After Jose Mourinho described Arsene Wenger as a “specialist in failure“, when responding to Wenger’s claim that teams ruling themselves out of the title race have a “fear of failure”, it is only fair to raise the question: has Wenger failed in his last eight years at Arsenal? Mourinho’s response was a typical Mourinho response in the sense that it was emotional, personal and had an element of truth in it. However, besides that, it is evident that Mourinho and Wenger just don’t get on – something that dates back over a decade!
So, has Wenger failed? Well let’s look through season by season since they won the FA Cup. Also bear in mind it is well documented that in that time Wenger has had very limited funds to spend on players and wages due to the building of the magnificent 60,000 seat Emirates Stadium, which was built to take Arsenal onto the next level in terms of finances as well as establish Arsenal as one of the biggest clubs in Europe for many years to come.
2005/2006 – The season after winning the FA Cup (Arsenal’s last piece of silverware), Arsenal lost to Mourinho’s Chelsea in the Community Shield with Didier Drogba proving too much to handle on the day for the likes of Philippe Senderos and Kolo Toure. After the game Wenger said “It is not too important. We have won four Community Shields and no-one regards it as a trophy so I do not mind anymore.” That season Arsenal were also 14 minutes from winning the Champions League and if Jens Lehmann didn’t get sent off after 18 minutes they probably would have.
Season Verdict: Very close to silverware, with still a very good Arsenal team.
2006/2007 Arsenal were yet again very close to silverware getting to the league cup final, where yet again Arsenal met Chelsea and Drogba. Arsenal’s very young team couldn’t quite get over the finish line despite playing some great football on the day. The summer before, Wenger also sold a lot of his experienced players and a new blood of youngsters were staring to emerge.
Season Verdict: Wenger played the kids in the final and again, like the Community Shield, did not really take the completion seriously.
2007/2008 Arsenal made a real push for the title this season with more young players coming in and older players going out, most notably Thierry Henry. Arsenal only lost three league games all season and were yet again close to silverware, but struggled to cope with setbacks, like the Eduardo injury against Birmingham.
Season Verdict: A more experienced team may have been able to cope better with setbacks, but yet again Wenger managed to compete for major silverware.
2008/2009 Arsenal reached the semi-final of both the Champions League and the FA Cup with, by now, a completely new look team to that which won the FA Cup – only four of those players remained.
Season Verdict: Yet again, Arsenal challenged for silverware while playing attractive football.
2009/2010 Season Verdict: A reasonably average season for Arsenal’s standards, but still managing to finish in the top four and reaching the quarter finals of the Champion’s League.
2010/2011 Arsenal were challenging in all four competitions and there was some talk of Arsenal possibly winning all four trophies. However all talk of that ended around February and March when everything collapsed, starting with another League Cup Final defeat, this time to Birmingham.
Season Verdict: This was a very emotional season for Arsenal fans, they looked almost certain to win at least one trophy. Instead they won nothing again.
2011/2012 Season Verdict: This season was all about finishing top four which they achieved on the last day. In the end finishing third. They didn’t really challenge for silverware, however Arsenal fans enjoyed some great nights at the Emirates like beating Milan 3-0.
2012/2013 Season Verdict: Yet again Arsenal were in a fight to secure a top four finish and didn’t really challenge for silverware. However, yet again Arsenal fans could take away great memories, the 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich being the stand out one.
As you can see in the last eight years Arsenal have challenged for trophies and come very close to lifting some. It has also been made clear that certain competitions – like the Charity Shield and the League Cup – Arsene Wenger does not play his First XI, which obviously limits Arsenal to challenging for three trophies instead of four. The squad has changed dramatically with Arsenal being forced to sell big stars because of not being able to compete with the financial power of not only Manchester United and Liverpool, but now Manchester City and Chelsea. Despite this, every year Wenger has managed to finish within the top four and reach the last 16 of the Champions League. This is not an easy feat by any means, as Liverpool fans will tell you. So to call Arsene’s last eight years a failure is very harsh and probably unjustified.
Now, in the latter stages of the 2013/2014 season Arsenal have a genuine chance of winning something, after paying off the stadium debt. With the club publicly stating that there is now money to spend and that we are no longer restricted financially, there is no excuse for Wenger and Arsenal not to win trophies!
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