Clash wrote:
Ah yes but you said '' Wenger has past histories with potential bad boys and tamed them ''. For me this is another one of those Wenger myths that does the rounds every so often.
I can't think of any bad boys he has tamed and whatever they were like as players, I personally wouldn't use Gallas and Adebayor as examples. Quite the opposite in fact.
To say Adebayor carried us through the 2008 season is stretching it somewhat. He hit a couple of purple patches and ended with a good goal tally but he went missing when we most needed goals. That same season he also put his head into the face of a teammate in a shameful defeat at WHL (and should never have played for the club again after that IMO) and then failed to play a simple square the ball to that same teammate at Birmingham a few weeks later which would have given us a certain goal and 3 points ... which would have saved us from that infamous late drama. Both this and his conduct both before and after his acrimonious departure shows Wenger never tamed him at all.
And as you said, Gallas was a bad choice for captain. So why was he given it? Was it a desperate attempt by Wenger to tame him because he knew no other way to do it? Whatever the reason it didn't work. The Gallas tantrum at the Birmingham game mentioned above showed how unfit for the role he was. He eventually left to go and play for Spurs, proving he never had an ounce of Arsenal in his heart and I think we got a very rough deal getting him pretty much in exchange for Cole.
Sorry to drag up the past ... but you started it
(or maybe I did)
If Ade would have gotten injured in 2008, we'd have been screwed - so ok - maybe not carried, but was instrumental that year because RVP was out (as usual). Agreed about his disgraceful behavior, but obviously he wasn't the first player that Bendtner didn't get on with. As far as a decision in one match, many players make decisions like shooting when they should have squared and vis-versa - it's easy to call him an idiot in retrospect, but I do remember him scoring the go-ahead goad against Liverpool in the CL before Toure gave away the stupid pen, so he did well there. As far as his behavior afterwards? I don't really care too much about that. It is pantomime stuff really and he has been that villain ever since. I think that Wenger got rid of him because of the money on offer. He hasn't had nearly as good a season as 2008 since then either.
Gallas? I still maintain that he was a good defender, but just a crap captain. Agree about Cole - I'd have rather kept Cole too. I think that most modern footballers don't think like we do as fans, so the colours of the kit are not an issue. Yes, Wenger probably thought that giving him the captaincy would hold him up to other players as an example and for a while it did work - at least in public domain. Who knows what happened at Colney.
That being said, I think that when people played for us, even with their faults and play well, people tend to forget those issues until they have left. Some of the legends of Arsenal openly flirted with teams in the press over the years, but for one reason or another the move didn't come off. So it is a fine margin between a player being an arse and a legend.
I think that perhaps the taming aspect should be changed to will Wenger get the best out of Ballotelli? If he is putting in 30 goals a season, I think that most here would turn a blind eye to his personality flaws.
ever to wear an Arsenal shirt and two names I wish I could remove from our history. 
