Should Wenger get a statue?

Of course he should. But delay the placement until he has retired from football. Otherwise the bad feelings of the mugs who slag him off will be taken out on it

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Just spoke to someone who was at the AGM, Lee Dixon really didn’t hold back with the criticism, wow. 88% of supporters want him out. Ex-players of varying importance from Dixon, Wright and Keown through to Stewart Robson all laying into him to varying degrees. His position is actually untenable, how the hell is he still here :expressionless:

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Ive heard the same thing today.

Lee Dixon and others taking aim at Wenger.

If this is true, perhaps we can buy him a statue to take with him to restaurants as, “his friend.”
It will be ideal, Wenger can talk as long as he wants, and his friend won’t disagree with anything he says.

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For the good of the future.

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Wenger was our greatest manager but stayed 5-10 years too long which destroyed his legacy. Taking a 17m compensation package at the end when the club desperately needed the money for the team instead was the final nail in the coffin for his reputation. So no statue.

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He did a lot for our club, let’s not forget that. I’m sure he’ll get a statue, just not yet. There is still a lot of negative feeling towards Wenger – the statue would probably get defaced. In 10 years or whatever then maybe.

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You’re right he did. Unfortunately he did a lot of damage at the end and left us in a parlous state on the back of it. Although I’m very critical of Kroenke as villain number 1 in all this mess, I do think Wenger was also instrumental in a lot of terrible decisions Xhaka when Kante was on sale, Mustafi, taking Mkhitaryan in on a huge wedge, the new Ozil mega contract etc etc.

I do place Wenger and his end of tenure arrogance as villain number 2 and I do think that if he’d done his job well we’d be in much less of a mess now and probably still in the CL.

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Yeah unfortunately when the minority back 5-6 years ago wanted change it didn’t happen, by the time the majority wanted Wenger out it was all to late, we’re now going to take years to get out of this mess or we may not get out if it at all.

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As much as I pretty much despised Wenger for his selfishness and arrogance in the final few years while he led us to this decline, he didn’t come close to destroying his legacy.

20 years from now, there will be no ambiguity about how important this man was to us; especially if we don’t even win the league again for ages which is very possible…

If he doesn’t get a statue in the end, then who the hell will?

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Nah. George Graham should, though.

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And Rioch for bringing in the genius that is Dennis Bergkamp :smile:

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Sorry I’m giving the credit for that to David Dein

Not a bad shout even if in jest - he brought us more league titles per year of tenure than Wenger did and built the defensive unit that won Wenger 2 of his 3 league titles. Although the final 2 years of George was definitely a lot less than thrilling.

From everything I’ve read from ex Arsenal legends David Dein had a lot to do with the Wenger success years too!

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Graham also exceeded his xleaguetitlesps which was an incredible achievement given I’ve just invented that stat.

As for the defence Graham sure did build it but it was broken by the time Wenger got here and he rebuilt it so there’s no credit to be detracted from Wenger there.

I really do love what Graham did for this club but he left in disgrace (even if everyone else was at it, he got caught) and he managed spurs. No chance he gets a statue.

Seaman, Adams, Dixon, Bould, Winterburn and Keown. I don’t agree that was broken.

The midfield was broken though I think and would agree.

Agree he left in disgrace and managing Spurs a sin. But he won 2 titles when we’d not won one for a long time and a European trophy which Wenger didn’t manage in over 20 years.

Based on the vitriol among the fan base about Wenger in his final years (arguably justified) and his trousering of most of the 17m severance payment (tiny compared with Graham’s bung) I think many would argue Wenger left in disgrace too.

I’d say no statue for either in that case.

So to you accepting full payment from your employment contract is the same as fraudulently & illegally stealing money from your employer.

Got you.

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I thought he was on a two year contract with one year left to run so it doesn’t come to 17m unless he was on 17m a year. So I’m guessing part of it was a bung to buy his silence on what really went on in the Kroenke years but it’s only conjecture on my part.

Anyway I accept it wasn’t done illegally like George was so guilty as charged. Morally though I’m not sure him accepting the payment in the circumstances was the right thing for him to do given how much he’d already made and the mess he left us in.

17m was the payments made to Wenger and other staff that also left. Wenger did not receive that whole sum.