Has Arsene's eyes finally opened?Recently I have noticed a change in Arsene Wenger, a look of sadness and at times a look of desperation.
Since we won the title in 2004, Wenger seemingly decided that he would take a different approach to achieving success. Arsene wanted to build a team of young technically gifted players who would stay together for years and sweep all before them. Our great manager knew that a transition period would take place, a period where we wouldn't be challanging for the title but would still have enough to qualify for the champions league. In the past few seasons Wenger has been telling everybody to keep the faith, inisting that this team would come of age and even asked Arsenal fans to judge him at the end of this season.
The resigned look on the face of the manager after our defeat at Sunderland was unusual, I'm not used to seeing him like that. I feel it was the look of a man slowly coming to terms with the realisation that his youth experiment has finally failed and for a stubborn perfectionist such a moment of clarity will be especially hard to take. Wenger's post match rant about the disallowed goal against Chelsea stank of desperation, trying to defend the indefensible especially when the goal was rightly ruled out. The game against Chelsea was men against boys and Wenger knows it and his reaction by not shaking Mark Hughes hand after the City game was a strange one.
I always liked the fact that Wenger was a bad loser, it shows his desire and passion but sometimes you have to put your hands up and say we were well beaten. What's to get annoyed about with the City game? Wenger played a youth team against one of the most expensively assembled team in the world and we lost - not really unexpected (and we were well beaten). If he cared that much then why didn't he pick a team that could win the game?
The media is much to blame, putting Wenger on a pedestal and lauding his youth policy whenever they can but then criticising it when it doesn't work.
The experiment has lasted for 5 years and is now coming to an end, Wenger knows this but is he big enough to say so and rescue our season by signing some top quality players in January? I hope so.
Since we won the title in 2004, Wenger seemingly decided that he would take a different approach to achieving success. Arsene wanted to build a team of young technically gifted players who would stay together for years and sweep all before them. Our great manager knew that a transition period would take place, a period where we wouldn't be challanging for the title but would still have enough to qualify for the champions league. In the past few seasons Wenger has been telling everybody to keep the faith, inisting that this team would come of age and even asked Arsenal fans to judge him at the end of this season.
The resigned look on the face of the manager after our defeat at Sunderland was unusual, I'm not used to seeing him like that. I feel it was the look of a man slowly coming to terms with the realisation that his youth experiment has finally failed and for a stubborn perfectionist such a moment of clarity will be especially hard to take. Wenger's post match rant about the disallowed goal against Chelsea stank of desperation, trying to defend the indefensible especially when the goal was rightly ruled out. The game against Chelsea was men against boys and Wenger knows it and his reaction by not shaking Mark Hughes hand after the City game was a strange one.
I always liked the fact that Wenger was a bad loser, it shows his desire and passion but sometimes you have to put your hands up and say we were well beaten. What's to get annoyed about with the City game? Wenger played a youth team against one of the most expensively assembled team in the world and we lost - not really unexpected (and we were well beaten). If he cared that much then why didn't he pick a team that could win the game?
The media is much to blame, putting Wenger on a pedestal and lauding his youth policy whenever they can but then criticising it when it doesn't work.
The experiment has lasted for 5 years and is now coming to an end, Wenger knows this but is he big enough to say so and rescue our season by signing some top quality players in January? I hope so.
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