Wednesday, March 14th, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
Our Arsène has said that an Englishman should manage the England team, and on the basis that only an Englishman would be mad enough to take on the job after the fiasco of the last 40 odd years, it looks unlikely that anyone else would take the job (unless of course they don’t speak English – rather like the last fellow).
But the anti-Wenger troops, thankfully silent at the moment but undoubtedly ready to stand up and be counted with their predictions of mid-table obscurity if we lose a match, must be getting rather excited. Yes, they would like him exiled in disgrace, but failing that being moved down to become manager of England will do for them.
Mr Wenger has often said, “I love England,” (although I think the notion of tea with milk, a failure to eat vegetables and the consumption of vast amounts of beer leaves him a little cold), so could he go?
The problem Mr Wenger has is twofold. First, with the England job he would have little time to transform the bunch of thugs, boozers and stealers-of-other-people’s-girlfriends that make up the England squad into anything more than what they are. Mr Wenger is a coach of brilliance, but he works over time, not in three day bursts.
Second, the way the footballing world has changed since he arrived. At the start he could go out and find players no one else had ever heard of or would never buy, or who were thought to be in decline. Who was talking about Gilberto Silva when we got him for £2m? A few years later and an Arsenal player is captain of Brazil!
Who else was pitching to buy Vieira and Henry, even though they were on view in Italy? And when it comes to obscurity, who else knew that Clichy would be able to replace Cole, when he (Clichy) was playing in (I think) the third division in France?
Sometimes Mr Wenger has performed short term miracles. Christopher Wreh won the cup with us, but having come from nothing he went back to nothing. Yet for that brief moment in his career when he could play, he played for us.
Now it is impossible – and that is sometimes seen as Mr Wenger’s current problem in club football – and it could be a reason to move to work with the the England team. As the Telegraph piece says, every club is trying to do what Mr Wenger did – spot the talent in obscurity. But more than that, whereas when Clichy came from France the only problem was his parents worried about their son coming to England, and languishing in the reserves for a couple of years before being sent home, now the problem is that the clubs approach are tempted to call PSG, Chelsea and Man City and say “Arsenal have been here – you had better get in quick”.
So could it be that although Mr Wenger loves the day to day activity of club football, the end of world wide scouting means that he would move to the England job?
I think not, because the youth system is still working. The development of Coquelin since we first saw him in an Austrian training camp shows what can be be done even today. The fact that we still find youngsters like Kyle Ebecilio who we prized away from Feyenoord says everything for what Mr Wenger has built here: a reputation. In the past people came to Arsenal because we were the only one’s asking. Now it is because we have the Arsenal Academy. Yes the advantage of the world-wide scouting network is diminished, but the advantage of being the club who developed all the players we have developed, remains.
So could Mr Wenger go?
The most frightening bit in the Telegraph story comes at the end. They say…
“Moreover the FA is braced for a multimillion-pound battle with Spurs over compensation for Redknapp’s services but might face less resistance at the Emirates.”
That is so appalling, so awful, I can only hope that it is just one of the usual invented stories that the press run. Not to fight to hold on to Mr Wenger would be an utterly unforgivable crime.
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