Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Why I can't say Wenger Out
Me and Arsenal go back a long way. Back to some pretty dire days indeed post 71 double. Bertie Mee, the man who guided us back then, failed to build on what we had in that season. Alan Ball was brought in, yes, but Frank McLintock was allowed to leave just two years later. Bob Wilson 12 months after that.
That wonderful team was broken up way to quickly and by the mid 1970s we were struggling against relegation. 39,000 against QPR one December was considered a good crowd, we signed players like Terry Mancini and Alex Cropley but mostly we prayed.
But I don't recall fans hollering for Mee's head. Even then, pre teenage years, I knew instinctively it wasn't the way we did things. The Arsenal way. And that is, was, a way that we on the terraces imbibed from a very young age.
Terry Neill came in and for a while things looked up. But a few appearances in a few finals couldn't hide the fact that we were never challenging for the title. We were Arsenal of course, we judge success by title wins. Lesser pots are for lesser clubs.
Things cam to a head in 1983. Big money signings Charlie Nicholas, Tony Woodcock, Lee Chapman and Kenny Sansom were not taking us where we felt we should be and things were turning ugly. The North Bank became a battleground as fans divided themselves between the Neill must stay and Neill must go camps.
I sat on the fence. We lost to Walsall and I knew things weren't good. But we were Arsenal, Terry Neill was old skool Arsenal, hell he had even helped get Tottenham relegated. But I couldn't sing songs aimed at sacking him. Just didn't seem right. And for those that did I'm sure many of them felt the same unease.
For a couple of years things stagnated before George Graham arrived in 1986. Boring footballs but trophies. In 1993 we became the first team to win both the FA Cup and League Cup in one season. 12 months later we won the European Cup Winners Cup. Three cups in one year. With what was to be fair a poor team. Selley, Hillier, Morrow, they will never be Arsenal legends even though they came through the ranks and did their bit for the club.
Arsene Wenger has changed all that. We are now considered the neutral's favourite team, a sobriquet I am unhappy with. I want trophies. Thoughtful fans have told me we are close to being a brilliant team and part of me wants that to be true. But Wenger is making bad judgement calls and that worries me.
He says the players aren't use to winning big games, that's why they fall apart against the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United. But that is his fault. He adopted the policy of Champions Lague or Premiership...nothing else will do.
If he had been more serious about cup competitions in the recent past then believe we would not be having this post now. Had we beaten Chelsea in the Carling Cup Final back in 2007 he would have seen a young team getting an early taste of silverware; a habit they would have found hard to lose.
Instead we lose and the players find losing normal. It's their mindset now and Wenger has done nothing to alter that perception. Stoke away in the FA Cup being the most recent example.
We are top scorers. We have an awful defence made up of other teams hand me downs. We have a keeper who is average on his better days. Yet we keep up there in the top three, top four.
Sack Wenger and bring who in? Pesonally I would be happy to see Jose Mourinho come in and win us a few trophies and have people hate us all over again. But I don't wanna sack Wenger. Not after what he has done in the past. Like I didn't wanna sack Mee or Neill.
I just wish ... he'd win us something, anything, to let the players know what it means to win something. That is all that's missing.
That wonderful team was broken up way to quickly and by the mid 1970s we were struggling against relegation. 39,000 against QPR one December was considered a good crowd, we signed players like Terry Mancini and Alex Cropley but mostly we prayed.
But I don't recall fans hollering for Mee's head. Even then, pre teenage years, I knew instinctively it wasn't the way we did things. The Arsenal way. And that is, was, a way that we on the terraces imbibed from a very young age.
Terry Neill came in and for a while things looked up. But a few appearances in a few finals couldn't hide the fact that we were never challenging for the title. We were Arsenal of course, we judge success by title wins. Lesser pots are for lesser clubs.
Things cam to a head in 1983. Big money signings Charlie Nicholas, Tony Woodcock, Lee Chapman and Kenny Sansom were not taking us where we felt we should be and things were turning ugly. The North Bank became a battleground as fans divided themselves between the Neill must stay and Neill must go camps.
I sat on the fence. We lost to Walsall and I knew things weren't good. But we were Arsenal, Terry Neill was old skool Arsenal, hell he had even helped get Tottenham relegated. But I couldn't sing songs aimed at sacking him. Just didn't seem right. And for those that did I'm sure many of them felt the same unease.
For a couple of years things stagnated before George Graham arrived in 1986. Boring footballs but trophies. In 1993 we became the first team to win both the FA Cup and League Cup in one season. 12 months later we won the European Cup Winners Cup. Three cups in one year. With what was to be fair a poor team. Selley, Hillier, Morrow, they will never be Arsenal legends even though they came through the ranks and did their bit for the club.
Arsene Wenger has changed all that. We are now considered the neutral's favourite team, a sobriquet I am unhappy with. I want trophies. Thoughtful fans have told me we are close to being a brilliant team and part of me wants that to be true. But Wenger is making bad judgement calls and that worries me.
He says the players aren't use to winning big games, that's why they fall apart against the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United. But that is his fault. He adopted the policy of Champions Lague or Premiership...nothing else will do.
If he had been more serious about cup competitions in the recent past then believe we would not be having this post now. Had we beaten Chelsea in the Carling Cup Final back in 2007 he would have seen a young team getting an early taste of silverware; a habit they would have found hard to lose.
Instead we lose and the players find losing normal. It's their mindset now and Wenger has done nothing to alter that perception. Stoke away in the FA Cup being the most recent example.
We are top scorers. We have an awful defence made up of other teams hand me downs. We have a keeper who is average on his better days. Yet we keep up there in the top three, top four.
Sack Wenger and bring who in? Pesonally I would be happy to see Jose Mourinho come in and win us a few trophies and have people hate us all over again. But I don't wanna sack Wenger. Not after what he has done in the past. Like I didn't wanna sack Mee or Neill.
I just wish ... he'd win us something, anything, to let the players know what it means to win something. That is all that's missing.
# posted by Me @ 11:56 AM 
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