As I walked towards Holloway Road Station, my head throbbing with frustration, I could hear the chants ringing out from the Emirates Stadium, “Spend some f$$$ing money!” I could hear it all the way up Holloway Road, but that doesn’t mean Wenger heard it.
Never in a Million years could you imagine that Arsene Wenger could make the same stupid mistake not once, but twice. Not a man with his intelligence and certainly not a manager on a salary in excess of £7m a year managing one of the richest football clubs in the world. It doesn’t add up.
Back in 2011, Arsenal Sold off Samir Nasri, Cesc Fabregas and Gael Clichy without making any attempt to replace them. And it wasn’t until a patched-up Arsenal side were humiliated 8-2 by Manchester United did Wenger finally crack and panic buy Andre Santos, Per Mertasaker and Mikel Arteta, spending £22m of the £77m Arsenal had amassed from the sale of our then prized assets. Where did the other 55 million go? Those sales confirmed Arsenals intent as a selling club, as we went from a squad 3 players short of maybe being a championship winning side to a club just happy to be in the top 4, simply to maintain Champions League revenues. Don’t fool yourself, it was about the money.
However, it was hoped that Wenger had learned by those mistakes, and last season he seemingly did early on in the transfer market before the hammer blow of selling RVP to Manchester United. This year, despite openly reiterating the importance of buying early, here we are with a line-up already thin heading into the match over the weekend with Villa. To make matters worse, Laurent Koscielny now faces a ban, Thomas Vermaelen and Nacho Monreal have long term injuries, Arteta is injured and Aaron Ramsey finished the game as a centre half. Perhaps worst of all, reports suggest Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could miss up to 6 months with a devastating knee injury.
Really, you have to wonder if any top class manager could be so stupid as to let the same thing happen again. My answer is simply no! Of course it’s not his fault that the injuries occurred, but it is his fault that we are stuck this late in the window with no quality replacements. That is unacceptable. Every club will know of our situation, and any hope of finding those quality players on the cheap has gone out the window.
I don’t believe Wenger is really that stupid despite all indications, but I believe he feels we are! He must. I think Wenger has taken a calculated risk and this time it’s going to blow up in all of our faces unless he can move very swiftly to try and salvage the current situation .
Wenger’s stubborn delusion knows no bounds, I really believe he had no intention in signing anyone of note, and if he had it was never going to be before Arsenal had qualified for the Champions League group stages guaranteeing Arsenal’s Holy Grail – Champions League Money !
Wenger has already smirked his way through numerous press conferences trying to convince everyone that the current Arsenal Squad would be strong enough to challenge for trophies without any signings, until Saturday’s game against Villa properly exposed the notion for a fraud. It was that realization, as plain as could be, that prompted Gooners to find their voice, which reverberated around the Emirates – Wenger, spend some f$$$ing money.
Watching today’s game from my new seat, which cost the equivalent of some small countries’ GDP, the first thing that struck me was how empty the place was with countless empty red seats. As the game went on, and even after we scored, I could see that this is one of the most average Arsenal sides to start a season that I can remember, and I had indeed wasted another £1500 (yes, I actually pay that to watch this) – at least 2 years ago we still had RVP, Song, etc. Now I watched Aston Villa grow into the match, bully our tiny midfield as they realised the same thing – Arsenal are very Average and very small!
Villa’s Midfield kicked, pushed and pulled our midfield around like rag dolls. Wojciech Szcezney bounced around like Basil Fawlty on Prozac, Santi Carzola gave the ball away while poor Jack Wilshere bounced off of Villa’s midfield like a pinball . From where I sat, even with some geezer’s massive, gigantic head in front of me – that’s the difference in paying £2k or £1500 for your seat – I could see that Arsenal lack a quality spine.
How to solve it? Wayne Rooney, Marouane Fellaini, Ashley Williams, Julio Cesar or Asmir Begovic would be a start! We need players of quality to support Wilshere, Theo Walcott and Santi Carzola! Alan Shearer summed up Arsenal’s performance up today in one word – “Dreadful”. The worrying thing is with suspensions and injuries it can only get worse, while a meeting with a Tottenham side chock full of new signings and possibly Gareth Bale is our next home league game the future looks ominous.
This could define Wenger’s future, as many are looking to assign the lunatic to the dole queue’s of Paris . Wenger tried to deflect today’s performance by referring to the referee rather than the beating Arsenal were handed by a team who spent most of last season avoiding relegation, but the whole world could see today what Wenger’s delusion has been avoiding. As Fenerbache beckons, our season could be collapsed by September the 1st, and maybe Wenger and his smirk could be gone by the January transfer window.
Now, playing devils advocate, as much as I think its time for Wenger to go, as I have just said, no one could be that stupid as to put Arsenal back in the same position as we are now. That is unless maybe you’re Stan Kroenke kicking it and counting it on your Colorado ranch, or you’re a Chief Executive whose massive £2 million salary is linked to the club’s financial results, in which case you’re both laughing all the way to the bank!
Could Wenger be so loyal to his board as to shoulder all of the blame for not spending? Is there a more sinister reason for what’s going on? I mean take the £40 million and a penny bid for Luis Suarez. Surely Wenger never sanctioned such an obvious piss-take , but who at the Emirates made the decision that allowed Arsenal to become such a public laughing stock, and what was the purpose?
We are Arsenal Football Club for god’s sake. Have 8 trophy-less years allowed Wenger and the club to lose all of our self respect ? All of transfer dealings have become farcical. So between the £10 million a year Wenger gets and whatever Gazidis earns, what are they doing to justify it? And how do they explain this debacle? None of it makes sense, and the fact that neither Kroenke, Gazidis or Wenger see fit to publicly explain to us mere supporters what the logic is behind such obvious incompetence, the answer just keeps coming up “Sheer Greed”!
Alisher Usmenov’s current silence also puzzles me, as a man use to his own personal success, how can he just stand by and watch as his major investment disintegrate before his very eyes? Unless he too has become happy to benefit from the balance sheet, or maybe, just maybe, it’s the calm before the storm, which see’s him wrestle Arsenal from the clutches of our evil owners with a bid that buys back Arsenal and restores our great club to the fans. Usmenov, David Dein, Jurgen Klopp – the fantasy that keeps me going.
I dont need to chant Wenger out anymore , the idiots making a great case for it himself now !
Richie Rich Goddard
Thanks for Reading, you can follow me on twitter @R1chierichguner as well as our other massive Gooners – @RoryHarbaugh, @JimPow77 and @TonyNYGooner. Give the site a follow while you’re at it – @LastWordOnSports.
Feel free to discuss this and other footy related articles with thousands of fans at r/football.
Interested in writing for LastWordOnSports? Find more info at our “Join Our Team” page.
