WONDERFUL ARTICLE

[Babatunde]

John Nicholson form F365 wrote this. It goes to the core of what I have said: the lesson to be learned from this, and this especially goes out to all the AKBs and Wenger-loving cheerleaders, is that every Arsenal manager from now until forevermore, needs to be judged on WHAT THEY WIN.

Never again should anyone be allowed to become bigger than the club. Wenger wouldn't be such an arrogant turnip if the fans hadn't elevated him to that status. Lesson needs to be learned here. Mourinho won so much with Chelski but when he stopped delivering he was out the door. That is how it works at big clubs, and how it should work with us from now on....

________________________________

Wenger's Never Been A Football God...
Wenger doesn't Know. He never has. It's not his fault that his supporters have elevated him to a status where having feet of clay is a crushing inevitability. It's too far to fall...

Last Updated: 23/01/12 at 10:02 Post Comment

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All Articles 1 of 1

Poor, poor Arsene Wenger. There can be few worse feelings as a manager than having your own fans abusing you for your pitch-side decisions. You must feel like sticking it right up the bracket of your tormentors. All too often fans' ire at their team's performance gets turned on their manager. It's harder to blame 11 players individually than the man in the tramp-like, long padded sleeping-bag coat.

But this is what happens when a manager or indeed a player gets elevated to too high a status. For years those rather patronising 'Arsene Knows' signs were displayed as a kind of smug act of faith in his brilliance. It's always dangerous to assign this kind of special wisdom to anyone, let alone in the world of football. Idols always turn out to have feet of clay.

This faith in Wenger was established when they won those three league titles wins and all those cups. That seems like forever ago now. He was also apparently brilliant because he suggested the idea that players should eat pasta pre-game, as though this dietary knowledge of how carbohydrates work was exclusive to him in the world of football and not already common knowledge on the continent. But, no matter, it was a tremendous period for Arsenal.

The title wins - even though achieved in part with an inherited once-in-a-generation uniformly brilliant defence - of course deserve kudos and respect. However, many managers win titles and are not hailed as a Professorial Genius in the same way. They are not said to 'Know' even though they go on to win Champions League titles or other European trophies, which Wenger has been unable to do, so far.

This world of worship wasn't Wenger's fault of course. You can't control how high people elevate you, or how far you will fall in their estimation.

Then we had the curse of The Invincibles. A statistically remarkable performance to be sure but in the wider scheme of things, it has surely distorted expectations. It was too epoch-making. Perhaps, at the end of that purple patch, it actually made Wenger seem better than he was. It added to the Wenger mythology. Which isn't to say he's not really good. But you know, he's not God and never has been.

After all, during the following season Chelsea lost one game and yet ended up with five more points and then lost five and ended up with one point more. So how earth-shattering was that 90-point season really? It depends on how you want to view it.

In subsequent seasons, winning things was replaced by 'playing the best football', That was the propaganda anyway and enough fans were happy to believe it. No trophies, but look at the quality of football Wenger had got them playing. After three league titles, success seemed inevitable in the near future. Surely, He Knew. He wouldn't have got it wrong. But in fact, he had. Just like any other manager.

The trophyless years may well have been full of good passing football but it was elevated too high by some and Wenger with it. It was not the more superior, intelligent and almost moral style that many desperately seemed to want it to be, it was purely an aesthetic choice by Wenger. Other styles of play are available and as it turned out, more successful ones. This isn't to discredit it as a project but more to set it into context.

Wenger has always enjoyed a good press because he's articulate and intelligent and his image as a football mastermind has gone unchallenged until recently. Because Arsenal have already lost eight games and seem set to have their worst season since the mid 90s, questions are being asked about him as though his crown has only just slipped.

However, a more sensible long-term reading of the situation would be to say that Wenger has been a superb manager at times, a really good manager always, but not the cream of the crop. If Wenger 'Knows' and is a professorial genius that would make Sir Alex Ferguson some sort of all-knowing deity, so dominant over Arsenal has he been, so groaningly massive is their trophy haul in comparison.

Wenger is likeable and interesting and his project for Arsenal over the last five or six years has been a fascinating one, but he has never been as good as his biggest fans said and he's certainly not now as bad as his biggest critics would like to believe.

I realise saying this is a kind of heresy and as ever I'm sure that merely saying someone isn't a genius will be read by some as saying 'that Wenger, he's sh*t he is' even though, obviously, that isn't what I'm saying at all. Indeed, such lack of nuance seems to be at the heart of his current problems.

You can be exceptionally good and still be over-rated and this is what is currently cursing him. Once people lose faith and fall out of love with someone they believed in so much, it will seem as if everything they do is the work of a fool. It is unfair and as the club is likely to finish no lower than sixth at worst, hardly a disastrous season if viewed more rationally.

Wenger doesn't Know. He never has. This is categorically not a criticism of him - even if some Arsenal fans will be unshakeable in their belief that it is - but of his worshippers who told him, us and themselves that he did and now seek to berate him because now, as ever, he obviously doesn't.

John Nicholson

[flash gunner]

John Nicholson is obviously a **** and this article is full of Arsnal hatred, Babatunde is this a 'wonderful article'? no its a fucking disgrace....... This thread should be deleted

Wenger has lost it in so many ways and im starting to despise him now but NEVER let a scum or anyother fan take away from what the club achieved in the early part of his reign

Up the Gunners

[Red Member]

I admit that Wenger is having a bad season but maybe this only highlights how incredible his record has been up until now.

15 years of success is a remarkable achievement.
when all the players are back fit we are as good as any in the league and plenty of these such as Oxlade- Chamberlain will continue to improve.

maybe it will take a bad season to realise how lucky we have been for all this time and stop taking Champions League football for granted.

[Babatunde]

John Nicholson is obviously a y** and this article is full of Arsnal hatred, Babatunde this is a fucking disgrace....... This thread should be deleted due to this article

Wenger has lost it in so many ways and im starting to despise him now but NEVER let a scum or anyother fan take away from what the club achieved in the early part of his reign

Up the Gunners

Erm....have you taken your meds this morning? Nicholson is a Huddersfield fan

The other point is, if you actually take the time to take your blinkers off, read and digest, his point is actually rational, i.e.: Wenger is nowhere near as shit as people are saying he is now, but is nowhere near as amazing as people were saying he was back then!

What's wrong with that? Seems measured to me?

The other point he makes is a factual statistical one: Mourinho's side DID win more point than the Invincibles.

And Fergie IS afar superior manager who wins.

Why don't you go ahead and call the author a Manure fan too then eh? Seriously what the hell is up with that! You want it 'deleted' because someone has a point of view you happen to disagree with? (although it's clear you've completely missed the point of the inferred balance he makes).

I'll remind you: he is saying Wenger is a very good manager, but that he's nowhere near as brilliant as his fans make him out to be. But that he's nowhere near as shite as his detractors are now saying. He is saying, that AW is very good, but no more than various other 'very good' managers.

Have a nap, you seem tense.

[goonersid]

John Nicholson is obviously a y** and this article is full of Arsnal hatred, Babatunde is this a 'wonderful article'? no its a fucking disgrace....... This thread should be deleted

Wenger has lost it in so many ways and im starting to despise him now but NEVER let a scum or anyother fan take away from what the club achieved in the early part of his reign

Up the Gunners

FFS Flash Time of the month

[flash gunner]

The one thing all football fans have is their history and dont ever let a scum, united or Huddersfield fan take that away with your own hatred.

What we achieved during the early to mid 2000's was and still is outstanding, THE CLUB achieved this as much as the manager. The great teams of Liverpool during the 70's and 80's couldnt go unbeaten nor the united teams before or after them and i dont care if some northern *word censored* with a hatred of Arsenal tried to belittle our achievements it aint happening

[arseofacrow]

Huddersfield fan...acknowledges an undeniably great achievement...then puts the boot into it....mmm....oh yes, I get it now.

[donaldo]

I admit that Wenger is having a bad season but maybe this only highlights how incredible his record has been up until now.

15 years of success is a remarkable achievement.when all the players are back fit we are as good as any in the league and plenty of these such as Oxlade- Chamberlain will continue to improve.

maybe it will take a bad season to realise how lucky we have been for all this time and stop taking Champions League football for granted.

15 years of success.You're worse than Wenger calling a top 4 finish success.

[arseofacrow]

Member seems to be more obsessed with Champions League football than the rest of us.

Maybe its the beer.

[I Hate Hleb]

Decent article but the bit that lets him down is this....

'After all, during the following season Chelsea lost one game and yet ended up with five more points and then lost five and ended up with one point more. So how earth-shattering was that 90-point season really? It depends on how you want to view it....'

Being the first club in over 100 years to go unbeaten, in an era when there are more teams and stiffer competition, and doing something NONE of the other great sides in English football history has achieved is, was and deserves always to be considered 'earth shattering'.

[Boomer]

Typical! A terrier that's still got a grudge over Arsenal Re: Chapman!

[flash gunner]

Decent article but the bit that lets him down is this....

'After all, during the following season Chelsea lost one game and yet ended up with five more points and then lost five and ended up with one point more. So how earth-shattering was that 90-point season really? It depends on how you want to view it....'

Being the first club in over 100 years to go unbeaten, in an era when there are more teams and stiffer competition, and doing something NONE of the other great sides in English football history has achieved is, was and deserves always to be considered 'earth shattering'.

That biased quote totally ruins any credibility to the rest of the article

[Babatunde]

Decent article but the bit that lets him down is this....

'After all, during the following season Chelsea lost one game and yet ended up with five more points and then lost five and ended up with one point more. So how earth-shattering was that 90-point season really? It depends on how you want to view it....'

Being the first club in over 100 years to go unbeaten, in an era when there are more teams and stiffer competition, and doing something NONE of the other great sides in English football history has achieved is, was and deserves always to be considered 'earth shattering'.

I agree with IHH on this entirely though...

[brazilianGOONER]

shit article wrote by someone who clearly does not know what it means to support The Arsenal.

[Babatunde]

shit article wrote by someone who clearly does not know what it means to support The Arsenal.

Errrrm....yes it was written by someone that supports neither Arsenal or Spuds.

So it had some balance in it, some rational thought and some kind of independent insight.

I understand how this could confuse many contemporary Arsenal fans though, especially when you spend all day reading Pravda.com

I think the whole point was, he's not supposed to know 'how it is to support the Arsenal'. Nor should he care about that when making an independent analysis based on fact/subjectivity.

If that was the case then every single sports writer might as well destroy their pens and laptops right now, because what do they know about 'supporting the Arsenal'?