1000 Games For Wenger…. Archaic and Jaded

So Arsene Wenger has “achieved” 1000 games at helm of Arsenal Football Club many say an achievement, I ask you how is it an achievement when you, 1 are on the selection committee to choose your own boss and 2 appear to be impossible to sack? The club has been stale for quite sometime any chance that Arsenal had of lifting the Premier League title has now been obliterated by another inept performance away at a title contender.

There has been a lot of scapegoat-ism regarding certain players in recent weeks but not one has even been directed at Wenger, the man who is paid the big bucks, the man that squabbles over transfer fees for players but doesn’t mind taking a pay rise. In his pre match conference he was asked about his time at the club and he mentioned he sees it as HIS club, HIS money, well it is NOT your money Wenger. Your wages come from revenue if anyone has the right to claim ownership it is it extorted fans that pay week after week game after game that feel betrayed.

Yesterday’s game was Deja Vu of what has gone before, previous two hammerings have been early Saturday kick offs away at Title contenders Manchester City and then Liverpool. The player on all three occasions look jaded and run into the ground, this can NOT be a coincidence. There was a time when Wenger (back in 1996) was a pioneer of fitness and strategy. Now he looks about as tired and jaded as the teams he has put out on recent weeks. Void of ideas or any kind of application. Arsenal yes they beat Tottenham away last weekend that will be valuable to the 4th place trophy Wenger consider to be of high importance. Even at White Hart Lane the performance was a bit shambolic at times and reminded me of a mid-table team “parking the bus” at the home of the Champions or a title contender but it wasn’t, it was a team with so called Title aspirations defending for their lives against an underachiever who made their North London rivals look more than ordinary, this came to the fore yesterday as The reds were torn to shreds even before the sending off.

Take out of the equation Andre Mariner’s calamitous performance ( mistaken identity), and the penalty, Arsenal were already second best to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea who just know how to beat a Wenger side. Mourinho has never lost to Wenger and I would bet he never will. Wenger has shown how ignorant and maybe arrogant to the fact that every mistake he makes they seem to be the same ones. Once again he seems reliant on deploying Mikel Arteta in a defensive midfield role, this has never worked and never will. He has Matthieu Flamini on the bench, finally brings him on when all is lost.

In closing there have been times this season when I have given Wenger the benefit of the doubt, Manchester City for example, there was a naivety about that performance,Manuel Pellegrini’s Man City were an unknown quantity so you can afford one very bad day. But 3? it is indefensible.  All he seems to have to do is take blame for the hammerings, which is only right he should. But in what other performance related job would you keep it or even get offered more money to continue when you have not achieved anything for nearly a decade?

 

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