manager or coach, as people will understand that 100% success 100% of the time is simply not possible.

There are always a few who set unrealistic expectations, and I’m sure there are some out there who see Wenger as the only obstacle to a title win or a Champions League triumph. The idea that his departure alone will usher in a new era of success is fanciful to say the least, there’s a lot more to it than that, but I hope when we move into the post-Arsene era, there’s understanding and patience about how tough a job it really is.

Speaking of which, this Thierry Henry video is really well worth a watch.

I found it very strange last week that people focused on his absence from the Burnley game. He wasn’t there, so what? The day was about Arsene Wenger, not anyone else, and it was a great day out so why worry about something as irrelevant as that? Anyway, he talks really well here about the manager, and also about the way managers are viewed by players and fans.

Finally for today, it was great to chat to Donald McRae of the Guardian about Arsene Wenger. Andrew Allen and I spoke to him about the 22 years, the ups and downs, highs and lows, and what comes next. You can read that here.

So, just a few hours until Arsene Wenger’s final game in charge. We’ll have the final game in charge live blog for you later on too, and all the news, reports and stats over on Arseblog News.

It’s going to be strange to think about Arsenal without Arsene, but from tomorrow that’s what we’ve got to do. For now, however, we’ve got one more game, let’s hope the team can provide him a fitting send off, and we can discuss it all tomorrow here on the blog and on the podcast too.

Have a good one, and enjoy it wherever you are today.

Match report – Player ratings – Video

In some ways the result was the least important part of the day, but Arsene Wenger will, I’m sure, be glad that his final game for the club ended with victory. For him, the most important game has always been the next one and now, for the first time in 22 years, there is no next game.

There is no next season – not at Arsenal anyway – so if you’re going to close the chapter on a remarkable career, there are worse ways to do it. On a warm sunny day, in front of an appreciative crowd – fair play to Huddersfield for how they managed it all – and with a win.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s goal was really very good. Perhaps it was lost in the overall context but the passing, the movement, the outside of the boot assist from Aaron Ramsey, and the darting finish of the striker made it very easy on the eye. That’s 10 goals since he joined now, often playing ostensibly from the left hand side, and while I’m sure Arsene will have regrets as his time at Arsenal comes to an end, I suspect not being able to work with a goal-machine like this is one of them.

Arsene Wenger: By the Numbers

The rest of the game played out, if not quite like a kind of end of season friendly, something close enough. Huddersfield came close to an equaliser a couple of times, but it was mostly about keeping count of how many times David Ospina would go down injured. As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in west, just as grass is green, water is wet, and Jose Mourinho is history’s greatest monster, the Colombian will have a bit of a lie down once or twice a game.

Maybe I am doing him a disservice. Maybe he has extraordinarily sensitive skin and bones and every tiny collision with an opponent hurts like the dickens, but surely we’re at a point now where people will be running books on when he’ll go down. Top markets at this summer’s World Cup include: Top goalscorer, Top assist maker, World Cup winner, and like the classic ‘Guess how many pickled eggs are in this massive jar’, the ‘Guess what minute Ospina needs treatment’ market will be a busy one.

That aside, this game will live in the memory not for the football itself but for the occasion. The very end of the Arsene Wenger era. The manager bowed to the away fans before the game, saying:

It was spontaneous. I know that we disappointed the away fans this season. Many of them live the whole week and save money to travel up to games. It’s part of respect. We had disagreements, which I can accept, but we had one thing in common: we love Arsenal Football Club. I just wanted to share that with them today.

I thought it was a lovely moment. An appreciation from both sides about what the relationship has meant down the years, and I do think the vast majority of fans have always had respect for Arsene Wenger even if they have wanted things to change. There are always exceptions, vocally loud exceptions, but they’re not what this last few weeks have been about.

The manager has spoken about how sad he is that things are coming to an end, but from this remove it has appeared as if he’s he’s enjoyed the celebrations of him and his work at Arsenal since the announcement was made. He looks far less stressed, invigorated almost, and from both sides I think there’s been a considerable measure of healing.

Frustration is always most acute with those you care about, and I believe that’s been the case with Arsene and the Arsenal fans. Now though, even if it’s a decision he didn’t fully make himself, he’s realised that the time is right, and the fact he’s been able to enjoy these occasions with everyone has been wonderful to see.

There was also something special about this final game being at Huddersfield, something Wenger spoke about afterwards. The legendary Herbert Chapman was manager there before he came to Arsenal in the 1920s and had such an impact on this football club. Wenger was not blind to that, saying:

Herbert Chapman, who was maybe our greatest manager, came from here. For me to come here on the last day had a special meaning. When you know the history of our club, for me it has a special meaning. In fact there was a photo just in front of the dressing room where Chapman smiled at me, because he was on the photo.

It’s funny how often these little symmetries occur in sport, and rather than try and argue over who was the greatest, maybe we should just acknowledge two remarkable, brilliant men who had a profound and lasting impact on Arsenal.

Wenger’s legacy to the club is unquestionable in my opinion, and while any manager will have ups and downs over the course of 22 years, what he achieved – both tangible and intangible – will live long in the memory. We’ve done the tributes over the last couple of weeks, I’ve spoken about what he has meant to me and what an impact he’s had on my Arsenal supporting life, so there’s no need to go over all that again.

Wherever he goes and whatever he does next, I hope he has a good time. I’d like to see him succeed. Whether that’s with a national team or another team in Europe, we’ll have to wait and see. This is as big a change for him as it is for us, and it’s quite strange waking up this morning knowing this is the last time I’ll ever write about Arsenal with him in charge.

No more ‘Wenger says this’ or ‘Wenger says that’. No more handbrake. No lacking a little bit sharpness. No mental strength or remarkable spirit. None of the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies that we’ve come to know so well over the course of 22 years. He’s going one way, we’re going another, and that’s the way football works.

It’s been a hell of a journey, one few of us will ever forget. From tomorrow we can start looking towards the future and what comes next, but I think today it’s fitting that we leave the final words to the man himself as he sums it all up in typically classy fashion:

It was my last game after 1,235 times, it’s maybe time, but it was a special day and the players wanted to win the game. Overall I would like to thank everybody. I had fantastic human experiences at the club, above the results. I believe that it was a human adventure for 22 years and I wish everybody well and a lot of success to my club in the future.

—

James and I will be recording the podcast later this morning. If you have any questions or topics for discussion, please send to @gunnerblog and @arseblog with the hashtag #arsecastextra. We’ll have that for you before lunch so stay tuned.

Until then.

Welcome to another Arsecast Extra, the Arsenal podcast, with myself and James from @gunnerblog.

Arsene Wenger took charge of his final game as Arsenal manager yesterday, a 1-0 win over Huddersfield which is discussed briefly, but the main chat is about the occasion, and the fact that the manager is no longer going to be in charge. We talk about his legacy, the season in general and where we’ve ended up (we even leave sentiment out of it for a little while). Then we answer some of the many questions about the pros and cons of Mikel Arteta as the potential replacement, some of the moments of the season, the role of the board in selecting the new man, and loads more.

Remember, you can send us questions via which we’ll try and get to each week. Send them to either @arseblog or @Gunnerblog (or both) using the hashtag #arsecastextra. Best to send them Monday morning so they get noticed more easily.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast Extra on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes).

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Welcome to another episode of the Arsecast – the Arsenal podcast.

On today’s show we have a round-table discussion about the final game of the season and the season as a whole, including Arsene Wenger’s departure and where we go from here. Mikel Arteta’s name is being strongly linked with the job so we discuss his suitability for the job, the pros and cons of a manager who has never managed, the influence of the new football executive structure at the club and how the IRS have a big responsibility to take us forward, the mix of trepidation and excitement is interesting.

Joining me to chat about all that are @eastlower, @LGAmbrose and @Poznaninmypants.

You’ll find all the download and subscription links below, and you can always subscribe in your favourite podcasting app by searching for ‘arseblog’ or ‘arsecast’. All our archives are found on site or via our Acast page, and if you are a regular listener via iTunes, if you would be so kind as to leave a review/rating that would be greatly appreciated.

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Morning all, happy Friday to you all, and we head into the first weekend of the off-season with the focus still on the possible/probable appointment of Mikel Arteta as Arsenal manager.

From what I understand the Spaniard has been in London most of this week, and has been up and down from Manchester a fair bit over the last few weeks, so it seems as if this is something that has been in motion for a little while now. It’s why, when I see stories suggesting Arsenal are going to talk to Thierry Henry about the job, I wonder why I’m seeing that story.

Maybe, just maybe, Arteta has identified him as someone who might work with him – assistant manager perhaps? But then would Thierry give up his job with Sky to play second fiddle to someone else? I’d be doubtful about that. So, his name being out there provides an appearance of a process when I’m not sure there really has been one.

I also think, and this is just my opinion and based on no concrete evidence, that when we’ve heard stories about Luis Enrique and Max Allegri etc, they’ve been designed to make us think the club are considering other options when in reality they’ve been set on Arteta for some time.

Allegri and Enrique have concerns about a management structure in which they’ve spent their entire careers working in? Do me a favour. I posited some time ago that when Arsene Wenger left, the people calling the shots would want to appoint somebody who ensured that the balance of power swung very firmly in their direction. A big-name manager doesn’t do that, and as yet Arteta is not a big-name manager. He’s not a manager at all actually, which I do think is a key factor in this.

Like Tim Stillman in his latest column, I don’t view Arteta as a yes man. From everything I hear about him, he’s a single-minded, strong character – not always a pleasant one either – and won’t be dominated by the likes of Ivan Gazidis. However, there’s no doubt he doesn’t have the pull a more experienced man would have, while another consideration is the cost and it’s hard to escape that as part of the decision making process.

If you hire Enrique or Allegri you’ve got to pay them, and their staff, the kind of salaries their stature merits. If things you wrong, you also have to pay them off, and that could be a considerable outlay. The wildly optimistic counter-point to this is that the money we might save on paying a high profile manager could go into boosting the squad in the transfer market but I’m sure you’ll understand if I take that one with a hefty pinch of salt. And by pinch I mean truckload. A convoy of trucks. On an aircraft carrier with a special compartment for salt trucks.

Still, whatever the rationale – cheapness, madness or, dare we say it, a forward thinking commitment to an up and coming coach who could bring freshness and energy to the team – Arteta was given the backing of the man he could potentially replace, Arsene Wenger. In an interview with beIN Sport, he said of his former captain’s suitability:

He has all the qualities to do the job, yes and I think as well he is one of the favourites. He was a leader, and he has a good passion for the game and he knows the club well, he knows what is important at the club and he was captain of the club. Why Not?

The Frenchman doesn’t seem to think the lack of experience is an issue, pointing to the likes of Steve Bould and Jens Lehmann who might make up part of his backroom staff (although I suspect the former will decide against that), and everybody’s gotta start somewhere, I suppose. Like many I have an underlying sense that this decision is a bit mental but at the same time there’s an undercurrent of excitement about it all because at the very least it’s different and new.

Quite when we’ll find out one way or the other remains to be seen. At this point it looks like it could be next week, but we got a surprise when the Wenger announcement was made, so who knows?

Meanwhile, the soon to be former manager who I guess is technically still manager, said he still hasn’t cleared out his office out and isn’t sure what he’s going to do next:

I haven’t even emptied my desk yet and in a way I am still in a state of shock. I am going to give myself until June 14, the day the World Cup begins, to decide. The question is do I still want to coach, to be on the bench, or is it time to take up different functions? The one thing I can say for sure is that I will continue to work.

But do I want to continue to suffer as much? I want to continue to defend my ideas of football, that’s for sure. Spontaneously, I would say I still want to coach but I can’t really say that yet for sure.

It’s interesting to hear him use the word ‘suffer’, and it’s not the first time he’s used it either. I think it sums up a part of the job very well. You prepare, you coach, you pick your team, and then you have to watch somewhat helplessly from the sideline as 11 millionaires run around make mistakes like twats. It must be hard to deal with.

Yet that suffering is the flip-side of what makes the job an addiction, I’d say. When things go right, when you win, when you succeed and lift trophies, it must make all that other stuff fade away. I’m curious to see what Arsene does. He can only be a short-term manager now, which might alter the way he does the job if he gets on board with another team, and that in itself will be interesting to see.

Finally for today, the transfer shenanigans are starting early, and the BIG news this morning is that Japanese striker Takuma Asano will spend next season on loan at Hannover 96. That’s one that’s going to dominate the social media discussion today, for sure.

For now though, I’ll leave you with a brand new Arsecast, discussing Wenger, Arteta, Gazidis, Raul, Sven and lots more, check it out below:

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It’s interesting to note that after last night’s 2-0 defeat to Manchester United, the pressure is growing on Maurizio Sarri despite just taking over last summer. It wouldn’t be a surprise given their track record if he got fired, because that’s the culture of that club. Remember, they fired Carlo Ancelotti the season after he’d won the double, so anything goes really.

As Arsenal fans we often looked at what was going on at Chelsea with curiosity because it was so far removed from our own experience. We looked for consistency to be the thing that would bring success, Chelsea simply went through managers like confetti until they found one that worked for a while. There is a lot to be said for longevity, for giving someone time to build a team and an ethos, but it comes with its own problems.

If a manager stays too long, the messages stop getting through. Even subconsciously the players stop paying attention, the flaws and weaknesses become systemic, and they’re easy to expose. We saw this under Arsene who we hoped would bring titles because he had certainty of tenure and the time to develop his squad. It didn’t happen, and in the meantime Chelsea chopped and changed and won things all over the place.

Now, of course I understand that there were other factors at play. Chelsea had more money and were quite willing to spend it, and it’s fair to point out that we did have FA Cup wins, but it’s now going to be 15 years without a league win for us when this season ends in comparison with their five Premier League titles since then, so it shows that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. And maybe going through managers isn’t simply a Chelsea thing, but the way that many big football clubs operate.

It’s not always that smart, because it costs you money in pay-offs and all the rest, but I’m curious to see what happens at Arsenal over the coming years and whether the ethos will change. The board which backed Wenger for years is now changing, and the faith in the Frenchman was built, first and foremost, on his quality and success after he took over. From everything I hear KSE believe that it is going to take time to get Arsenal back to where we all want it to be. They cite the length of time it took Liverpool to adjust their trajectory as the kind of model we should follow, which is all well and good but just because it worked that way for them doesn’t mean it’s the only way to go.

The question is: do they see consistency of manager as a key driver to that? If they’re following Liverpool as an example they’ll be aware that Jurgen Klopp was their fourth roll of the dice following the lack of success under Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish and then Brendan Rodgers. It might well be the same at Arsenal where we go through a number of men before we find our managerial porridge which is juuuust right. Each one an incremental shift towards the right man who can then build on what has come before.

It’s also worth remembering that the man now in charge of driving this club forward from a football point of view, Raul Sanllehi, comes from a club whose culture demands success and if a manager is not as seen as up to the task, he’s out the door before his feet can touch the ground. I’m sure he understands that Barcelona and Arsenal are very different institutions, and we can’t operate in quite the same way, but it will surely inform the way he thinks and the decisions he makes.

He spent 14 year at Barcelona, from 2003 to 2017, and he was Director of Football from 2008 onwards. In that time they went through 8 managers. Some successful, others not so much, and the ones that didn’t convince were gone pretty quickly. It does make me wonder how that background will influence his decision making at this club and whether we’ll be quicker to make changes than we might have been in the past.

In relation to Unai Emery, this isn’t hinting at anything or suggesting anything regarding his future, because I think there are some genuinely mitigating circumstances for some of the issues he’s having right now. What we did in the transfer market last January and with the Mesut Ozil contract is clearly hamstringing us now. If, back then, you’d said we can pay £60m for Aubameyang, pay him and Mkhitaryan £200,000 a week and extend Ozil for £350,000 a week, but it’s going to leave us scratching around the next year for sub-par loan deals, I suspect people’s excitement over those deals might well have been tempered a bit. That kind of outlay wasn’t a sign of how we were now going to operate; instead it was the last ditch attempts of the previous regime to steady a ship that was listing heavily in the wrong direction.

This season we’ve had serious injuries to important players and not replaced them, KSE’s 100% control has clearly had an effect, some of the squad Emery inherited are simply not good enough and need to be replaced urgently, and all in all he’s been left a difficult deck to play with. As it stands, being simply one point of fourth heading into the final stretch of the season is not a bad place to be, and unless it all goes horribly wrong between now and May the sensible option is to give him a proper transfer window in the summer and let him build a team with better players.

At that point though, there’s no hiding place. The mitigating factors are gone and it’s all on him. If it works, great. If it doesn’t and next season isn’t one which shows real improvement, expect the hammer to fall. Having spent so many years standing watching it, Arsenal are now a club that will be on that managerial merry-go-round for the foreseeable future, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

That’s just how it works until you find that perfect match.

It feels like it’s a been a really full on week with everything that’s been going on. You don’t really need me to give you a recap, but between Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s situation, UEFA’s dismal response to it, the players hitting out at the absence of one of their teammates, Petr Cech’s Chelsea link which he then dismissed, and everything else, the build-up to this Europa League final has been very … well … Europa League, or something.

On Cech, Tim’s column this week is on the dilemma faced by Unai Emery when it comes to his team selection for Wednesday night. For many, it’s simple: play your number 1 goalkeeper in a final, and Bernd Leno is the number 1 goalkeeper. For a manager, it is a bit more complicated. We can say that he should make his decision on footballing merits alone, which sounds reasonable for a final which means so much and which has such importance, but players don’t exist in a vacuum. He has to consider the human element.

We ran a poll on Arseblog News and 62% want to see Leno start, 38% want Cech in goal in Baku. Personally – and it’s something we discuss on today’s Arsecast in more depth – I’d go for Leno but I would feel really bad for Cech. It’s clear how much this game means to him, and to end his career with a European final win against his former club would be an amazing thing for him. But can we let sentiment cloud the decision making? Then again, what if it is in the stars that Cech’s swansong would be a game like this in which he plays a blinder? Don’t also underestimate the level to which gut feeling comes into things for managers. A cold, calculated head can be overruled by a warm heart.

Going back to Mkhitaryan, there was an assumption that he probably wouldn’t have started this game anyway, but on the podcast Charles Watts made an interesting point about what we did when we last faced Chelsea. Aaron Ramsey basically sat on Jorginho, making life as uncomfortable as possible for the Italian and preventing him from dictating play the way Maurizio Sarri wants him to.

The absence of Ramsey means it becomes a lot more complicated for Emery to replicate that, if that’s what he’s thinking about. Of course, he could be thinking about something different because he might expect that’s exactly what Sarri expects him to do. But maybe he could have performed the classic double-bluff, like putting a retaken penalty in exactly the same spot as the first one with the goalkeeper thinking ‘He won’t do that again, surely!’.

If he is, then we don’t really have a player in the available squad who can do that job without Ramsey. Mkhitaryan has the experience and physical attributes to do it reasonably well; you’d be mad to ask Mesut Ozil to do it and I don’t think Emery is mad; and after that your only other option is Alex Iwobi in a role he’s never really been asked to play before (but one which I think isn’t beyond him if he can maintain his concentration and position discipline). Which is to say that for all the moral and ethical objections we rightly have to Mkhitaryan being out the final, there are some actual footballing ones too. The reality, however, is that Emery will have to find a different solution – whether that’s in terms of personnel or system – ahead of Wednesday’s game, and undoubtedly that’s something we’ll focus on over the coming days.

Maybe that’s what yesterday’s behind closed doors friendly with Austrian side LASK Linz was all about. Part of it will have been a fitness exercise to keep players match sharp after such a long gap between games – and to get more minutes into Danny Welbeck’s legs so he can come off the bench and score the winner – but you’d imagine there was a considerable slice of this which is a tactical exercise and a chance for Emery to work on his final team set-up and system. There have been no reports of any problems or injuries from that game, so hopefully everyone’s in good shape for Wednesday.

Away from Europe, Arsene Wenger is back, having invested money into a new sports data device/website called Playmaker, he was his usual eurdite self when meeting the press yesterday at the public launch. He was interesting on the use of data in football itself, he touched on the Mkhitaryan situation and how he watches Arsenal, whether he wants to get back into management, and lots more. Well worth a read.

I did particularly like this bit though:

I read a lot, do a lot of different sports, daily, so that occupies me. I run 8-10 km a day. I travelled a lot. I did a lot of game observation, charity, many conferences on football, on management, on motivation, on the meaning of life. I personally don’t know what it means … I am always under stress a little bit but what was good is I don’t have to get up or if I have an interesting lunch I don’t have to leave because I have a commitment. I discovered that freedom of time in front of you. It is a good feeling.

To be frank, I was counting on him knowing the answer to the meaning of life. Now our only hope rests with Police Academy star Steve Guttenberg. Anyway, it’s nice to hear from the former boss again, and it’ll be interesting to see if, having enjoyed his time out of the managerial pressure cooker, he decides to get back into it. It’s an interesting thing to see someone who was essentially consumed by work, and couldn’t see anything but that job, realise that there’s other things that can bring you satisfaction in life.

Right, I’ll leave you with our second Arsecast in two days. Lots of Europa League chat, Raul and Vinai, and plenty more with Charles Watts. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the season review podcast with Ken Early you can find that here, but all the subscription/download links for today’s are below. Have a good one!

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Culture change. It’s a phrase that popped up more than once in yesterday’s Arsecast Extra, and this morning as I sat down to write wondering what to do blog about, it was flying around my head. What does it mean though? What exactly is this culture we’re trying to change?

For me, it goes back to Arsene Wenger, and I should point out that this is not to be critical of him, per se. We all know the stories of how, when he first joined the club, he couldn’t believe the training facilities. The players trained alongside students, using a hotel as a base at times, and after the sale of Nicolas Anelka to Real Madrid for £22m, the boss went out and bought Thierry Henry and built a training ground.

“The feel of the place is futuristic, like something by Norman Foster,” wrote Japser Rees in his book ‘Wenger: The Legend”

“The pitches themselves seem to go on forever. They are all in pristine condition, like golf greens, meticulously flat and, in the case of two of them, undersoil-heated.”

We know about attention to hygiene, nobody could come in with their shoes/boots on, the Feng shui, the soothing pastel shades and natural light, the state of the art (at that point) gym, dressing room, and the dietary and training methods Wenger put in place. It revolutionised the club and the players benefitted hugely. The likes of Tony Adams, Lee Dixon, Martin Keown, Steve Bould, Nigel Winterburn, who had come up tough, had their careers extended, and what Wenger wanted to do was create the ideal environment for his players.

There’s clearly a very obvious logic to it. If you give someone everything they need to succeed, from facilities to support staff, physios, belief from the manager, a nice contract so they don’t have to worry about things which might be a distraction from football, and give them a beautiful place to come to work every day, your chance of getting the best out of them are increased.

When you give that to players who have spent half their careers getting changed in prefabs or car parks or on rickety buses or wherever else, you can understand how much it would be appreciated. But over time, that becomes the only thing anyone knows. Perfection. Comfort. Luxury. Warmth.

It’s not to say training isn’t hard or intense or anything like that, but when you always have something you can take it for granted. It’s not special, it’s just normality. Which is fine. Why shouldn’t we want Arsenal players to have great facilities in which to work and train? We can’t take them once a month and make them kit out in an old school then tell them to run up and down the terraces. There are no terraces, and anyway, chances are they’d do themselves in an injury.

Another key element of Wenger’s outlook or philosophy was a lack of confrontation. He himself was famously non-confrontational. It wasn’t that he couldn’t be harsh, he definitely could, but he was never blind to the humanity of players. He treated them like people first and foremost, rather than football robots who have one job and one job only and that’s to win.

Again, it’s admirable, and you could never doubt his desire to win games. He once said, ‘Every defeat is a big scar in my heart here‘, but as time went on, he’d suffer the daggers to the heart, almost shielding the players from the pain. Of course players felt bad when they lost, some more than others, but did they feel bad enough? Crucially, were they made feel bad enough?

Before the Europa League final Petr Cech talked about the difference between Arsenal, where he won an FA Cup winners medal in a final in which he didn’t play, and Chelsea where he won every competition there was to win. Clearly, Roman Abramovich’s money had a significant part to play in that, but so too did the culture in the dressing room. Cech said:

It will sound strange but I think generally at Arsenal there is not enough pressure. Arsene is a real gentleman. As much as he hates losing, he stays a gentleman. If you lose, you win, you lose, you win, he kind of carries on. That’s something I’ve never experienced before.

At Chelsea, at the times when we drew, it felt like a funeral in the dressing room. It was so bad. If we drew against a big team at home, it was like, ‘Oh no, it is impossible we didn’t win at home’. It came from everywhere: the players, the coach. Since the start when I was there, the pressure was there every game.

Back in January, when I spoke to the BBC’s David Ornstein, he had this to say:

Within Arsenal, various people who’ve worked there over the years, have described London Colney as being like an oasis, like a spa, like a holiday camp. It’s a lovely environment, it’s fantastic for players and staff, but is it somewhere that is conducive to ruthlessly succeeding?

And even this week, in his interview with El Mundo, it’s something Unai Emery touched on:

I want to ensure that the defeats hurt more, because it is a step to improve competitively. I want the mourning of defeat to be greater than two hours.

Whatever you think about Emery, that’s a point of view we can all identify with. Defeat at Arsenal hurts, but it’s as if it’s the sting of a nettle, a temporary irritation that will go away and look there’s always the next game and sure even if we don’t do what we wanted to do this season we can all come back next year and give it a jolly good try. It shouldn’t be like that. It should sting like a team of fire ants snapping at your helmet, and if you don’t achieve the season’s goal then some of you aren’t coming back at all and you’ll be shipped off somewhere else and replaced.

Players are too comfortable. Too sure of themselves. There is not enough accountability, and while I have doubts about Emery there’s something in the fact that he’s identified this as a problem that gives me a bit of hope. We can all see that there some in this squad who are strolling, who don’t take enough responsibility on the pitch or in the way they assess their own performances, and the first thing you have to do is demonstrate a ruthlessness and ship those players out. That’s the first message you need to send. This attitude, this approach, is no longer acceptable.

I have no idea how this summer will go. We have new people running this football club now, and while they can talk the talk, we have no idea yet if they can walk the walk. The cynical side of me thinks they’ve simply bought into the existing culture of saying the right things but never having to deliver, but time will tell and in a relatively short period we’ll have a chance to judge their work properly. Our transfer business in and out this summer will be telling.

The concern, for me at least, is that it’s very hard to change the overall culture of a club when the people who own it have no particular interest in making that happen. Much like the modern players who only ever knew the serenity and beauty of Wenger’s new training ground, Kroenke has only ever known five-star Arsenal. The shiny new stadium, the relentless top four finishes, the ever-increasing TV revenues and property value increases. The same with Ivan Gazidis who arrived to become CEO of a luxury, fine-dining, corporate hospitality brand, with no concept of understanding of what it took to get there.

They didn’t know anything about the long hours, the planning, the scrabbling for finances to build the Emirates, the monumentally difficult decision of sacrificing Highbury – our home – to push the club forward. Those were decisions made by people who cared about Arsenal and who had genuine ambition. Then Stan arrives and Ivan arrives and they think it’s always been like this and they let it stagnate, it’s as simple as that.

What is becoming very clear though, is that unless someone does something about it, and quickly, the value of Arsenal as a football club will continue to diminish. We’re not even the second most attractive destination in London for players anymore. We can’t rely on the glories of the past to maintain our stature in the game. Someone needs to arrest the slide, bring the concept of reality to the people in charge of this football, and change the culture – because if not, the gap will continue to widen.

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For more on this, the Europa League final, the summer, and where we go from here, check out the new Arsecast Extra. All the links you need are below. And for some extra reading, the final part of Tim’s Baku diary is well worth your time.

Enjoy.

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So, Arsene Wenger has a book coming out. ‘My life in red and white’ is due for publication in Autumn 2020, and chatting about it with James on the Arsecast Extra yesterday, I didn’t realise that all the clubs he’s managed play in some variation of red and white.

Nancy, Monaco, Grampus 8, and Arsenal. I mean, look at the Nancy badge, for goodness sake – how have I never seen this before?

I think that might be an old badge (it’s the one on Wikipedia), the one on their website now is different, but their website address is asnl.net. arsn@ansl.net is how you got in touch with him back then. Anyway, I am very much looking forward to hearing what he has to say in this book, and I suspect it might well be a bit different from the usual football biography. A chronological trip down memory lane would be nice and all, but it doesn’t quite tally with who Wenger is and how he communicates.

The brilliant Dennis Bergkamp book, Stillness and Speed – written with David Winner – was a bit like this, so I’m hopeful we get something similar from Arsene. He’s already set the bar kinda high with that seminal L’Equipe interview, so as much as we all want to hear juicy stories about stuff, I reckon there’ll be more insight into Wenger’s philosophies and outlook on life and how that impacted his job and his work – particularly at Arsenal where he had that measure of control.

That said, there are certainly things I’d love him to cover, so in the absence of any real Arsenal news as this Interlull chugs along, here are some of those.

The early days

We’ve heard from the players about how they were a bit suspicious of a foreign manager coming from Japan to take over. “What does this Frenchman know about football? Does he even speak English properly?,” wondered Tony Adams. In time they came to embrace his methods, his ideas about diet, exercise, stretching, nutrition and all the rest, and they credit him with extending their careers and bringing them more medals and success.

I don’t think we’ve ever fully heard about what Arsene thought of them though. Was he shocked by the way they responded at first, and then later? He has talked about being surprised at how good they are, I wonder does he think they would have been capable of even more if they’d gone down that road earlier. And in general, as one of the very first foreign managers in English football, how did he cope with that, being viewed as an outsider in what was a very parochial environment back then?

Seeing off the big clubs

There was a time when Arsenal had four of the best players in the world in the team at the same time. Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires: three of them testament to Wenger’s sharp eye for talent, and improving players. We know they were all, to one degree or another, coveted by the biggest teams in Europe. As much as we all love Arsenal, there are clubs with more profile, prestige and more money.

How difficult was it to see them off every summer? Vieira in particular was someone who flirted with transfers almost every year, it seemed, so how tough was it to convince them to stay? We paid them well, but the temptation of a Real Madrid and a massive pay increase is hard to understate. It’d be fascinating to get his side of this, and how much his man management skills played a role in keeping them for as long as we did.

The one that didn’t make it

Who was the young player he brought to the club or who came through the Academy that he thought was going to be a star, bit didn’t make the grade? Similarly, who was the signing he made that he had high hopes for but just didn’t produce?

This chapter could be titled ‘How Fran Merida and Stefan Malz broke my heart’.

The Summer of 2011

We knew Cesc was going to leave. We knew Nasri was going to leave. Everyone knew. Why did he say ‘Imagine the worst situation, that we lose Fabregas and Nasri; you cannot convince people that you are ambitious after that’?

Was it a message to the board? What exactly happened that summer? Is it true that one of the main players in the whole thing delayed the departure process by going on holidays right in the middle of negotiations? How on earth did a club like Arsenal end up in a situation like the one we were in at Old Trafford which ended up in that 8-2 spanking? Was the transfer trolley dash as last minute as it seemed? Did we really screw Mikel Arteta by offering to pay him less than he was at Everton at a point when there was no turning back for him if he really wanted to join?

And also …

Park Chu-young

Why?! Although it gave us that incredible video response to a Gunnerblog video, it remains one of the strangest deals I can ever remember Arsenal doing. He made just one Premier League appearance which lasted just 7 minutes, and considering we hijacked his move to Lille at the last minute to bring him to the club, it’s odd how little he played.

The final years

I’m as curious as anyone to know how exactly it all came to an end, but I think I’d be more interested in how his footballing approach changed. He was a manager wedded to a back four, but in those final seasons he used a back three to varying degrees of success. The FA Cup final in 2017 was a masterclass, but it did little to halt our dismal away form which ultimately led us to finish outside the top four for the first time in his reign.

Did he feel he’d lost the players/dressing room? Was he out of his comfort zone using a system he didn’t really believe in? It felt a bit desperate, particularly in the context of the criticism he was subjected to for the way we played, our form, our inability to address key issues on the pitch etc. This does feel like something he could be expansive about if he really wanted.

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There are obviously loads of other things he could, and should cover, but there are just a few to provide some talking points this morning. Feel free to chime in on the arses with your own, and I’ll leave you this morning with yesterday’s brand new Arsecast Extra which will provide some respite from the Interlull. Enjoy.

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The post Arsene Wenger, the book, and the chapters I want to read appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Arsene Wenger has a new job. He is now the Chief of Global Football Development at FIFA. I know it had been reported a bit over the last couple of months, but I have to say it’s still a bit of a surprise that he didn’t give it one last go in the dugout.

I suppose at 70 years of age, and despite looking more buff than most men 30/40 years younger, he reckons the day to day pressures of football management are a thing of the past for him. He’s had 18 months or so since leaving Arsenal, he can travel, do his TV bits,  and not have to face the intense scrutiny that comes with that kind of job. I wonder does he look at what’s happening now at Arsenal and think ‘I do not want to be where Unai Emery is’.

I think he’s also had some family stuff to deal with, and at this point in his life, you can understand why he’d eschew the cut and thrust of being a manager again. I’m sure he’s had offers, both in the UK and on the continent, but now he’s decided to move into an administrative role.

FIFA say that in this new job, Arsene ‘will be chiefly responsible for overseeing and driving the growth and development of the sport for both men and women around the world.

‘He will also be the leading authority on technical matters, both as a member of the Football and Technical Advisory Panels involved in The IFAB’s review and decision-making process on potential changes to the Laws of the Game, and as chairman of the FIFA Technical Study Group, which has conducted the technical analysis of FIFA tournaments since 1966.’

Given the absolute shambles that is VAR right now, the IFAB thing is interesting. Wenger was long a proponent of introducing video technology to football. Back in 2012, he said:

“It is time for us to help referees and finally opt for video technology. Video will help the referees not to have their authority questioned, it will give them more credit, more authority and less mistakes.”

And on suggestions it might slow down the game or negatively impact the experience, he continued:

“Instant video replays on the demand of the referee. It would not stop the game — it would sometimes give a bigger flow to the game. Why? Because if I am a linesman and an offside situation is a 50-50, I am tempted to stop the game. If I know I have a video behind me, I am tempted to let the game go if I am convinced it is a real 50-50.

“It would improve the flow of the game because you could then check afterwards. Referees talk to players sometimes telling them ‘look, next time, I will have to punish you’. That stops the game. Or goalkeepers who take 30 seconds or a minute to take a goal kick, that stops the game.”

Perhaps he had a rose-tinted view of what using video technology would look like, but even if he thought there might be teething troubles with its implementation, he surely can’t have envisaged the clusterfuck it is in the Premier League this season. Having watched it in the World Cup in 2018, my only real concern was the handball issue which in large part stems from a handball law that definitely needs to be reworked. Other than that it was a bit alien, but in general it functioned pretty well.

Fast forward to now and it’s been a disaster in England this season. Let’s not forget that the Premier League delayed its implementation by 12 months too, giving them more time to make sure it worked and everyone knew what it was about, but here we are in its first season arguing about decisions as much as we ever did before, wondering if someone’s armpit or toe or helmet is a half a millimetre offside. The handball thing is still a mess, and the fact it can take three or four minutes to make a decision is negatively affecting the games, the match-going experience for fans in the stadiums, and for those watching around the world at home.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised, given that the PGMOL have, over the years, demonstrated their ineptitude countless times. It’s difficult to make an assertion about refereeing standards in the Premier League compared to the other big leagues in Europe because I don’t watch those with the same regularity, therefore you don’t get to see the refereeing controversies which must exist there too. However, over the years it feels like that standard of refereeing in England has been in decline – although go back and think about the likes of Graham Poll, Paul Durkin, Mike Riley (now head of PGMOL), Jeff Winter, Phil Dowd – and you realise that crappy refereeing isn’t new.

It does feel a bit crappier now though, and this cack-handed implementation of VAR in which they’ve somehow managed to create issues that are unique to the Premier League is more than likely a reflection on how refereeing in England is managed and maintained. I don’t know what Arsene Wenger can really do about that, as there’s no apparent desire on anyone’s part to question the role of Riley’s fiefdom and the PGMOL, but maybe he can provide greater clarity around VAR and how it should be used.

I guess there are bigger issues involved in ‘overseeing and driving the growth and development of the sport … around the world’, but as VAR is something we’re dealing with on a weekly basis in the English game, and as he’s obviously a keen watcher of it, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of an influence he might have in the months to come. IFAB have already told the Premier League to get in line as to how VAR is used, and nobody who loves or cares for the game can be anything other than concerned about the way they’re using it this season.

So, it’s Wenger IN at FIFA, good luck to him in his new job, hopefully he can sort out VAR, then oust that shiny testicle in charge and take over the whole shebang.

Till tomorrow.

The post VArsene Wenger – FIFA’s new man to destroy Mike Riley appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

It’s Sunday. There’s nothing much happening, so let’s do an ‘On this day’ post from years gone by. I always start these and hope that there’s some interesting stuff to revisit. It’s not as if I look at the stuff first and then think there’s enough to do this kind of post. I suppose it should be the other way around but hey, I like to live life on the edge.

May 24th 2003

Alan Smith reports on a game at the training ground between the coaches/staff:

“One coach, who shall remain nameless, kept on chipping away at Arsene Wenger with painful late tackles.

“The great man took it for a while before turning around angrily and shouting “Why don’t you stop ****** kicking me!”“

I mean, it was Pat Rice, wasn’t it? Nobody else would get away with that. Was Steve Bould on the coaching staff then? I think he might have just started at the Academy. I don’t think we need to look further than those two guys then.

May 24th 2005

I had forgotten all about this:

Tony Adams is now working in a scouting role for Arsenal it seems. Apparently he’s been in Holland looking at striker Dirk Kuyt who has scored 29 goals this season. However, you only need to look at Kezman to see how big the leap from goalscoring machine in Holland to half-decent Premiership player is.

That report came via Sky Sports so it must have had some nugget of truth to it. Kuyt was one of those annoying players who was always very annoying because he was so annoying. He was his own self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, not a true evil like some, but a constant irritant.

He scored that penalty in that game against Liverpool when we scored one of our own deep into injury time but somehow, as only Arsenal Football Club could possibly do, we managed to give them an even later one thanks to Emmanuel Eboue. Kuyt is exactly the kind of guy you don’t want to take that spot kick because you know he’s going to score and, by being an efficient penalty taker, he becomes even more annoying than you thought possible despite the fact you’re mostly thinking that Eboue is the most annoying person on the planet.

Fun times.

May 24th 2006

We’d just signed Tomas Rosicky from Borussia Dortmund the day before.

Unsurprising to see reports of Robert Pires’s imminent departure from the club break last night, yet again. Spanish radio station Cadena Ser last night quoted Villarreal’s president as saying a deal has been done to bring Le Bob to Spain.

We’ll wait for confirmation but if he is going I’m sure he goes with the best wishes of all Arsenal fans who will remember what a brilliant player he’s been for us.

Still, it’s all good now. Robert has his own bungalow at the training ground where he lives now so he can join in training every day. At night he lights a small fire and sits with his scrappy dog waiting for passers-by so he can tell them stories.

May 24th 2008

More shattering departure news as it’s confirmed that Alex Hleb is to leave. Suffice to say I was not crying any tears the way I did about Dreamy Bob:

It’s a shame that Hleb never worked out. He was technically as good a player as I’ve seen in a long time. His close control and dribbling skills were fantastic but he flattered to deceive since his arrival. His failure to score more goals is a big negative and I don’t care what anyone says about him being a provider or the provider for the provider – when you play as a winger/support striker in this Arsenal team a return of 11 goals in all competitions in three seasons is just not good enough.

I stand by that completely, but I do feel a bit kinder towards him in general because of that technique. After a period in which we’ve struggled to find players with that ability – particularly since Santi Cazorla was robbed from us by injury – you get a bit wistful about players who can, you know, pass the ball properly and find space in midfield because they’re not leaden footed oafs. Then I wonder what kind of football cocktail you’d get if you had one part Hleb with two parts Emery, shook it over ice and served it. I don’t think I’d drink it.

What would we call that cocktail? The Dribbly Ebening? No thanks.

May 24th 2012

We’re being linked with free agent Salomon Kalou who is set to depart Chelsea. This led to something of a rant about how difficult it is when your club signs a player you’ve disliked for ages because they play for a club you hate:

Signing complete bastards is hard to take. Sylvester was the prime example. I could not bear him when he played for United. I never understood why he couldn’t close his mouth, his head was overtly large and he once loafed Freddie Ljungberg whilst playing for our biggest rivals. How are we supposed to forget that? The only way we can forget is for the player himself to be awesome and with all due respect to Sylvester, even at his peak he was about as good as finding a bump on the top of your willy then looking on in horror as some kind of evil beetle wormed its way to the surface.

And on that lovely note, I’ll leave it there for this morning. Back tomorrow with more, and we’ll have an Arsecast Extra at some point for you too.

Have a good one.

The post On this day: Arsene gets a kicking, departures and unpleasant signings appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Morning all. 

Blogs is enjoying a well-deserved morning off, so I’ve been drafted in as cover. Rather than break with tradition, I figured I’d stick to previewing tonight’s game. 

Four days after losing 3-1 to Liverpool in the Premier League, we face the Reds at Anfield again, this time in the Carabao Cup 4th Round.

While Mikel Arteta won’t admit it, this is a fixture we could really do without, especially with Sheffield United visiting the Emirates on Sunday and the transfer window closing 24 hours later. 

Liverpool, who play in-form Aston Villa at the weekend, don’t seem that bothered either as evidenced by the fact Jurgen Klopp sent his assistant Pepijn Lijnders to do the pre-game press conference. It’s hardly surprising, remember, this is the side that sent their actual youth team to get hammered in the quarter-finals last season because their senior players were on the other side of the world preparing for the World Club Cup. 

To get that far, the Reds apologetically beat us on penalties after a very entertaining-for-the-neutral 5-5 draw. That game was 11 months ago and is such a blur given everything that has happened since that I just went back and watched the highlights. 

I’d totally forgotten that Gabriel Martinelli scored a brace, that Martinez probably should have done better for two of Liverpool’s goals and that Ceballos missed in the shootout. It also genuinely amused me that Unai Emery was asked in his post-game press conference about his decision to hand Mesut Ozil just his third appearance of the season. 

I suspect the German will be the subject of a question in tomorrow’s post-game press conference even though he won’t travel. I don’t have any inside knowledge on team news, it’s just an educated guess. 

With five players injured – Chambers, Mustafi, Mari, Smith Rowe and Martinelli – and a further five looking like they could leave before the transfer window closes – Guendouzi, Sokratis, Torreira, Kolasinac and Macey – we can rotate most of the starters but the travelling squad as a whole is likely to be pretty similar. 

Based on the side we put out in the last round against Leicester and those who started on Monday, I think we might line up something like this: 

Runarsson 

Cedric | Holding | Gabriel | David Luiz | Maitland-Niles

Ceballos | Willock

Pepe | Nketiah | Saka 

If Aubameyang stays at home, that would leave seven of Leno, Saliba, Tierney, Elneny, Xhaka, Willian, Nelson and Lacazette to make up the bench. We could, of course, take a couple of Academy kids but none featured in the training photos that were shared by the club yesterday. 

As for Liverpool, Thiago has tested positive for Covid-19 and is self-isolating and Jordan Henderson, Joel Matip, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and new boy Kostas Tsimikas are out injured. Wary of fatigue, Ljinders promised a side featuring “a combination of youth and experience”. 

In the last round – a 7-2 win over Lincoln – they left out Mane, Firmino and Salah and started Minamino, Origi and youngster Elliott up top. Having scored on his debut against us, Jota is another option now at Klopp’s disposal. 

If Monday’s game highlighted the gap that still exists between the sides, something Arteta spoke about openly, tonight at least gives us an opportunity to show we’ve learned a few lessons. If you’ve not yet watched Adrian Clarke’s analysis on The Breakdown, it’s worth it. As he points out, we were too slow in possession at the back, not quick enough to apply pressure when Liverpool attacked and we struggled to close the gaps between the lines. 

Let’s see what happens. I can’t say I’d be overly fussed if we went out tomorrow. Then again, if we beat the best team in the country, it wouldn’t just be a feather in our caps, it opens up a real chance of more silverware. It’s amazing to think we’ve not won this competition since beating Sheffield Wednesday in 1993. 

I was at Wembley that day and aside from Steve Morrow’s goal and the untimely demise of his shoulder, my residing memory is of a man behind me calling the referee a ‘sausage maker’ throughout the match. I still don’t have a clue what that means unless he did actually have a job working with processed pork products. It’s strange the things that stick in your head. 

__

With five days left to do business, it looks as though the transfer market is starting to click into gear. Blogs mentioned yesterday that Lucas Torreira and Sead Kolasinac are closing in on moves to Atletico Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen respectively. 

Later in the day, reports also surfaced of Marseille’s interest in Matteo Guendouzi. Having been linked with Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain, speculation over the 21-year-old’s future had died off a bit. Might we now settle for a loan deal in the short-term? Is the Stade Velodrome a suitably glamorous destination for Guendouzi? He’s apparently turned down Valencia, Villarreal and Atalanta already but he might reassess that stance if he can’t make a League Cup squad again. 

As for incomings, Lyon’s president Jean-Michel Aulas has warned clubs interested in his players that all deals need to be done by Friday night. No doubt he’s posturing a bit there but he also seems concerned that the constant talk surrounding Houssem Aouar, Jeff ‘The Jeff’ Reine-Adelaide and Memphis Depay is affecting team performances. After reaching the Champions League semi-finals, Lyon have struggled to get going this season, didn’t win at all in September and are currently 11th in League 1. I feel quietly confident that Edu will secure Aouar but he’ll have to hurry up.

__

Finally for today, if you weren’t aware, October is shaping up to be Arsene Wenger month. The Frenchman’s much-anticipated autobiography ‘My Life in Red & White’ is launched in a couple of weeks and he’s going to be on the publicity trail. Big time. 

We learnt yesterday, via Boyd Hilton, that he’s going to be a guest on The Graham Norton Show alongside the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and Dawn French and I’ve also spotted a couple of digital talks / Q&As he’s doing. 

12 October, 6.30pm (£25 + copy of the book)
In conversation with the BBC’s Dan Walker – tickets here 

14 October, 7pm (£6.88 or £25 for talk + book)
In conversation with the Guardian’s interview maestro Don McRae – tickets here 

16 October, 7pm (£29.98 + copy of the book)
In conversation with Esquire Magazine – tickets here  

At some point, somebody had better ask him about Chu-Young Park!

Right, that’s your lot from me. 

If there are any developments on the transfer front, I’ll be covering things on Arseblog News throughout the day and Blogs will be back this evening with a live blog. Catch you next time.

The post Arsenal get set for Anfield again + Wenger is coming appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Last night the premier of the Arsene Wenger: Invincible movie took place. It’s obviously generating lots of interest and plenty of stories. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast I did with its director, Gabriel Clarke, you can find that here.

I should say now that in today’s post there might a couple of things that are considered ‘spoilers’. It’s not as if everyone doesn’t know how most of it goes, but there are some things he says that I’m going to reference here that are new, so if you prefer not to read until you’ve seen the film, consider this a spoiler warning.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD

First up, even though this is a story I know inside out and back to front, it was still great to relive it. There’s some archive footage which I hadn’t seen before which adds some fascinating background to certain situations, and the story benefits from the guidance of the film-makers. I found Arsene’s recent book hugely disappointing. It really needed a ‘ghost writer’, not simply to put his words down in a manuscript, but an experienced writer to give it the kind of structure it needed, as well as tease out things that Arsene basically glossed over or didn’t provide enough depth with. It didn’t have to be ‘kiss and tell’, but it felt like there was a lot missing.

To be fair, the book is titled ‘My life in red and white‘, and while this film does cover his Arsenal career from start to finish, the focus is on that incredible achievement of going through a season unbeaten. The likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Ian Wright, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and even Alex Ferguson as talking heads add plenty too.

Where it gets really interesting is towards the end. As he waits to come onto the pitch on May 6th 2018, for his final home game, we hear Bob Wilson introducing him, urging the crowd to give him the greatest welcome they possibly can. And they did. Behind the scenes a distinctly uncomfortable looking Arsene Wenger waits. He talks about how on the day everybody is nice, whereas a week before there is a lot of criticism.

I was there that day. I never sensed that from him when he made his speech on the pitch. It felt like the right kind of goodbye from the crowd, sincere and warm gratitude for everything he had done down the years. In the end he said:

“I would like to finish in one simple sentence: I will miss you. Thank you all for having such an important part of my life, thank you all, well done.

“Bye bye.”

He hasn’t been back to the club since.

In the film we come to understand just how big the chasm currently is. I still don’t think we know the full story of how his departure came to pass, but it obviously still hurts. He talks about how he should have gone somewhere else, its acknowledged that most love stories – as he calls it – end with sadness, but then he says:

“Now there is no special reason for me to go there. All the rest is purely emotional.”

I have to say I found that really sad. First that he clearly doesn’t want to return, and the dismissal of the ‘rest’ as emotional … because isn’t that what football is? Isn’t that why we love it? The emotion it generates, good and bad, is part of what makes the game so great. Otherwise we could just take it or leave it. We wouldn’t care. We’d never get invested the way we do.

Last night, attending the Premier, current manager Mikel Arteta was asked about his former boss, and urged some kind of rapprochement, saying:

I would like him to be more present at the club. I think the players will love him, they will benefit, they will be inspired to have him around. I think for the club it would be a huge boost. I think it would be so beneficial for all parties to have him more present.

Clearly he has a lot on his plate with his role at FIFA, and I can’t pretend I like the idea he’s pushing of a World Cup every two years, even if some of what he says about the football calendar and the international schedule makes sense. Thus, it’s hard to see a dedicated role at Arsenal, but maybe there’s scope for something ceremonial, something that wouldn’t see his shadow loom too large. Something which means that when Arsenal don’t win a game, the cameras don’t linger on a disgusted looking Wenger, like Ferguson when United were being beaten 5-0 at home by Liverpool.

In her recent piece in The Athletic (£), Amy Lawrence wrote about how Arteta has insisted work be done around the club and the training ground to ensure that players are reminded of the history:

The first thing you see at the main entrance is a supersized floor-to-ceiling image of a smiling Wenger with his left hand raised. It has become routine that all the players, as they come in, high-five the picture of the man who basically built this place.

However, I don’t think Arsene’s issue is with Mikel Arteta, or the players. I think it’s much higher up than that. Perhaps some of those at executive level he feels bitterness towards are gone, but the ownership remains the same and they had to sanction his departure. They also sanctioned new contracts for him at times when many thought they shouldn’t, to be fair.

Wherever the issue lies though, it would be a crying shame if it didn’t get resolved and if a man who did so much for this football club continues to feel that there is no reason for him to return. I don’t know what it might take to make the breakthrough here, but I hope it can happen. Relationships in football break down all the time, you can go from hero to zero in a matter of weeks at some clubs, and there’s no escaping the fact that most endings within the game at managerial level are difficult, often contentious.

Hopefully the gap can be bridged. It’s encouraging to know that someone like Mikel Arteta is publicly advocating for it to happen. This is a club where a former Invincible is Technical Director; and former captains are Manager and Academy Manager respectively. His legacy lives in on those ex-players he signed and brought in, but I really hope that Arsenal the institution and Arsene Wenger the man – for all that has happened – can find a way to repair what was a unique and successful relationship for so long.

—

Arsène Wenger: Invincible is in cinemas from 11 November, and on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download from 22 November.

Trailer: HERE

The post Arsene Wenger, the movie, and bridging the relationship gap appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Good morning and happy weekend! With the US tour over I expected a couple of quiet days in the build-up to Monaco’s visit to the Emirates Stadium but Arsenal sprung a minor surprise on Friday as they unveiled a statue of Arsene Wenger.

I don’t know whether or not it will divide some opinion — my personal bubble is entirely in favour and I’m delighted to see it — but I think it was inevitable either way and the timing is right, with five years passed since Arsene’s departure and the team on the up again. It’s also obviously a nice touch that Monaco will be in town this week too, I’m sure that’s no accident.

A three-time Premier League winner and seven-time FA Cup winner, the man who took us from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium and kept us in the Champions League as we lost our best players year on year and the teams around us spent mountains of money. His 22-year tenure is more than twice as long as any other manager in our history (and will surely never be matched) and in that time he turned our national reputation for ‘boring’ football (whether or not that was deserved) into a global reputation for attractive, expressive, technical football.

Hopefully long enough time has passed now for almost everyone, if not everyone, to appreciate all of that and look back on the highest of highs we’ve enjoyed as a club with fondness. The ruptures in the fanbase that emerged in the late 2000s and deepened enormously in the mid-2010s were tiring and damaging but they are a thing of the past and a manager who achieved all Arsene did in north London is immortal and should be immortalised further.

Personally, taking things a few steps further, I wouldn’t be against a host of Arsene statues all around the ground. Holding both trophies at Islington Town Hall after we won the double in 1998, hugging Seaman and Wiltord in celebration at Old Trafford in 2002, raising his arms in celebration at White Hart Lane in 2004. Posing in a hard hat as he made history, becoming the only man to build a stadium entirely on his own. Kicking that bottle at Old Trafford. Being embraced by Pat Rice at Villarreal, falling into Pat Rice’s arms at West Brom. Smirking as he hinted at the Mesut Ozil transfer. Laying on the beach in Brazil at the 2014 World Cup. Shoving Jose Mourinho. Let’s commission them all and dot them around the stadium. Or better yet, around Islington.

I’d settle for a giant mural of Andrew Allen’s Arsene blog back in 2018 too. If only that had been considered when the new art went up on the facade of the stadium. If you haven’t read that before (or can’t remember reading it five years ago) do yourself a favour and stop reading my nonsense, take a look at that instead.

As for the statue itself, I think it looks great. If I had one note: I’d love to see the medal that accidentally swung around and was backwards around his neck as he lifted the trophy in 2004. But I don’t think the statue ever really could have been of any other moment. That title, ending that season unbeaten, was the crowning glory, the day that went down in history and will remain there forever. And I can’t wait to visit it next time I’m in north London.

—

With the demands for updates on another stadium build flowing in, no, not-Lego Highbury is not complete. But I have made some real progress over the last couple of days. We’re up to the roof of the Clock End and the upper tiers in the other three stands. I just really miss stadiums with gaps between stands.

I guess Arsene isn’t the only one who can build a stadium.

And as I’m sat here, new Arsenal centre-back Amanda Ilestedt has just scored a second goal in as many games for Sweden at the Women’s World Cup. And just as I’ve hit publish, Stina Blackstenius has scored too. Well in! (Ilestedt later added a second and is, incredibly, now the tournament’s joint-top scorer.)

Right, that’s your lot from me. This is my last day of babysitting and you’ll be back in the safe, knowledgable, jet-lagged hands of Blogs tomorrow! Thanks again to him for asking me to fill in for the week, I’ve massively enjoyed thinking about out what to write, actually writing, and reading through the arses. But how he does it every single day, especially in the summer or during international breaks, I’ll never know.

Hope you’ve enjoyed spending the week with me and if you want to find my ramblings during the season, or make sure I see how strongly you disagree with anything I’ve written I’m @LGAmbrose on Twitter and I guess I’ll be there as long as the site remains semi-functional or a true alternative emerges.

Whatever you’re up to, have a fantastic weekend!

The post There’s only one Arsene Wenger (statue) appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Last week, Arsenal unveiled a statue in honour of Arsene Wenger. It is the culmination of Wenger’s gradual reintegration into the fabric of the club since his emotional departure as manager in 2018. The conclusion of his tenure, for me and many others, felt drawn out and painful.

After 22 years at the helm, clearly healing time was required for both parties and some distance was needed. And let’s face it, Wenger did not exactly leave the tank full of petrol for his successor(s). The squad he left was ageing, messily assembled and required a lot of unpicking.

I suspect that untidy squad management was not entirely Wenger’s fault. As Arsenal slipped out of the Champions League, the demands of the modern game became clearer and Wenger’s power base weakened, I suspect there was a sort of silent power struggle with the executive branch of the club and some of those poor transfer and contract decisions had other paw prints on them, as well as his own.

What was clear, in my eyes, was that the Wenger era was over at least two seasons before that parting was made official. (I realise many others felt that way well before I did). I think Arsene, at that stage, was just addicted to the job and couldn’t let go, even though he should have and his status made it difficult for those in the boardroom to gently prize his hand away from the wheel.

Personally, I found his last two seasons incredibly draining and wrote this scathing piece in August 2017 in which I described what turned out to be the final throes of his reign as, “locked in a loveless marriage driven by nothing more than a mutual fear of loneliness.” It didn’t feel good to write that but I thought, and still think, it was accurate at that time.

Personally, I felt the end of Wenger’s reign was a relief and I felt ‘Wengered Out’ for a long time afterwards too. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel thankful or reverent to the man for all that he had done for the club. I just needed time and space. The club did too and Wenger was smart enough to realise that.

I think, initially, the realisation that Arsenal needed time and space to move on meant a mutual distance was observed. As time drew on, however, I think his own pain and regret at how it all ended extended that separation. That is entirely understandable too. I am certain the separation hurt him personally, as well as professionally.

During the 2021-22 season, as covid restrictions lifted and Arteta’s Arsenal really began to take shape, Mikel Arteta made it very clear that he wanted that separation to end. In September 2022, he said, “He has every window, every door, in this football club open whenever he is ready. Whenever he feels it is the right moment to do it. He knows that from my side, he knows that from many other people at the football club. Hopefully that will happen soon because it will inspire and a lot of people would be so happy to see him back.”

“Five years on, I feel strongly attached and linked to the club. The attachment is unbelievably strong and it’s funny because it’s Arsène and Arsenal – it looks like my destiny.”

We’ve been speaking to Arsène Wenger – watch the full interview here

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) August 4, 2023

These were not just empty words, Arteta arranged for a giant picture of Wenger to be installed at the player entrance to London Colney with one of his quotes, “Here you have the opportunity to get out the greatness that is in each of you,” emblazoned in giant letters alongside his image.

“For me it’s something that we lost and we have to recover,” Arteta explained. “I wanted that picture and a phrase that is very inspirational at the entrance because it was a big part of what he did at Colney and how everything started at the Emirates. He had to be there.”

Of course, Wenger’s legacy is now felt more strongly than ever at the club. I imagine Ivan Gazidis would not be top of Arsene’s Christmas card list but he is no longer there. Neither is his immediate successor, Unai Emery, nor are Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi. However, members of his alumni, Mikel Arteta, Per Mertesacker (both players Wenger appointed as captain) and Edu hold significant positions at the club.

Jack Wilshere coaches the under 18s. Not only are his immediate successors no longer present, many of their successors are people he groomed for leadership. On Boxing Day last year, Wenger was finally tempted back to Emirates Stadium for the victory over West Ham. Amazingly, the club managed to keep the visit under wraps, even the players were not told.

As the supporters celebrated Eddie Nketiah’s result clinching goal, a smiling Wenger appeared on the big screen. It was the perfect unveiling, at a high point in the game and, crucially, at a high point of the season. Because this is the key to the recent healing of relations between Wenger and Arsenal- Arsenal look good again.

Wenger gave the goal scorer, Eddie Nketiah, his debut as a teenager. He brought the coach, the Technical Director and the Head of the Academy to the club and now a young team playing swashbuckling football topped the league table. It was the perfect tribute and the perfect evening to reintroduce Wenger to the Emirates crowd, who were feeling at their most generous.

Also crucial to this healing of relations is the fact that Wenger did not take another coaching job. I am certain he would have had offers but I imagine, in Arsene’s eyes, taking on another coaching job would have left him feeling a little like Maxim de Winter in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

In Gabriel Clark’s excellent documentary about Wenger, Arsene spoke about his discomfort over his last home game against Burnley. He said he had the feeling of witnessing his own funeral, a feeling doubtless exacerbated by the still sour taste of his exit. In some respects, a statue feels like something you should probably do posthumously.

However, the statues of Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Tony Adams are (hopefully still) very far from posthumous. There is also something to be said for showing someone you appreciate them while they are still alive and they can absorb that appreciation.

Enough water has trickled under the bridge to render the last couple of seasons of his reign a mere footnote to his undoubted legacy. The team and the club have moved on sufficiently, albeit stewarded by people Wenger himself identified and brought to the club as players.

Wenger’s reintegration, as a club legend, has been perfectly handled and certainly looks to have healed any lingering resentment. As well as having enough distance, I think Arteta realised he had enough security to proactively seek that reconnection and, I have to say, I think the whole thing has been deftly handled and has moved to smooth out some of those rough edges and allow Arsene’s undoubted legacy to shine.

Follow me on Twitter @Stillmanator

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I am an anxious person. I always have been. People are driven by different motivators in life and mine is anxiety. It’s why I am early for everything, it is why I am well organised and it’s also why I don’t sleep well! Watching Arsenal makes me anxious. I have spent a lot of my life trying to figure out why I chose a pastime and a lifestyle that provokes my anxiety so much.

An answer I have fallen on is that my anxiety is a little like a pet dog, following me around dutifully, looking up with a sunken expression to see whether there are any scraps on the dinner table to feed it. Going to Arsenal is like taking the dog for a walk, wearing it out on something that, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t life or death.

This way, I tell myself, I expend less energy getting anxious about my roof collapsing or whether the sore throat I am developing is actually the beginnings of throat cancer. It’s not a convincing explanation, sure, but it’s all I have managed to conjure up so far. The bottom line is, when Arsenal are playing, especially in important games or derbies, I am largely a nervous wreck.

When I played football, that anxiety translated into the way I played. At my heart, I was a creative player but I was always too worried about the gaps behind me to be a killer in the final third. So I was moved from wing to full-back and from withdrawn striker to deep lying playmaker. Mentally I clearly prioritised security over risk.

I have never been remotely invested in the aesthetics of how Arsenal play. I used to lie to myself and others about the importance of ‘attractive football’ but one of the good things about reaching middle age is that you tend to be more honest with yourself and others about who you are and what you feel. I could not care less how ‘attractive’ the football is.

I just want Arsenal to win. That is all. That is entertainment enough for me. I would be happy for Arsenal to ‘Allardyce’ their way to a league title if I thought such a thing were possible. The only element of Arsenal’s playing style that I am invested in in a critical sense is sustainability.

The only real reason I don’t want Arsenal to play with eleven lunken headed super mutants smashing long balls to Pointy McElbows is because I think that style has a ceiling and that ceiling is below where I would like Arsenal to be. If we could get 90+ points playing that way, I would happily turn up to games in a shellsuit and baseball cap.

Don’t get me wrong, I do want to be able to relate to my team. I wouldn’t want Jose Mourinho in charge of Arsenal. Not because I would object to the style of football but because I would object to the absolute poison he insists on injecting into every atmosphere he inhabits. I would like Arsenal to stay within the rules of the game (relatively speaking) and wouldn’t want them to go around deliberately hurting opponents.

But I don’t want Arsenal to fail beautifully. The lack of defensive resolve during the mid to late Wenger era really bothered me, it meant the football just wasn’t aesthetically pleasing to me. We are all products of our environment, of course. I got my Arsenal season ticket in 1992, the second half of the George Graham era when he really started to lean on that famous back five.

The Cup Winners Cup victory in 1994 is one of my favourite Arsenal triumphs, built on a bedrock of solid defence. Again, Graham made the error in the second half of his reign of de-emphasising the attack, the sale of flair players like Rocastle and Limpar and the freezing out of the elegant Paul Davis saw the Gunners become a cup team and they stopped competing for the league.

I have often made the comparison between Mikel Arteta and George Graham 1.0. This season, I am even more convinced by that comparison as Arsenal, already a good attacking team, have bolted the back door. They have the best defensive record in the division and, in Declan Rice, probably the best off-the ball player in the Premier League.

The marriage of Gabriel, William Saliba and Declan Rice is the holy trinity as far as I am concerned, the feeling of safety they give me is so valuable. Not only that, I really enjoy having a manager who is not imprisoned by a ‘philosophy’, who sees setpieces as a valuable part of the game to be maximised and exploited, not an affront to ‘beautiful football.’

I love the way he is not afraid to put Kai Havertz upfront and go long if that is what is required. There is a goal that Dennis Bergkamp scores against Manchester United in February 2005 when he drills the ball as hard as he can through van der Sar’s legs. Andy Gray, on commentary that night, simply exclaims, ‘Exactly what was required!’

That was always the genius of Bergkamp for me. He could do things with a football that were feats of technique and imagination. But it was never about being showy or elaborate, he simply did what was required in the situation. Sometimes the situation required a good old fashioned laces through the ball finish and when that was required, he didn’t consider it beneath his artistic sensibilities.

Luton Town manager Rob Edwards on Arsenal:

“They give NO chances away” #afc pic.twitter.com/CraSJQTRiP

— DailyAFC (@DailyAFC) April 4, 2024

I love that in Rob Edwards’s post-match press conference on Wednesday evening, his first observation about Arsenal was ‘they don’t give you anything.’ I love that I spent a lot of the second half on Wednesday evening looking at the scoreboard, wondering whether I could sneak out a few minutes early because I was a bit bored. I was bored because I knew that Arsenal weren’t going to let a stupid goal in and make the game ‘entertaining.’

Admittedly I didn’t watch it live, I watched the City away game subsequently, with the tension removed. But I enormously enjoyed it. I enjoyed that Arsenal can play like that when they need to. It’s the inability to do that that made the team and the club weaker than it should have been over the last 15 years or so.

It was another of Rob Edwards’s observations I really enjoyed, ‘of the three challengers they are the one that can play any game. If it’s a physical game, if it’s a running game, if it’s a footballing game, whatever it is, they’ve got the answer.’ Yes, yes and yes. Sign me up for all of that, please and thank you.

High minded footballing philosophies are like the elements, good servants but bad masters. The job is to win and I have absolutely no compunction in admitting that I don’t care how Arsenal do it and I think defending, having good off-ball structure and not being easily brushed off the ball are fundamental tools for that.

You have to be able to attack well, you have to be able to score a lot of goals to compete for the league title, you have to be able to dominate opponents. But I think inhabiting two Arsenal eras prior to Mikel Arteta, one that probably over emphasised the defensive side of the game and one that probably undervalued it, has made me crave the less celebrated side of the game.

Of course, Graham and Wenger’s best teams did both sides of the game brilliantly and Graham lost his way when he deprioritised attacking verve and Wenger lost his when he deprioritised off-ball prowess. What Mikel Arteta has managed to do this season is bring Arsenal closer to that balance that they lacked last season. Closer to the balance that the best teams have.

But honestly? In my heart, at my core? Boring Boring Arsenal is my favourite Arsenal. I just might have to find new outlets for my anxiety. Do I smell gas? Did I leave the oven on….?

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