Living Legend or Past his Sell by Date? A Norwich fan’s view of Mr Wenger « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

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As Untold Arsenal has steadily increased its audience, we have started to attract many comments on the site from fans of other clubs.  Now, for the first time, we are publishing an article by a non-Arsenal fan. 

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Living Legend or Past his Sell by Date? – By Rob McCauley, a lifelong Norwich City fan and general football writer.

Following the defeats at the hands of AC Milan and Sunderland, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was arguably under more pressure than he’d ever been during his tenure at the club. No trophies in the cabinet for years, top players going elsewhere, and declining league positions have seen many fans come to the conclusion that the end is nigh for ‘Le Professeur’, and at this time I think there’s no more apt phrase to remind them of than “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”.

What Wenger has achieved in his reign as Arsenal manager is truly unbelievable and I’m going to try to demonstrate why I think this is through the use of facts and figures.

The general rule of thumb when deciding if a manager is good enough usually comes down to a few key factors:

A) What titles they win B) Quality/Style of football C) Man Management

D) What they win in comparison to expenditure on players

Now looking at these points we see that Arsenal have won the league 3 times under Wenger, finished runners up 5 times and have never finished outside the top 4 during his 16 years at the club. On the cup front they’ve won the FA Cup 4 times and runners up once, been runners up in the league cup on 3 occasions (where Wenger tends to use his youth players) and won the Charity shield 4 times whilst being runners up twice. So domestically that’s a pretty impressive record.

They haven’t fared as well on the continent, with a single Champions league runners up medal and single UEFA cup runners up medal to claim, although they have featured prominently in the final stages of the Champions League throughout with 15 consecutive years in the Champions League..

The football that Wenger has got Arsenal playing has been nothing short of brilliant and at times unstoppable, as epitomised during their “Invincibles” season where they didn’t lose a single league game.

A short, passing game where Arsenal dominate possession is the order of the day, where vision and technique and teamwork are highly required. The only other teams to really play this type of football at this level are Barcelona and Spain – so that’s the club regarded by many as the best club side in the world, and current World and European champions. In fact, many have dubbed Arsenal as “Barcelona Lite”, in reference to their similar style of play.

When on form and playing their game, Arsenal are virtually unstoppable, unfortunately this has been less and less the case in recent seasons.

From a man management perspective, it’s again hard to argue against Wenger. A man noted for his generally calm demeanour (apart from when throwing water bottles down after bad decisions!), former players have nothing but good things to say about him both as a manager and an individual, and he’s often been the calming influence needed to bring players into line and help them develop. This is probably best illustrated in the form and ability of Robin Van Persie, who when signed by Wenger had a bit of a reputation of having a poor attitude and temper problems, something which Wenger has managed to restrain and since helped the guy hone his talents on the pitch into one of the best strikers of the modern game.

Ok, that’s all well and good you may say, but where are these ‘facts and figures’ you claim to have to back up this conjecture?

The truth is that I’ve saved them for this point because more than anything, I feel they display exactly what Wenger has achieved under point D in my ‘key factors’ table.

If we take some of the top clubs from the premiership, lets see what they’ve spent/recouped on players during the same period as Wenger, and what they’ve achieved with this spending:

Man Utd
£460,000,000 spent – £284,675,000 recouped – Total net outgoings  -£175,325,000

9 League titles, 2 FA Cups, 3 League Cups, 7 Charity Shields, 2 Champions Leagues and 1 world club cup.

9 league titles in 16 years is phenomenal by any standards, and love or hate Man Utd, they are the dominant force in English football, both historically and in the last 20 years. World class players along with one of the best managers ever to grace the game, they truly are deserving of respect for their achievements. That being said, a £175 million loss during this time period is not insubstantial, and whilst there are other teams with higher losses, this has to be taken into perspective and if we were to split this evenly throughout, then that’s an £11 million pound loss EVERY season in order to achieve their results.

Chelsea
£720,830,000 spent – £216,185,000 recouped – Total net outcome is -£504,645,000

3 League titles (with 4 runners up places), 5 FA Cup Titles, 3 League Cup titles, 3 Charity shields (4 runners up places), 1 UEFA cup winners cup and a runners up place in the Champions league.

So the same number of league titles as Arsenal, but with 1 less runners up place, and the rest is fairly even. A string of different managers during this period, along with the appearance of billionaire owner Roman Abramovic who’s seemingly unlimited finances allow Chelsea the freedom to pretty much buy who they want, has seen mixed results and mixed football, from the relatively free flowing football under Gullit and Vialli, to the ‘effective’ football of Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea fans have seen a number of changes during the period, although a badly ageing squad is currently an issue.

Using the same theory as with Man Utd, Chelsea have spent the equivalent of £31.5 million a season to achieve their results.

Man City
£628,800,000 spent – £155,543,000 recouped – Total net outcome is -£473,257,000

1 League win, 1 FA cup, 1 runners up Charity Shield

With £453,270,000 of their spending coming in the last 4 years, Man City have taken over the reigns from Chelsea as the Premier League’s ‘Big Spenders’, thanks in no small part to the investment of owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who’s personal net worth of over £17 billion means that like Chelsea, the sky is the limit in regards to signings and wages. Despite heavy expenditure on players in recent seasons, it’s only this year that Man City have managed to wage a genuine title run, and whilst they current top the table, arch rivals Man Utd are nipping at their heels all the way. Current manager Roberto Mancini has struggled at times with player control, notably the recent ‘Tevez affair’, and consistency on the pitch has been patchy. A league title will go some way to resolving this, but many argue that despite their recent form, as a manager, he can’t compare to the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger

Man City have spent the equivalent of £29.6 million year to win pretty much nothing so far…

Other notable spending includes:

Liverpool
£523,330,000 spent – £318,870,000 recouped – Total net outcome is -£204,460,000

2 FA cups, 3 League cups, 2 Charity shields, 1 Champions League

Equivalent of £12.8 million a year for their results, with no league title.

Tottenham
£392,650,000 spent – £217,927,500 recouped – Total net outcome is -£174,722,500

2 League cups (with 2 runners up places).

Equivalent of £11 million a year in exchange for 2 league cups and no league title.

But how about Arsenal? What has Wenger done that’s so special? Let’s see:

Arsenal
£314,750,000 spent – £310,524,000 recouped – Total net outcome is -£4,226,000

That’s right, just a £4 million loss on the player front in 16 years of management, during which time they’ve signed world class players like Pires, Henry, Vieira, Anelka, Fabregas and Van Persie, won numerous league titles and played top class football.

That’s an equivalent of only £264,125 a season to achieve their result, so when the fair play rules kick in shortly and clubs like Man City and Chelsea are desperately trying to explain their spending and somehow cover the shortfalls from expenditure, Arsenal will be sat there smiling, showing how they are not only breaking even, but even reducing their debts, and all the while they have a manager who’s getting top 4 places EVERY SINGLE SEASON. They have a top class new stadium with highly manageable debts that are reducing every year, and despite all of this fans are not happy.

Seriously?

SERIOUSLY????

In a world gone mad with spending and excess, Wenger’s management is a guiding light of how things should be done, even business expert and Spurs fan Sir Alan Sugar has given Arsenal credit for their financial strategy, but to implement this whilst still maintaining title challenges every year is truly incredible.

In my mind, there isn’t another manager out there to replace Arsene Wenger. There are managers who will get good football, and managers who may get results, but how many of them can get all of this whilst, spending a relative pittance comparatively speaking, and bringing through young talent like Wenger has done consistently?

All fans want trophies and titles, that’s understandable, but I think the fans at Arsenal really need to sit back and take stock of the overall picture, as if it wasn’t for injuries and some form issues, Arsenal would likely have been challenging for the title again this year, and even so, a Champions League place is NOTHING to be sniffed at, most clubs would kill for these sort of results and league positions, yet many Arsenal fans appear ambivalent to their success – I just don’t get it.

As I said at the start, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”, and if the fans push Wenger out, then I think this motto will come back to haunt them forever…

Rob McCauley writes the Indy_Bones & The Hunt For The Truth football blog.

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