da pinnacle： It is of little use to gloss heavily over Arsenal’s lack of trophies in recent seasons—something which has wrongly been described as humiliating—because it’s important to take in the wider picture of English and European football. But how much of modern English football has been shaped due to the impact of Arsene Wenger? How many clubs in the top-flight are taking a couple of pages out of the Frenchman’s book in order to ensure the success and safe running of their own little empire? Interestingly, how many clubs in Europe with a reputation that exceeds the Gunners would jump at the chance to sign Wenger as their own manager, even with his “humiliating” seven seasons without a trophy?
da bet esporte： The work of Arsenal and Wenger in particular arguably started with the signing of Dennis Bergkamp during Bruce Rioch’s short time at the club. He was an expensive import with no guarantees of success. Bergkamp was a gamble as much as the appointment of Wenger was, but it was a strategy that would ensure almost instant success at Arsenal. It was an untouched avenue that needed to be explored to be a couple of steps ahead of the competition and beat them to the punch.
Wenger came in and made full use of his contacts abroad. He was scouring the markets in France and Italy for exceptional talents at bargain prices while England was still stuck in the domestic department. It’s no great shame that a manager as well learned in the game springs a surprise and an unheard of signing on English football, but it’s also extremely difficult for some to concede defeat in the world of football. How many in the football or media industry want to readily admit that little knowledge is had of players like Bergkamp, Robert Pires or Gilberto Silva? It’s so much easier to just label them as highly probable failures in the battle fields of the English game.
Somewhat ironically, Alan Pardew is using this exact method to build his competitive Newcastle side. Yohan Cabaye is an Arsene Wenger signing, as is Cheick Tiote, Papiss Cisse and Hatem Ben Arfa. But again, there’s no great shame in wanting to follow a successful and now well trodden path. It’s economically sound to go do the route that Wenger unearthed in English football, and are the performances of Newcastle any great surprise when you look at their methods to build?
The fitness levels and healthy eating of footballers in this country was also something that Wenger addressed. Mars bars and beers were the norm ahead of a game, but it was also likely to shave a good few years off the career of most players. Wenger introduced a diet that gave Arsenal a very successful and powerful defensive unit for the first few years of his time with the club—a continuing of the stubborn defence of the George Graham era.
But what about the running of a football club, the need to safeguard the future and work sensibly to keep the team moving forward. For many frustrated Arsenal fans, the club have not been moving forward in recent years, rather stagnating and allowing rivals to race ahead and out of sight. But there’s a balancing act that needs to be done between building a stadium for the good of the club and being meticulous and careful with expenditure in the transfer market. It’s frustrating yes, but Leeds or Portsmouth or Rangers are the alternatives. How many clubs can confidently go ahead and build their own stadium without any outside investment? It’s a careful planning of economics that puts Arsenal more in line with the clubs in Germany rather than the carefree spending of those in England and other new money clubs scattered around Europe.
It’s probably a cliché, and likely an annoying one to come to terms with sometimes, but Wenger doesn’t just offer himself as a manager for good results on the pitch, instead he also aids in the financial side of the club and acts as a leader for the safety of the future. He won’t be drawn into big money signings where they’re not needed, and maybe that’s a good thing over the long term. Plenty of football fans would sign off on a big signing as a knee jerk reaction if they could, but at what cost?
The playing of the game, however, is where Wenger excels. He took the good defensive work of George Graham and married it with fine attacking displays, often devastating in their precision. How satisfied would Wenger have been following his unbeaten season—something he still doesn’t receive enough credit for—after the media laughed him out of the building for suggesting it could be done. It certainly wasn’t a fluke, the Arsenal manager assembled a team that could win and keep up it’s intensity throughout the season. It was a team who took a point from losing positions and all three when a draw seemed most likely. As I’ve said, it should be a far greater marker in the modern history of the English game than what it is. It’s something the Premier League should boast, that a team went unbeaten in the fiercest and most competitive league in the world. Maybe it would be just another admission that many were wrong about Wenger and his qualities.