I win almost 60% of my games. I can and have rebuilt the club for you. I have sold my best players to build a fabulous new training ground and stadium. I made your football club the best run, most financially viable organisation in the Western Hemisphere and I we still play some of the most attractive football on the planet.
Sounds like a dream football manager doesn’t it. That’s exactly the resume Arsene Wenger can boast. And that’s without reminding us about two decades of Champion’s League football, league titles, FA Cup wins and more top flight football than almost any club in Europe.
Of course, the knock on Wenger is he hasn’t won enough, well not enough for those Gooners who think winning is a right.
In a world where instagrat - yes, instant gratification is all conquering supporters and pundits suggest its time for Wenger to go.
I just want to laugh out loud and enjoy such madness. The shrewd management and tactical thinking that has saved Arsenal from precipitous decline now has “Inspector Clouseau” - as he was once affectionately known by his players for his clumsy ways - facing the end.
Like, Jimmy Conners in Tennis, Wenger has had to face many foes. Sir Alex and his colossal 65% win percentage, Russian Oligarch Roman and the Manchester invaders from the Middle East. Yet still Arsenal is relevant. More than relevant.
As a Liverpool fan, I know all too well what it is to be living with a past that haunts the present. Since winning our 5th Champions League/European Cup in 2005, we have appeared in the competition, once in the last seven seasons! More than a quarter of a century since our last Premier League title, yet I am more convinced than ever that we are close.
And that pushing out Wenger is the kind of madness only the spoilt and famously blinkered do. Gooner fans are lucky Arsenal’s board has had the foresight to realise that winning the title, isn’t the only thing that matters. Success is more than just holding the trophy aloft. It’s a celebration of style and quality and perseverance. Being a winner, like Wenger is often tougher than lifting the title in fleeting moments of success.
Ask Blackburn Rovers, who won the title in 94/95 and now find themselves languishing third from bottom in the Championship.
Wenger’s success is timeless and lasting in an age where crazy management and even crazier decisions lead to perilously poor results.
Like Ferguson, Wenger is unique. Uniquely qualified to continue to lead Arsenal, even if a good percentage of their fan base don’t seem to know it.