Why ‘Wenger out’! Simply makes no sense

I have mentioned before that I genuinely feel most fans sit in between the outright parties of ‘Wenger out’ and ‘In Arsene we trust’.  Maybe I just feel this way because I sit somewhere between the middle of these two groups, as do those I travel  to games with, sit in the pub to watch a midweek champions league away game, or just banter about football with in general.

We want progress and bemoan Wenger when he gets things wrong, but we also praise him when he does well. The truth is the ‘Wenger Out’ group are simply shouting themselves hoarse for no reason.

The board have overall financial control of the club, not Arsene, and while he will have a large influence on many aspects (those of you who have taken the Emirates Stadium tour will know what I mean) of the team and club he is not on the board, not a major shareholder and therefore not calling all the shots.  If the ‘WO’ (as I shall herby call them) fans can’t see this then perhaps it is them who should seek their football elsewhere?

For years we have fallen short of winning things, sometimes cup finals by a mere goal, other times leagues by a matter of 4 points (often a bit more to be honest) and this has driven some fans to seek someone to be angry with, the manager seems the easy target, and in some cases Wenger has deserved criticism, some signings he has indentified have failed and some of his tactical choices for games have not worked out so well, indeed I wonder had we moved Podolski behind Giroud and sent Cazorla out wide on Saturday we may have had more luck, but that’s armchair football tactics after the event so I shall stop immediately on that train of thought. 

Yet there are many times when Wenger has made astute signings, out thought some of the most brilliant tacticians and has kept an element of class to the team and the club in a time when we are surrounded by classless money throwing owners and mercenary footballers.

I believe Arsene Wenger is the best manager in the world to operate under the system the board wishes to.  I genuinely think your SAFs and Guardiolas of this world would not have managed to do any better over the last eight years.  If you disagree then fine, but SAF has relied on Rooney the way we relied on RVP and he only managed to keep him there by chucking £200k a week at him after he threw dummy out of the pram, something Arsene would never do, and last season the desperate re signing of Scholes (who he still hasn’t replaced) didn’t bring him any silverware either.

The ‘WO’ brigade should be chanting ‘Board Out’ in truth, because the board will not change and I don’t think another football manager alive could keep Arsenal as competitive as they are with the financial constraints the board impose.

In short, be careful what you wish for……

Ed Blagrove

@EdBlagrove