Life after Wenger | Ornstein: Arsenal set to appoint Unai Emery

[Tosker]

semis or finals of the Europa League is our level - and losing CL money might just be a wake-up call for Kroenke

I still incline to the view that for an incoming, ambitious new manager having a tilt at the PL title without any distractions might be a bigger incentive than any European football

 

[Vistula]

My tinfoil hat tells me that the players pickup some vibe from Wenger/Someone in the club that he's not extending, or at least a rumour mill formed in the dressing room. Felt it from the last few weeks that they're not even putting in that real of a shift anymore. Özil's sulking, Alexis frustration. Dunno, just a feeeling.

The push for top 4 may tell the rest of the story, it's what shift some of our players into gear, realizing that they're going to miss the UCL games.

Now that you mentioned it - Özil explicitly said that his future in Arsenal depends on Wenger's decision on whether he will extend. Since the matter is getting complicated with every week, now I see why Özil could become less motivated to play, don't you think?

 

[Maxim]

I don't think we'll ever have a manager stay for longer than 6 years again. Either by Board decision or by their own accord they will leave after a couple of seasons.

Can you explain your reasoning here? The board aren't exactly trigger happy and we don't yet know who the new manager will be and what their prerogative will be.

 

[Goon-Ger]

Sampaoli, Allegri or Simeone (in that order for me).

 

[Rimaal]

So, what now? I don’t think anything should, or will, happen before the end of the season. My gut feeling, not simply based on last night or Arsène’s reaction to it, is that he will call time on things this summer – and I think that’s the right move for all concerned. Whether this expedites *that* conversation with the board I don’t know, but leaving that aside, if Arsenal Football Club are not preparing in any way for that eventuality then we’re in bigger trouble than people think.

As I’ve written about countless times before, there’s a lot more to the changing of the guard at Arsenal than one man in, one man out. You don’t replace Arsène Wenger with another Arsène Wenger. The structures at the club at this moment in time are a long way from what’s required to bring in a modern day head-coach. The almost total dearth of football and Arsenal knowledge on the board that has to be addressed, because if it’s not the decision making will be a long way from as informed as it should be for something like this to happen.

Make no mistake, it’s seismic. It might get worse before it gets better, but you’d be hard pressed to make the point that it’s going to get better under the manager as it stands. But we’re in this weird kind of limbo right now where the board would like nothing more than for him to sign a two year deal, and until the man himself makes the decision nothing is going to happen.

It’s a sad time, and while I think change is necessary and inevitable, I cannot plumb the depths and abuse him the way others do. That’s their choice, I’ll make mine. By all means criticise, Arsène Wenger is long enough in the game to understand that’s part and parcel of the job, but he doesn’t deserve the vitriol and viciousness aimed at him from some quarters.

To me he’s a man who lives for football and for Arsenal, if you don’t think he suffers when we lose, or doesn’t work as hard as possible to win games and win things, then you don’t know him at all. The issue is that the hard work is no longer producing the performances and results to meet the standards that he himself went a long way to setting at this club. Last night’s second half capitulation was further evidence of that, and there’s little left now other than to let the contract run out in June and start making plans for what comes next.

I hope it doesn’t descend into further acrimony. Suggestions that he announce it soon and thus get people behind him for the final few months do make some sense but don’t seem very Arsène Wenger or very Arsenal for that matter. But given the sheer scale of the changes required if and when he does go, the sooner there’s some clarity the better.

Whatever happens, it looks like it’s going to be a tumultuous, emotional and interesting few months in the life of Arsenal Football Club.

http://arseblog.com/2017/02/bayern-munich-5-1-arsenal-sad-embarrassing/

 

[El Duderino]

Now that you mentioned it - Özil explicitly said that his future in Arsenal depends on Wenger's decision on whether he will extend. Since the matter is getting complicated with every week, now I see why Özil could become less motivated to play, don't you think?

Something along those lines. Özil, for all the love I have for him, gets it off easy with a coach like Wenger. Maybe afraid of what the future lies with another manager. Be it at Arsenal or at another club should he leave.

A lot of our players know they'll get the chop if a new manager comes in.

With Alexis the most obvious is that he doens't trust his team mates. But part of me thinks - and all this is tinfoil hat stuff - that Alexis really wants to win something at the club before he leaves (and for Wenger, maybe). Maybe it's just his way of leading by example.

Lastly the other way to look at it, is that a group players are uncertain about both Arsène's future/capacity and he lost the dressing room. When that happens, it's hard to bounce back.

 

[carlito'sway]

So, what now? I don’t think anything should, or will, happen before the end of the season. My gut feeling, not simply based on last night or Arsène’s reaction to it, is that he will call time on things this summer – and I think that’s the right move for all concerned. Whether this expedites *that* conversation with the board I don’t know, but leaving that aside, if Arsenal Football Club are not preparing in any way for that eventuality then we’re in bigger trouble than people think.

As I’ve written about countless times before, there’s a lot more to the changing of the guard at Arsenal than one man in, one man out. You don’t replace Arsène Wenger with another Arsène Wenger. The structures at the club at this moment in time are a long way from what’s required to bring in a modern day head-coach. The almost total dearth of football and Arsenal knowledge on the board that has to be addressed, because if it’s not the decision making will be a long way from as informed as it should be for something like this to happen.

Make no mistake, it’s seismic. It might get worse before it gets better, but you’d be hard pressed to make the point that it’s going to get better under the manager as it stands. But we’re in this weird kind of limbo right now where the board would like nothing more than for him to sign a two year deal, and until the man himself makes the decision nothing is going to happen.

It’s a sad time, and while I think change is necessary and inevitable, I cannot plumb the depths and abuse him the way others do. That’s their choice, I’ll make mine. By all means criticise, Arsène Wenger is long enough in the game to understand that’s part and parcel of the job, but he doesn’t deserve the vitriol and viciousness aimed at him from some quarters.

To me he’s a man who lives for football and for Arsenal, if you don’t think he suffers when we lose, or doesn’t work as hard as possible to win games and win things, then you don’t know him at all. The issue is that the hard work is no longer producing the performances and results to meet the standards that he himself went a long way to setting at this club. Last night’s second half capitulation was further evidence of that, and there’s little left now other than to let the contract run out in June and start making plans for what comes next.

I hope it doesn’t descend into further acrimony. Suggestions that he announce it soon and thus get people behind him for the final few months do make some sense but don’t seem very Arsène Wenger or very Arsenal for that matter. But given the sheer scale of the changes required if and when he does go, the sooner there’s some clarity the better.

Whatever happens, it looks like it’s going to be a tumultuous, emotional and interesting few months in the life of Arsenal Football Club.

http://arseblog.com/2017/02/bayern-munich-5-1-arsenal-sad-embarrassing/

THIS!

 

[Rimaal]

Obsession over who can fill Wenger’s shoes obscures Arsenal’s real problems

Dein left in April 2007 after trying to engineer the sale of the club – he divested his shares in August of that year – and despite maintaining a close friendship with the manager he no longer has any ties to Arsenal. No direct replacement has ever been appointed.

Everybody is aware by now of the way that Wenger’s role has spread beyond that of any other manager in world football. He controls every detail of the club, from the food in the canteen to the length of grass on the training pitches. He dictates the transfer targets, the fees, the size of the contracts that are offered. It wasn’t always so. When Dein was at the club there’s was a true partnership – a partnership of equals, both willing to challenge the other. He was a constant presence at all levels of the club, as Ian Wright put it: “We’re talking about a man who goes into the dressing room after every single game, shakes every player by the hand and who knows all the youth team players.”

It was Dein who went out and signed Sol Campbell on a free transfer from Tottenham, offering what were then astounding wages to beat the richest clubs in the world to the punch and sign their biggest rival’s captain. Could you imagine today’s Arsenal attempting a similarly audacious move? The £40m plus £1 offer for Luis Suárez a few years ago springs to mind.

Dein’s functions were replaced to a degree, but his role was split across numerous executives, none of them with his footballing nous, his feel for the club, or with the power base to push Wenger to strive for more. Ivan Gazidis arrived as chief executive in 2009 – an appointment signed off by the manager. The governance structure has to be questioned when the person supposedly in charge of the day-to-day running of the organisation joins on the say-so of somebody whose job they should be overseeing. The American was not a complete stranger to the sport – but his familiarity with football comes from 14 years at MLS, perhaps a good grounding for growing the brand but not much help in negotiating the backrooms of European football.

Another American joined as an executive later that year to oversee transfers. **** Law has become the focus of much ire within the Arsenal fanbase for the club’s supposed dithering over targets and fees. The truth is harder to discern. Law had been involved on a small scale for years and helped with the signing of Gilberto Silva in 2002, but the sometimes shambolic nature of Arsenal’s transfer business since his appointment is hard to ignore. The summer of 2011 has stuck in the mind. The inevitable, and entirely predictable, departures of Cesc Fàbregas and Samir Nasri were stalled until the last possible moment – while Law was in Costa Rica engaging in a lengthy negotiation for a young winger called Joel Campbell. This was followed by a crazed trolley dash after the 8-2 humiliation at Old Trafford. Park Chu-young, André Santos, Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker arrived as the transfer window closed. This was not a well-planned squad restructure – it stank of desperation. But who was to blame? Is Law the bumbling amateur some imagine, or is he just unable to challenge the man who makes all the football decisions at Arsenal? It’s hard to imagine Dein allowing the club’s two most creative players to leave within a week of each other without having lined up a replacement before hand.

This power vacuum above Wenger can be traced right up to the owner, Stan Kroenke.

...

when asked about the club’s continued failure to get beyond the last-16 in the Champions League, described exasperation from fans as “just noise”.


Arsenal are the seventh richest club in world football, with huge cash reserves, and a large modern stadium in one of the most vibrant cities in the world. The squad has improved vastly in recent seasons, but the failures have remained eerily similar since 2008. The common factor is the manager. Would any other club of a similar stature really allow this kind of stasis to have continued for so long?

The problem is that should the manager make the decision to leave – and make no mistake, it will be his decision – is there anybody senior at the club with serious football knowledge? It’s all very well asking who can replace Arsène Wenger, but the real question is whether there’s anyone left at Arsenal football club who is qualified to choose his successor.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...david-dein-successor-manager?CMP=share_btn_tw

 

[redwhiteAustrian]

It’s all very well asking who can replace Arsène Wenger, but the real question is whether there’s anyone left at Arsenal football club who is qualified to choose his successor.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...david-dein-successor-manager?CMP=share_btn_tw

That bid is absolutely true.

When you consider how often Wenger stated that he'd have no say/advice when it comes to naming his successor, you wonder whether he's doing that to either make the Board aware of the fact that they're held hostage by him, and/or the fact that they indeed don't have the football-nous to name one themselves.

They've so heavily relied upon him, that they need him to name his successor.....they need him to stab himself in the back.

 

[Tosker]

a top manager who fancies the job might just come out and say so, and make the Board's job easier for them

 

[Silvinho's ball bag]

Who exactly is on "our board", BTW? Who are these people and why are they so clueless?

 

[Silvinho's ball bag]

Forget it, just checked out this page: http://www.arsenal.com/the-club/corporate-info/the-arsenal-board

What a sorry bunch of dickwads.

Those two Kroenke ****s with their smirks make me boil.

 

[grange]

Kroenke looks like Inspector Clouseau. Ughhh.

 

[DanDare]

Who exactly is on "our board", BTW? Who are these people and why are they so clueless?

Bunch of old white men and yes their race is relevant before someone quotes me

 

[Jaywood Mac]

One for @Makingtrax

 

[El Duderino]

That bid is absolutely true.

When you consider how often Wenger stated that he'd have no say/advice when it comes to naming his successor, you wonder whether he's doing that to either make the Board aware of the fact that they're held hostage by him, and/or the fact that they indeed don't have the football-nous to name one themselves.

They've so heavily relied upon him, that they need him to name his successor.....they need him to stab himself in the back.

Yup, and he will do just that. Our board is not to be relied upon, and they know that. That's why they're aching for Wenger to extend, because he is the shield, the focal point.

The way we operate today, they only have to face fans once or twice a year. Once the manager goes, they're on their own. No other manager will risk his neck like Wenger does for this board.

Expect AGMs soon to be over once he goes.

 

[Jasard]

We desperately need ex-Arsenal players on the board or in positions of power such as director of football or similar. Pires wants it, ****ing loves the club and is a legend but can't get a role at the club? **** sake.

 

[Sanchez11]

Who ever comes in we will need a DOF, let the manager look after the team and the DOF go out and get the players the manager wants. Let Ivan get on with the commercial deals along with ****. The ranch man can go to hell!!

 

[Furious]

One for @Makingtrax
View attachment 1574

How ironic after a CL night, a team that finished 10th and not in the competition.

Pathetic stuff

 

[FinnGooner]

One for @Makingtrax
View attachment 1574

Tbf, just because they cost the same or more it doesn't mean we had our pick to just choose anybody we wanted within that price range. You can only buy players that are available to you. I certainly don't blame Wenger for buying Özil, Xhaka or Mustafi. Why isn't there a comparison between Alexis and Michy Batshuayi? They cost about the same.

The problem isn't the signings Wenger makes, it's the decisions not to make signings because he has faith in players who will never be able to repay that faith because the just don't have it in them. These players are Ramsey, Ox, Coquelin, Gibbs and Walcott to name a few. Not bad players but certainly not impossible to upgrade on with the money the club has.