THE WENGER THREAD

[highburyJD]

Stubbornness is not an attribute for a football manager, unless it's used as in a stubbornness to accept defeat a la Ferguson.

If a manager persists with a player in a certain position in the team and is vindicated in the long-run it's not stubbornness we should be praising, it's judgement. By definition stubbornness isn't a positive characteristic as it suppresses judgement, I for one don't want a manager making conceited decisions based on personal pride and arrogance.

Good post

how's that good?
Norfbank only wants managers making judgement calls in which they're eventually proven right?
whoppeeeedoo, what a great plan

when Weah or Henry didn't think they could make it as strikers, and Wenger said he knew best and that they would
in what way was that not personal pride and arrogance?

[highburyJD]

people on here have already decided Giroud is rubbish

Don't agree. SOME people on here might have - but that says more about their lack of understanding of football than anything else. Most of the rest of us will wait and see if he comes good or flops. Only an idiot would judge a player after a handful of games in a new league. My personal feeling is he might just chip in with 10+ or maybe even 15+ PL goals which would be an acceptable return on his first season in the PL.

your addition doesn't change the meaning of the original statement in anyway
reread pls

[I Hate Hleb]

...

when Weah or Henry didn't think they could make it as strikers, and Wenger said he knew best and that they would
in what way was that not personal pride and arrogance?

Again, I have to pull you up on the details. Henry was always a striker/forward except for the one season he spent at Juventus, so the claim that he needed convincing he could make as a striker seems to me like, at best another bad example or at worst another load of nonsense!! Sure he struggled initially and Henry may well have thought he would find it difficult to adjust to the more physical nature of our league, but I doubt he ever thought he wasn't a striker.

[highburyJD]

I've seen an interview of Henry saying he didnt think he could make it as a forward and Wenger convinced him otherwise
goodness knows where - probably an Arse end of season DVD... thinking I will struggle to dig that up.
Has anyone else seen Henry talk about Wenger having more belief than he did in his striker potential?

Titi played wide for France when they won the WC so thats at least one preJuve example

[g88ner]

Has anyone else seen Henry talk about Wenger having more belief than he did in his striker potential?

Yeah, I remember that.

[I Hate Hleb]

To be fair to you I did find this...

After several difficult months in England, Henry even conceded that he had to "be re-taught everything about the art of striking."

Although I would argue that it backs up what I said as much as it does you.

[highburyJD]

the interview I was thinking of was specifically about confidence
Henry was saying he did not believe he could make it as a striker but Wenger did
NorthBank was splitting judgement and stubbornness, a dichotomy I dont agree with
you make a call and it works - thats easy, your 'judgement' was correct
but Wenger believed in Henry (George Weah has said very similar things) when the player himself did not
to persist in your belief, to push the player to achieve what you see as his potential - in the face of doubt from all sides IMO requires a healthy element of stubbornness

[I Hate Hleb]

Mind you as was mentioned earlier, he also 'believed in' a load of other players that anyone with an ounce of 'judgement' could quickly tell were never going to be good enough. It's hardly rocket science to see the ability in the examples you gave. As for giving players 'confidence' - well even old 'arry is constantly acknowledged by his previous players as being good at doing that part of the job.

[northbank123]

the interview I was thinking of was specifically about confidence
Henry was saying he did not believe he could make it as a striker but Wenger did
NorthBank was splitting judgement and stubbornness, a dichotomy I dont agree with
you make a call and it works - thats easy, your 'judgement' was correct
but Wenger believed in Henry (George Weah has said very similar things) when the player himself did not
to persist in your belief, to push the player to achieve what you see as his potential - in the face of doubt from all sides IMO requires a healthy element of stubbornness

As I've said stubbornness is not a positive term, it's pretty much regarded as meaning that somebody will disregard reason and level-headed thinking due to pig-headedness.

Judgement is seeing that a player has potential in a certain position. Persevering with them is showing conviction or following through on your judgement call.
Stubbornness is continuing to play a player long after it's painfully obvious they're not going to make the grade, probably due to personal pride/arrogance and a refusal to admit to making a mistake in the first place.

Now many of Wenger's mistakes I'm sure are down to bad judgement rather than stubbornness, and most are probably a mix. For example, he obviously thought that Almunia was good enough to deputise for and ultimately replace Jens - bad judgement call. Continuing to play him for years despite him costing us any shot at winning a serious trophy - stubbornness.

What I wasn't saying was that good decisions are down to judgement whereas bad decisions are automatically down to stubbornness. But I just can't see how stubbornness can possibly be viewed as a positive when it comes to building a squad.

[highburyJD]

It's hardly rocket science to see the ability in the examples you gave.

that's pure hindsight - Weah said he doubted he would even make it as a footballer FFS
I know I was pissed off Henry was playing ahead of Suker.
Song v Fulham, all of us were sure we could play better (I was pissed and I'm still sure would have been more use that day)
many, here and elsewhere, dismissed him as a waste of space. Now he's a Barcelona player.
Jenkinson was months away from non-league football, now he's on the edge of the England squd

IMO none of these players actual quality was obvious at the time.

NorthBanks argument seems to me, to be about syntax. I am attributing Wenger's amazing ability to retain belief in his judgement - even when the player himself, the media and the fans doubt it - to stubbornness. Call it what you will, maintaining believe in his judgement calls, in the face of contradictory views and evidence, is both a strength and a weakness of Wenger's management style.

[I Hate Hleb]

Moving to Europe having played barely more than 30 games in the Liberian 1st Division of course Weah was going to have doubts about whether he could make it at the higher standard in Europe and it's logical that Wenger was going to try and install him with the confidence that he could!!

As for the Song example, it wouldn't matter if he was signed by the Intergalactic All Stars XI for a fee of 1 trillion pounds, it doesn't make him any better a player in mine or other gooners eyes, so the fact that Barcelona paid £15m for him - and this is the important bit - doesn't mean he was good enough for Arsenal during his time with us. After all, there are countless examples of players being bought by the bigger European clubs for transfer fees well in excess of their true worth that don't go on to be a success, so I don't see how that in anyway backs up your claims.

[highburyJD]

There's a big swing from : I could do better, Fulham away
and being thought good enough for Barca or Arsenal

[I Hate Hleb]

How is that an answer to my Weah point or the subsequent one on Song?

[highburyJD]

MY answer? here it is again:

You seemed to be saying it was obvious Weah would be good
I dont think thats the case - no African player in history (calling Eusebio Portugese) had even nearly the same impact.
The big clubs of Africa, let alone Europe, were not in for him, he was an unknown. When Weah received his World and European POY awards he dedicated them to Wenger. He obviously thought leProf did something exceptional for his career. You disagree fine - you must be able to see the point I'm making. Wenger had a BIG impact of Weah's career. He believed when others, including Weah, didn't. We can call that total faith from Wenger in his own judgement or being stubborn.

Song improved hugely, is this even a disputable point? Before the Charlton loan he didn't look Div1 standard,
to get from there to being an Arsenal starter, then bought by Barca, is a huge jump.
You don't think he's any good. I disagree - but that chat has been done to death. Obviously what you don't like about him must be small details in big games. I can see that argument, that he's nearly good enough but ultimately his concentration and positioning can let him down at key moments. Even accepting that - to be even considered for the Arsenal/Barca teams is an enormous leap from CravenCottage Song who wasn't even a footballer.

[I Hate Hleb]

To stop this from becoming a dispute between us which becomes boring to the others, I'll just pick up on the salient points...

..You seemed to be saying it was obvious Weah would be good...

No, what I said was that it was obvious Weah would have doubts having come from Liberia with only a few matches under his belt, and equally obvious that Wenger would try and give him the confidence that he could make it!! The fact that he gave credit to Wenger for helping him has never been disputed.

Song improved hugely, is this even a disputable point? .

Again, no-one is saying he didn't improve from that performance at Craven Cottage, but then again it would have been practically impossible not to have!! Was he ever going to be good enough to help Arsenal win the major trophies? In mine and many gooners eyes the answer is no - regardless of how much confidence Wenger had in him - and therefore it doesn't really matter whether he signed for Barca or anyone else. What does matter to me and other gooners is Arsenal and most people would agree that Song leaving has actually strengthened our team.

One last thing, if we made a list of the players Wenger 'had confidence in' that ultimately failed to deliver for us, and then one for those that did live up to the faith despite fans doubts, I'm more than positive that the former would be a lot longer. So although you rightly said there were pro's and cons in the outcome of Wenger's stubbornness, in my opinion the examples you gave (Pires, Petit, Henry and Weah) weren't the greatest ones to prove that point.