Today, October 1, marks Arsene Wenger’s 20th year as manager of Arsenal. It is indeed a milestone for one of football’s great managers.
The 66-year-old Frenchman has become a personification of the London club; even their names rhyme. He is not only the Gunners’ longest serving manager but also the most successful in terms of trophies won.
He has won three league titles and six FA cups, including two league and Cup doubles. In 2004 the team won the league without a single defeat, earning the nickname The Invincibles. It is also remarkable that no manager has won more FA cups in England.
Although he had won the French league title and cup with Monaco in 1988 and 1991 respectively, Wenger arrived England in 1996 as a virtually unknown manager.
However, he ended up revolutionizing football in England by introducing changes in the training and diet of players. For his services to English football, Queen Elizabeth awarded him with the OBE in 2003.
Unfortunately, the last decade has not gone according to script. After a trophy-laden first 10 years, the Gunners have failed to win the Premier League since 2004. This has made many Arsenal fans to call for the sack of the iconic manager.
However, a lot of things conspired to rob Wenger of a league title in the last 12 years. First, the club decided to build a new stadium and had to cut back on spending. This period saw some of Arsenal’s best players jump ship.
Not many coaches of Wenger’s ilk would have stayed during the years of austerity. In fact, a lot of managers have quit their clubs when they were not given a lot of money to spend on new players.
Wenger did not lack lucrative offers. Big teams such as Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and lately Paris Saint Germain have courted him but he remained committed to the London club.
As Arsenal’s financial muscles atrophied, Roman Abramovich turned average Chelsea into a global superpower. A few years later, Sheikh Mansour followed the Russian’s blueprint and pumped a billion pounds into Manchester City, pushing Arsenal further down the financial ladder.
It is to Wenger’s credit that even though the club could not match the economic strength of the new superpowers – what he derisively called financial doping – Arsenal has never failed to be among the top four at the end of every season. No other club in England can match this feat.
Wenger, who holds a Master’s degree in Economics, knows the value of money. Unlike many other managers, he remains prudent and doesn’t throw money at problems. While most managers splash the cash at the slightest opportunity, Wenger prefers to be careful with the club’s money, leading many fans to call him tight-fisted. But he says he spends the club’s money the way he would spend his own and would only go for value.
“I personally believe the only way to be a manager is to spend the club’s money as if it were your own,” he was quoted in the book “Game Changers: Inside English Football” by former West Ham manager Alan Curbishly.
“You make big decisions and I believe you have to act like it’s your own money – like you’re the owner of the club and you can identify completely with the club, because if you don’t do that I don’t think you can go far.”
Wenger, fondly known as “Le Professeur,” also sees the players as his children who must be nurtured and not thrown out at the slightest whiff of poor form. Unlike other managers, he doesn’t have a ruthless streak.
At the beginning of this season, Pep Guardiola has frozen out a host of Man City stars, including top stars like Yaya Toure and goalkeeper Joe Hart. In neighbouring Manchester United, Jose Mourinho has also overlooked German World Cup winner Bastian Schweinsteiger.
These are ruthless and cold-blooded moves you can never associate with Wenger. Over the years he has persevered with a long list of non-performers such as Denilson, Marouane Chamakh, Yaya Sanogo, Philippe Senderos and Sebastien Squillaci even when Arsenal fans were fed up with their extremely poor form.
According to former Gunners striker Ian Wright, Wenger’s revolution was based on treating players with respect but some players have taken advantage of the Frenchman’s soft disposition.
“The Arsene Wenger revolution was based on treating us like adults. Under previous managers it had all been so edgy,” he wrote in his recently published autobiography, “A Life in Football: My Autobiography.”
“The big problem with taking Wenger’s approach is that it isn’t difficult to take advantage of – it’s almost like having a parent you think is a bit soft and you know if you cry hard enough you will get a sweet. Players that are strong characters have taken his kindness for weakness,” he said.
However, the boss – as his players fondly call him – is anything but soft. He is just an idealist, a gentleman who wants to treat everyone in a humane way. The players like Ashley Cole, Emmanuel Adebayor, Robin van Persie and Samir Nasri, who left the club in search of greener pastures later turned back to praise the years they spent under his tutelage.
Because Wenger doesn’t have the win-at-all-cost mentality of some other managers, play-acting is not synonymous with an Arsenal player. Wenger once went out of his way to ask for a replay when Arsenal scored a goal direct from a throw-in following a player’s injury – instead of following the unwritten rule that the team should give the ball back to the opponents. The FA agreed and the match was replayed. Fortunately Arsenal won the match again with the same 2-1 margin, and everyone went home happy.
Wenger’s contract runs out next year and there are speculations whether his love affair with Arsenal will come to an end. Many believe that his shoes will be extremely difficult to fill. One of them is David Dein, the club’s former vice-chairman.
“He wont be a difficult act to follow…he will be an impossible act to follow,” Dein, who brought Wenger to Arsenal, said at the Soccerex Global Convention. “He’s been at the club for 20 seasons and every year he has been in the Champions League.
“So to anyone who wants to change the manager I say to them that the next person is highly unlikely to do that.”
Picture credit: The Guardian
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