Arsenal 2011-2012: Wenger as Scapegoat

The possibility that bad, unlucky things can happen, without it being somebody's fault, seems almost an alien concept in modern Britain.

A child falls over in the playground, blame the school. The economy shrinks, blame the bankers. A shark bites a swimmer, the fishermen are baiting too near the beach (which should have been closed).

There exists a thirst to attribute blame and exact revenge that will not be frustrated by a lack of any real culprits.Where none can be found, the solution seems to be to raise the standard of required behaviour to a level where only those blessed with hindsight and ESP could escape retribution.

This mentality is rife in the EPL and has become, in some ways, part of the "sport" itself. Predicting which EPL manager will be sacked next is afforded as much technical analysis as the performance of individual players.

The ritual humiliation of a succession of England managers, reduced by Inquisitor-General media from highly accomplished men to village idiots, appears to feed some primitive blood lust.

On the subject of blood lust, there are some angry Arsenal fans at the present time. Top players have left the club and problems that existed even before they left (the defence) have seemingly not been addressed. As night follows day, the finger of blame is, with the gleeful encouragement of the media, being pointed at Wenger.

An astonishing example of this occurred during the Sky Sport coverage of the Arsenal v Totenham EPL match.The panel of pundits, comprising ex-EPL players, held forth critically on Wenger's apparent failure to spend the alleged huge resources available to him from the club's billionaire owner.

The assumption they appeared to make was that because Mr. Kroenke is rich, like Mr Abramovitch, then Wenger must have the resources to spend what the club does not earn.

This nonsense, ironically, actually followed an interview broadcast by Sky in which Wenger candidly and remarkably admitted that Arsenal can no longer compete with the financially doped-on players' wages and that he now had to persuade players to stay at, or join, Arsenal for non-financial reasons.

The fact is that the EPL landscape has changed dramatically in the last two years.Player wages are increasing at a rate that is simply unsustainable. The top players will go where the top wages are paid.

How can it be Wenger's fault if he cannot recruit the best players or hold on to the best players when they can earn twice or three times more at other clubs in the EPL?

And is it really Wenger's fault that Arsenal acted in a relatively human way in respect of Fabregas' desire to return to Barcelona? What was Wenger supposed to do when faced with a player who simply wanted out? Wenger could no more stand in the way of Fabregas as he could pay Nasri £180,000 per week. Nor could any manager in world football have done anything more to prevent the departures of those players.

Yet somehow, their leaving Arsenal is portrayed as Wenger's fault or evidence that his vision is flawed and not shared by his key exponents of it.

The reality is that Arsenal's beginning to season 2011-2012 has been hampered by untimely departures of senior players. Were one being cynical, one might speculate that both Barcelona and Man City played the long game with Arsenal in such a way as to prevent the club from being able to replace these players early in the transfer window. These are serious rivals on and off the pitch.

The season has been further hampered by a difficult run of fixtures, bad luck and a near-epidemic of serious injuries to key players.Wenger, through no fault of his own, finds himself minus not only Fabregas and Nasri, but also Wilshire, Vermaelan, Diaby and now Sagna.

Some will argue that injuries are no excuse and that Wenger should have adequate reserves. Yet how does a manager plan for having three out of four centre-halves injured at the same time in September? Would Chelsea or Man United not be severely depleted also if they had the same problem?

When considering the relative strengths of rival EPL teams, an interesting approach is to ask how many of, say, Arsenal's first-choice 11 would get in to, say, Chelsea's first-choice 11.

No less relevant is to make the same comparison at the managerial level. Put another way, how would Arsenal fans feel if Man City poached Wenger for triple wages? No doubt some would put on a brave face and say good riddance. Others might be fearful, not only in respect of what Wenger might achieve at a club with such financial resources, but also who Arsenal could possibly find to steer the club into a situation where a team depleted by injuries, defections and a new batch of players outplayed Tottenham at White Hart Lane for much of the 90 minutes last weekend.

Finding a scapegoat for the series of events that have impacted negatively on Arsenal is easy. However, applying Britain's blame mentality to Wenger is unhelpful. Blame injuries, financial doping, freak goals, referees—even blame sheer bad luck.

Blaming Wenger is not the solution.