Arsenal: Have Arsene Wenger's Critics Gone Too Far?

With every year, Arsenal supporters are growing more impatient with Arsene Wenger. The trophy drought has now extended six long seasons, many of which saw the Gunners narrowly miss silverware—only to lack the experience, depth and “mental strength” to end the drought.

Wenger’s critics grow in number every year, but never has anti-Wenger backlash grown so rapidly as it has in 2011.

Last season’s collapse, coupled with what many view to be a severe mismanagement of the summer transfer window, has put Wenger under extreme scrutiny from both the media and the Arsenal supporters.

For the record, I no longer believe in Wenger.

I have grown impatient with his tactical predictability.

I do not think he is able to influence a match from the sidelines with instinctive substitutions. Nicklas Bendtner (our best header of the ball) was frequently subbed in to float in crosses from the left wing to Robin van Persie (our best left-footed crosser). I still cannot understand Wenger’s rationale.

I feel the club lacks motivation and leadership. I put the onus for the lack of motivation and lack of leadership squarely on the man who is supposed to lead and motivate the players—the manager.

I am concerned by Wenger’s wage policy. Wenger pays his players too much. Most of the players on the team have not done enough to earn such high salaries.

Giving them more money than they are worth may make them happier, but also may make them lazier and less determined to put in the hard work on the training ground that is needed to develop into world-class players.

Our young players need to work very hard and prove themselves on the pitch before being rewarded with such high salaries.

Wenger does the opposite.

If a player is playing badly, Wenger will hand the player a new contract with improved terms in an effort to improve his confidence. He did this with the likes of Carlos Vela, Manuel Almunia and Denilson in the past few seasons. We have tried to sell these players in order to raise the funds needed to find replacements, but no club is willing to pay Vela, Almunia or Denilson the insane amount of money they “earn” at Arsenal, let alone a transfer fee.

We can’t get rid of our worst players.

Many are quick to blame our lack of financial competing power for the trophy drought. But Wenger’s mismanagement of player contracts costs the club dearly. Millions of pounds have been wasted on our players’ high salaries. If our wage bill was managed properly, we would have more money to invest in the team.

Wenger doesn’t want to add quality experienced players because he fears it will stifle the development of his young prospects. This is a major flaw in the Wenger youth project.

Young players need competition for their place in the team in order to keep improving.

Without competition, players like Gael Clichy peak at age 23. Time on the pitch does not make a player better unless he is motivated to work hard and keep his place in the side. When players become comfortable (both financially and competitively), they do not work hard and they stop improving.

I am furious with Wenger for allowing the Cesc Fabregas era at Arsenal to be held back by the likes of Almunia, Denilson, Mikael Silvestre and now Sebastien Squillaci.

Fabregas was one of the best players to ever wear an Arsenal shirt, but he never had the full squad of quality teammates to win enough trophies to prove it. Years without a quality goalkeeper and without quality depth at holding midfield and defense meant the talents of one of the world’s best midfielders were wasted on an inferior team.

But despite Wenger’s major flaws and shortcomings, the recent amount of extreme scrutiny placed on him by both the media and Arsenal supporters is unfair.

Last summer the anti-Wenger crusade focused on his failure to land a quality goalkeeper. Wojcech Szczesny proved them wrong. Wenger has yet to receive much credit for this, however.

In Wenger I sympathize.

Take this recent “analysis” of the Udinese match by FOX Soccer, for example:

Arsenal played without the suspended Robin van Persie and the injured Jack Wilshere—the club’s two best players. They managed to win and, most importantly, keep a clean sheet in the home leg of a two-legged European tie.

We kept the clean sheet despite losing two defenders to injury over the course of the match. Udinese did not score an away goal. Jose Mourinho is lauded as being the best manager in the world for consistently doing exactly what we did Tuesday night.

And yet the criticism of Wenger and this Arsenal team is unrelenting.

Wenger claimed he was not afraid to spend money, just not on average players. His statement provoked this reaction on the blog Arsenal Mania.

The point of the Wenger quote was to say he would not overpay for an overrated player. The blogger spun his words, citing numerous “average” players—such as Squillaci and Denilson—as evidence of Wenger’s delusion.

But Chamakh, Squillaci, Denilson, Diaby and Bendtner all costed less combined than the likes of Stewart Downing or Jordan Henderson. Wenger is not willing to jeopardize the long-term financial strength of the club by paying an inflated and overvalued market price for an average player.

To take his words and manipulate them into Wenger claiming he never buys average players is a cowardly act of political spin. Wenger deserves better.

This “article” was published in the Telegraph this week.

How is this journalism? What other manager is forced to read a list of preemptive excuses masqueraded as a time line of “emergency quotes, if Arsenal’s season goes as expected”?

The media twist and manipulate Wenger quotes so often in order to feed on the passions of Arsenal supporters that they have stooped to the level of ignoring any journalistic integrity whatsoever with this piece of garbage.

Arsenal supporters worldwide have bemoaned the lack of urgency this summer regarding the transfers of Fabregas and Samir Nasri. Many wish the transfers had been completed more quickly so we would have had more time to identify and bring in quality replacements.

Now that Fabregas is gone and Nasri looks set to leave, the Arsenal supporters want Wenger to spend 30 million (double the club’s record transfer) for a replacement player before the Liverpool match on Saturday. But they do so with a naïve view of the transfer market.

Supporters wanted Wenger to set deadlines on the Fabregas transfer. Theoretically, if we had set deadlines on the deal Barcelona would have come much closer to our asking price more quickly than they did. This is a narrow, simplified view of our negotiating position. In reality the transfer was much more complicated than that.

Peter Hill-Wood did not do the club any favors when he informed the media of our 40-million asking price for Fabregas in July. Barcelona used their superior negotiating position to low-ball that figure down.

Fabregas no longer wanted to play for Arsenal. The whole world knew that. This was the summer to buy him.

Fabregas only wanted to leave Arsenal for Barcelona, and Barcelona knew that too. That meant no bidding war for our captain. Barcelona did not have to compete with another outside club for his signature, so they knew they could take their time.

Barcelona also knew we had to raise funds and clear wages in order to buy replacement players, and therefore Barcelona were confident we would eventually drop below our asking price just to get the deal over with.

Therefore, any deadline would not have worked. With our negotiating position as poor as it was, any threat to Barcelona that if they did not offer x amount by a certain date we would refuse to sell Fabregas would have been an empty one.

We don’t have 35 million pounds in the bank from the Fabregas sale. Barcelona are broke. Much of the Fabregas fee will be paid in installments and add-ons in the coming years. We did not receive the money upfront to reinvest the entire fee in a world-class replacement.

Perhaps Wenger stalled on the Fabregas transfer because he demanded a higher portion of the Fabregas fee upfront. Perhaps Wenger stalled in order to do exactly what his critics accuse him of neglecting to do: line up a replacement.

I think around a third of the fee was paid upfront (thanks to Fabregas paying a reported 5 million himself just to get the deal over with) and I think that money will be spent on Jadson, Mathieu Valbuena or another player for a similar price.

Remember, two weeks remain in the transfer window. Wenger still has time to bring players in.

Yes, the squad is inexperienced and weak at the moment. It has been made considerably weaker by the injuries to Wilshere, Johan Djourou and Kieran Gibbs. It looks like our lack of depth will be exposed even further by the suspensions to Gervinho and Alex Song for our upcoming matches against Liverpool and Manchester United.

But even if our weak squad is exposed and we do drop points against Liverpool and United (and it’s not a foregone conclusion that we will), we can rebound from a slow start. We have done so in the past. United did so last season.

Transfer prices drop as the transfer market comes to a close. Wenger is not willing to overpay for his targets when he is confident that their prices will drop.

This financial prudence in the transfer market is the reason why we continue to compete with our big-spending competitors. Had we spent frivolously over the past few years, the financial limits of the club would only restrict us further.

Wenger still has time to spend money on the players we need. If he neglects to do so, expect a much less forgiving article in September.

I do not believe Arsene Wenger is the right man to lead Arsenal forward. I share in the frustration and impatience many Arsenal supporters have with the manager. I want to see someone new take control of the club.

But the ends do not justify the means.

Wenger has given years of devoted service to the club. He has earned the right to be treated fairly. We owe him that at least.