Date Published: 05/13/09
ARSENAL’S ARSENE WENGER IS OUT OF TUNE SAYS IAN WRIGHT
ARSENE WENGER appears to me as if he can’t see what’s wrong with the current Arsenal squad and the set-up at the Emirates.
The Gunners manager is without doubt one of the best of all time but I am now beginning to wonder whether he is still in tune with the Arsenal fans.
Why hasn’t he replaced Thierry Henry?
Why hasn’t he found someone to fill the huge gap left by Patrick Vieira?
Why haven’t Arsenal had a top-quality keeper since David Seaman hung up his gloves?
And why doesn’t he play Theo Walcott straight down the middle as the natural goalscorer Arsenal desperately need?
It all adds up to yet another season of huge disappointment, a fourth consecutive campaign without a trophy — you have to go back to 1982-86 to equal that frightening sequence.
What also worries me is some fans appear to be grateful for squeezing into the Champions League in fourth place.
Do me a favour! Wenger is the manager who gave Arsenal unparalleled success, who delivered the Invincibles, the coach who has undoubtedly rewritten the rules for how the game is played at the highest level in this country.
Arsenal have gone from a peerless team who had all the bragging rights to a side hanging on for fourth place.
So what has gone so drastically wrong, why are Arsenal just a pale impersonation of the all-conquering team who went through an entire season without a single defeat?
Before anyone starts to think I’m jumping all over Arsenal simply because of the two crushing defeats against Manchester United and then Chelsea, you couldn’t be more wrong.
I have been stating what I believe is blindingly obvious for quite some time now, a view that has upset a hardcore of Gunners fans, who are telling me my ‘legendary’ status has been revoked for talking about what I passionately believe.
Look, I will back Arsene to the very end but I can’t bury my head in the sand and pretend everything is rosy. Those who pay good money each week know it isn’t.
Henry would guarantee you goals, whether he pulled out wide or played straight down the middle with his killer touch and deadly shot.
He was willing to take responsibility for sticking the ball in the net. He wanted to poke it home from a yard, score spectacular efforts or milk the glory for one that went in off his backside. He WANTED it. Where is that kind of player now in the Arsenal team? Vieira would give you a level of desire that drove the team on, crunching tackles, heart-stopping runs. He WANTED to win.
Where is that kind of player in the Arsenal team? A player who accepts the responsibility for organising, for making sure there is 100 per cent commitment?
I’m looking through the team and asking myself how much do they want to die for the Arsenal cause when the s**t hits the fan.
And as for the defence... please, I’d better leave that one alone.
I know Arsenal are trying to do things differently to the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, who all appear to operate with huge debts. Does anyone honestly believe Arsenal could have won the Champions League with their squad?
If anyone out there is thinking they could have got past United and then beat Barcelona, well I respectfully suggest they should take off their rose-tinted glasses.
OK, the move to the Emirates was a massive drain on resources and we’re told that is one of the reasons why the transfer budget has been hit.
Well, fans don’t really care much about balance sheets, they care about clean sheets and there’s been precious few of those.
They want world-class replacements for world-class players who have moved on instead of pussy-footing about in the transfer market.
Yaya Toure, Kolo’s brother, was talked about as joining Arsenal. Where did he end up?
Samuel E’to was mentioned as wearing the red shirt, a bit of a jack the lad by all accounts but surely a coach of the magnitude of Wenger could have brought him into line and got 20-plus goals out of him as well. Which is where one of my pet subjects comes in.
Walcott can get a team 20-25 goals a season if he is played down the middle. Right now, he is being wasted on the wing where he doesn’t have too many tricks to get past defenders and instead relies on his pace.
That blistering pace would cause nightmares for the centre of any team’s defence, Theo has a great touch and an eye for goal.
But I believe his confidence could be gradually eroded if he is told to stay wide and have no more than average games.
Walcott can do what Michael Owen used to do. He should be shooting off to legendary status as a goalscorer.
Instead, I believe every time I see him have a quiet time out on the right, it is slowly hurting his game.
Using Walcott as your main striker won’t cure all the wrong at the Emirates — but it will be a damn fine place to start.
