Arsenal: We Are Witnessing Arsene Wenger Enter His Career's Second Act

It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said it first, in his timeless novel The Great Gatsby: "There are no second acts in American lives." Fitzgerald told us this, using James Gatz's failed attempt to pass himself off as the dashing and debonair James Gatsby to hammer his point home.

The mighty Wizard of Oz, manipulating buttons and levers as he cowers behind that curtain, indeed.

You can imagine that trope of failed changing holding true in other cultures as well.

After all, Chris Martin, the lead singer of Brit-rock group Coldplay, once crooned that "We never change, do we?"

It's a sentiment that defies time, country and even the Atlantic Ocean.

We don't like to see people change because, well, change is scary. It's easier to deal with one image of someone than a revamped one.

Which makes it all the more interesting to see Arsene Wenger, manager of Arsenal Football Club (I've always found it amusing that "Arsene" bears such an uncanny resemblance to the club's name—sort of like "Mancini" and Man City), appear to be entering into that second act Fitzgerald warned us against.

Dismissed for years as bearing a Scrooge-ish mentality toward the transfer window—why buy big when you can buy cheap!—Wenger has suddenly reinvented himself in less than a year's time.

Perhaps this change was not of his own doing, per se. But then, we often need "a little push out the door" to get us started on our greatest journeys. And if Arsenal are to embark upon a revival, it will be one crazy ride.

For Wenger, that "push" came in the first month of the 2011-12 season, when Arsenal took just one point from their first three matches, were guilty of three red cards, and suffered quite possibly the most humiliating defeat in recent memory at the hands of Arsene's greatest managerial rival to boot.

Fans were livid, and had every right to be. After boasting one of the world's best midfield triumvirates in 2010-11, Arsenal had lost each of the players who'd made it up (Jack Wilshere to injury and Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri to transfers out of the club).

The offseason acquisitions (up until the Old Trafford fiasco) consisted of three largely unproven teenagers (Carl Jenkinson and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain—both with no Premier League experience—and Costa Rican talent Joel Campbell, who had never played in Europe) and a mazy winger from France (Gervinho).

Hardly the sort of signings that inspire confidence in a fanbase.

But then something happened. For whatever reason—whether the boo-birds and biting criticism finally cracked his armor, or whether he simply felt change was needed—Wenger ponied up cash (which was quite the considerable accomplishment given his history).

After purchasing Monaco striker Park Chu-Young in the run-up to the trip to Old Trafford, Wenger splurged.

Gatsby sought to gain the approval of society and his great love, Daisy, by creating a persona reputed to be swimming in the sort of magnificent opulence that would captivate all of New York.

Wenger was spending as well, in order to propagate his own image—that of a club that still could hang with the best in Europe.

Four players were brought into the Emirates in the waning hours of the summer transfer window. The most important trait they shared was experience—a far cry from some of the promising, but unproven youngsters we'd grown accustomed to seeing enter the club's historic doors.

Three of those four deadline-day buys have seen their seasons scuppered in some way by injury (Mertesacker was done for in February, Santos missed a large chunk in the middle, and Arteta went down in mid-April)—and Park...well, who knows what exactly went wrong with Park—their arrivals marked the beginning of a drastic change in Wenger's transfer policy.

Out went the bargain-hunting, in came a more proactive approach bolstered by a willingness to pay top dollar if it meant securing a deal before another team could swoop in and prise the target away.

Effects are already being seen.

The current season is not yet done and we already know of one new player for next year—German international Lukasz Podolski, he of the 95 caps for his country and 18 goals this season for club, has signed for £10 million.

There is a deal in principle to sign 21-year-old midfielder Yann M'Vila from Rennes for a club record £17.7 million.

When was the last time Arsenal secured (well, M'Vila isn't a done deal just yet) two high-profile transfers before the end of a season?

Never.

Wenger's back is as close as he will ever find it to the proverbial wall.

Seven seasons without a trophy will do that to any man. (In a fitting trend of symmetry, this might be the first time in seven seasons that Manchester United go without a trophy.)

The Alsace-Lorraine born Frenchman has been the greatest manager in club history, never finishing outside fourth place in the final league standings and enjoying the fruits of Champions League football each season he's been in charge. He has strewn silverware about Ashburton Grove.

There's those league doubles (three of them), and a 49-match unbeaten run during which Arsenal captured the 2003-04 league title, becoming the only club in the history of the modern Premier League to go an entire season without a loss—26 wins, 12 draws.

But somewhere along the line during these past seven barren seasons, Arsene and Arsenal lost their way. There were moments of brilliance, of course, but consistency—so redolent in these dominant Manchester United sides of recent memory—seemed to escape this most current crop of Gunners.

There are any number of reasons, many of which have been talked about to no end, about why Arsenal have suffered such a severe trophy drought.

Some claim the move from Highbury to the gleaming Emirates in 2006, and the subsequent debt that switch burdened upon the club, made it difficult for Wenger to spend big in transfer windows, thus forcing the Frenchman to build on the cheap yet talented but unproven youngsters.

Wenger began constructing a team largely through youth development, perhaps hoping that clusters would filter into the first-team ranks after years of playing together, and transfer that familiarity into success.

Maybe it was a fit of vanity, to think that he could win titles and trophies doing what others could not.

Either way, it did prove successful, but only intermittently. The philosophy that Wenger has stood by so fiercely seemed proven true on nights so magnificent you forgot all about the club's travails, at least for a moment.

But that foundation never had the steel Wenger hoped for. Each season, for whatever reason, the Arsenal title charge would falter, and then crumble.

Each time the failure grated a little harder. The Emirates cupboard grew a little more bare. And each summer, new players joined the diaspora away from north London in search of silverware.

Now it seems that time has passed.

There is a light coming hard and fast, after what seemed to be an endless night that teased us with cruel, fleeting glimpses of daylight.

Wenger is making a concerted effort to keep his best players at the club; a daring transfer strategy helps achieve that. And it doesn't appear he's done with just two new players. More may be on the way.

If that helps raise expectations from the lowered sort fans have grown used to, then Wenger is to be applauded for the action he is beginning to take.

Given the heartbreak of recent seasons, you could say it's high time.

We'll see whether this transformation ends in the transfer market, or whether Arsenal can transfer a newfound veteran steel onto the pitch.

If they can, expect trophies. And thank Wenger for doing what a zebra could not—changing his stripes, at exactly the moment when that course of action was needed most.