Friday, October 28, 2011
Rebuild The Trust
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger ended the Annual General Meeting with a call to the heart of Arsenal supporters everywhere. He understands the discontent and the frustration he told the meeting but he asked for more time and he asked for supporters to trust in him.
Arsenal fans have trusted in him. They have trusted in him for six uneventful years and only now are serious questions being asked about whether he is the man to run the football club in the future. Fans have trusted Wenger and he responded to that trust by fielding dross like Emmanuel Eboue, Manuel Almunia and Denilson, telling us at the same time they were part of the best squad he had ever built at Arsenal.
It wasn’t. Far from it. Of course he’s not going to come out and say they were bad players but it was painfully evident early on that any master plan built around those three, plus others of course, was doomed to failure. The best teams have the best keepers yet Wenger gave us a Spanish journeyman who had never stayed anywhere long enough to become a regular. Until he came to North London.
Winston Churchill had his Wilderness Years before returning to lead the United Kingdom in the Second World War. How will history view Wenger’s Looney Years? Signings like Mikael Silvestre and Amuary Bischoff came in unexplained and left in a similar manner. Beanpole striker Niklas Bendtner was stuck on the wing while he stuck doggedly to the fallacy that Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas would stay with the club during the pre season and that the squad was big enough to cope with the new season even though defensive frailties had undermined trophy challenges for as long as anyone could remember.
Wenger is asking for fans to show trust but the current dissent is because many feel that trust has been misplaced over recent years. The Frenchman needs to regain that trust and he can make a start by taking his head out of the sand and wake up to the realities of the game today and not how he would like it to be in the future.
Signing average players to long term contracts has become a millstone round the club’s neck while playing stingy on big name player’s salary demands has seen big names, frustrated by the lack of progress on the field, queue up to leave.
No matter how the club like to dress things up, the 8-2 away to Manchester United was a turning point. New blood was needed, the fans knew it and the media knew it. Only Wenger couldn’t see it. It took Old Trafford to poke the board into action and Wenger went out and freshened up the squad.
Szezsney’s performances in goal, and just as importantly as an imposing Peter Schmeichel type figure between the sticks have convinced Gooners they finally have a decent keeper while Gervinho up front has brought a directness that has been absent for several seasons.
The signings have bought Wenger time. He should use it to regain the trust of the fans.
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