Win or Bust: Arsene Wenger Should Go If Arsenal Do Not End Trophy Drought

Arsene Wenger will lead his beloved Arsenal out into battle against Chelsea on Saturday, March 22, in what will be his 1000th game in charge. However, one has to ask the question: Does Le Prof deserve to stay if the Gunners go another season without a trophy?

When Wenger joined Arsenal in the late '90s, few would have thought he would change his club forever, let alone English football. His impact was almost immediate and, within 12 months, his team have won the double.

It was the beginning of a dynasty that had been in the making since the very first moment he walked through the hallowed marble halls at Highbury on September 30, 1996.

Between 1997 and 2005, Arsenal did not finish outside the top-two positions in the Premier League. They won the league title three times and the FA Cup five times during a period of near-total domination.

The highlight of this run was winning the title in 2004 after going the entire season unbeaten. The Gunners romped away with the league and finished with a staggering 90 points, 11 points ahead of second-placed Chelsea, 15 points ahead of Manchester United in third and a staggering 30 points ahead of Liverpool in fourth.

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To say that Arsenal dominated the league would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions.

They won the titles playing the best football, they won the titles with the best manager and they won the titles with the best players.

Since then, however, Arsenal have flattered to deceive and have never managed a full title challenge over the course of a season.

There have been near misses of course. Fans will also point to the building of the Emirates Stadium and the siphoning away of transfer fees to enable construction. However, when all remains said and done, Arsenal were one of the highest-spending clubs, on both wages and transfer fees, between 2001 and 2012, according to the Telegraph, and have no excuse for a near 10-year trophy drought.

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All declines of great teams and clubs happen in slow motion. But if one understands the problems, then one can counteract them before they even happen. This was Sir Alex Ferguson's greatest gift at Manchester United.

The wily Scot knew his club inside out and upside down. He knew each and every player at each and every level of the club and built his club with succession planning in mind. He always knew who to replace and who to replace them with.

This is one obvious area where Wenger took his eye off the ball. 

After the year of the Invincibles, the trickle of players leaving the club began.

Martin Keown, a bit-part player at this stage of his career, but a huge influence in the dressing room, was the first to leave on July 20, 2004. Ray Parlour, a similar type of character and fellow Arsenal legend, followed him out the door three days later.

They were the first pebbles in the avalanche of top players that would leave the club over the next 10 years without being adequately replaced.

This season is the first in many a year that Arsenal have flirted with the title race. Even now, their endeavors might be undone by Wenger's reluctance to sign a striker in the summer or January transfer windows.

Because of Le Prof's unwillingness to buy a back-up or rival forward to Olivier Giroud, their title chances are dwindling by the day. Giroud is a game lad and works desperately hard for the team. However, he has rarely been rested. This, ultimately, means that the Frenchman is almost burned out as we turn into the final straight.

It also, ultimately, means that Wenger does not seem to have learned any lessons about signing players to boost the team when needed. It also means that Le Prof does not take player burnout into question.

Giroud's performances since January have been well below the standard he set before Christmas and as his stamina and performance level fall off, so too have Arsenal's. For further evidence of player fatigue, one only has to observe Mesut Ozil's spectacular fall from grace. 

After a blistering run of games following his arrival from Real Madrid, Ozil has distinctly fallen off the pace of late.

The frail German international was used almost exclusively, without a rest, between September and December in a run that took in 23 games in a row for club and country.

Wenger then gave the German a two-game rest over Christmas, but by then it was a real case of too little, too late. Ozil, in his first year of Premier League football, needed to be treated accordingly. It is now no surprise to see the attacking midfielder out for an undetermined time with an injury.

It is not just for Giroud and Ozil that Wenger must answer questions. Ramsey has consistently broken down on the road back from an injury sustained over Christmas, Jack Wilshere seems to lurch from one rest period to another with ankle problems and there have been numerous others.

According to PhysioRoom.com, Arsenal have five players out injured at this very moment in time. Over the course of the season, the Gunners have consistently led this table. Back in January, I drew attention to this fact and said there would be a time that Wenger's training methods would be questioned.

It would now seem that Wenger himself is concerned at the spate of injuries at the club. The Frenchman has launched an inquiry into the matter, according to the Guardian, and he wants to know why his club always seem to have bad luck when it comes to injuries.

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I am concerned that this happens.

If you look at our overall injury list going into such a decisive part of the season, we have not Wilshere, not Walcott, not Ozil, not Ramsey and we went to Bayern without [Kieran] Gibbs and [Nacho] Monreal.

We are analyzing very deeply why it happened and to see if there is a link between all these injuries.

"

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Back in 2011, Wenger told the Guardian that injuries were threatening to derail Arsenal's season. The Gunners went through another injury crisis in 2012, as per the Daily Mail. This season, he bemoaned their injury crisis again to the Guardian.

To the untrained eye, injuries are often ruled out to bad luck. However, in most cases, they can be avoided by a clear and structured approach to the well-being of the players. 

The MilanLab has been operating for just over 10 years at AC Milan and has helped reduce injuries to key players while elongating the careers of many.

Lengthening the career of key players is nothing new to Wenger. He assisted greatly in stretching the careers of Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn and his current assistant Steve Bould through correct training and the administering of individual and proper diets.

In hindsight, though, one must ask if Wenger lengthened these players' careers or if they were the exception because they were exceptional. Remember, no player has had his career significantly lengthened since the above mentioned.

The MilanLab has forged a three-pronged outlook on how a player's health and well-being should be measured.

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The analysis carried out places its findings on three levels of acquisition: Our state of health can be seen in its relation to three base factors which we can see on the sides of an equilateral triangle.

One side shows us the structural conditions, another side displays the bio-chemical aspects and the third side is the psychological condition.

If any of the three sides is weakened, it will lead to an overall imbalance and therefore the state of well being will in some way be compromised.

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A report in the Irish Independent in 2009 claimed that the MilanLab had reduced AC Milan's injury list by 90 percent because of their three-pronged attack.

The Gunners should adopt this approach immediately.

According to a UEFA report, Injury incidence and injury patterns in professional football, by Jan Ekstrand, Martin Hagglund and Markus Walden for Linkoping University, an average squad of 25 players sustains 50 injuries per season.

It would appear, on the evidence at hand, that Arsenal's injury problems run deep.

Are they a sign that Wenger has not moved with the times? 

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His footballing philosophy is, most certainly, universal. However, as the game changes and the physical requirements on players grow, one has to ask that thorny question.

One other area that Wenger has to be questioned on is his team's mentality. 

In 2012, Dennis Bergkamp told Alan Smith, writing for the Daily Telegraph, that Arsenal were predictable and lacked a winning mentality.

He refused to blame Wenger, but maintained that there are fundamental problems in the Arsenal's mentality.

Not much has changed in the intervening years, with Mikel Arteta recently stating to the Sun (subscription required) that his team needed to discover how to win trophies rather than plaudits.

Wenger also recognizes that his team needs to move up a level. He has only fallen short of calling the FA Cup a make-or-break moment for both him and his team. Speaking to MirrorSport, he had this to say:

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It’s vital. That’s how important it is. [Winning the FA Cup]

Yes, we want to win and we are in a position where we can do it.

What is different is that we are in a better position to do it. The second thing is that we are ready for a battle, and to show that we have matured mentally.

It is one of the priorities. The first priority is always to do well in the Premier League.

[Winning] The FA Cup is our absolute priority.

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Of course, the last time Wenger heaped pressure on his team and expected them to win a trophy was back in 2011. There, Arsenal were famously beaten by Birmingham City in the League Cup final, as per BBC Sport. They lost the final after a farcical last-minute mix-up between Laurent Koscielny and Wojciech Szczesny allowed Obafemi Martins in to score the winning goal.

The pain of that defeat still rankles with many Gunners fans and it remains the closest the club has come to winning a trophy since 2005.

After a season that promised so much, it now looks as if Arsenal's title ambitions will fall short because too many important players are injured and fatigued for the final run in.

That leaves the FA Cup as their best chance of winning a trophy. 

Arsenal and Arsene Wenger will never have a better chance at claiming English football's oldest prize.

They face Championship side Wigan Athletic in the semifinals with Hull City and League One's Sheffield United facing off in the other next-to-final game, as per the FA Cup website. In truth, the Gunners should be able to field a reserve team and still win the trophy.

However, the same was said of the Birmingham game in 2011.

The Frenchman only has himself to blame for Arsenal's stuttering Premier League form. If they do not win at Wembley in May, in what should be his 1010th game in charge, the calls for him to step down will grow exponentially.

In football, as in life, eaten bread is soon forgotten and no amount of history will save a manager when his fans decide his time is up.

That is why the FA Cup is win-or-bust for Arsene Wenger.

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