Bemused Wenger cannot grasp his empire has fallen
HE IS sitting on a crumbling empire riddled with deep, underlying faults, and yet Arsene Wenger insists he did not expect the earthquake that has hit him this week.
If the manner of Arsenal’s calamitous collapse against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday was seismic, then tonight at the Emirates could come as the fiercest of aftershocks.
Meanwhile, sitting at the epicentre of it all, Wenger steadfastly refuses to budge.
He genuinely seems surprised at the way the whole landscape seems to have shifted on the back of just one result. But that is only because he was ignoring the early warning signs.
Nine years of ominous silence without a single piece of silverware to shake up the world.
Being unable to hold things together after leading the Premier League into 2016 only to lose out to Leicester City, of all teams, during the run-in.
Arsenal had already shown themselves to be wholly inadequate to stand up to the sort of stresses they needed to be able to withstand when Bayern Munich registered 10 on the Richter scale, albeit over two legs. Yet somehow Wenger stayed standing.
That is where seismology becomes an art rather than a science. It is so difficult to predict which event precisely is going to set things over the edge; the point at which things will be destroyed so that they cannot be repaired.
In the end, the rumbles started in the least important competition of the season against a team who, in fairness, everybody expected to beat Arsenal anyway. Which is perhaps why yesterday, blinking in the cold light of several mornings after, Wenger was finding the carnage so hard to understand.
“I am quite amazed that it is such an earthquake that we have lost a final,” he said. “That means that we have got our fans used to going to Wembley and win it. But nobody can guarantee that.
“When you go to the final you have a risk to lose it as well and you have to accept that we got to the final and we won the cup last year at Wembley. So overall when you get to the final it is not guaranteed always that you win it.”
Nevertheless, the fact that Arsenal were so flimsy is alarming. When an inquiry into the incident uncovers foundations patched together with Calum Chambers, Shkodran Mustafi and Laurent
It’s time to put an end to his tenure
Koscielny, of course questions have to be asked of the chief architect.
Hence yesterday we were all here picking over the wreckage, shaking heads, pointing fingers and wondering if, finally, somebody should lose their job over this. And Wenger was not enjoying the tone of this somewhat forensic press conference one little bit.
“In life, I look at what people do, not at what they say,” Wenger said. “I am quite amazed that you asked me the question. If you want me not to be here, that’s a different problem. You ask me my commitment, and my attitude is dictated by what I did in my life, not by what I say in a press conference. In life you focus on the quality of your job – how well you commit, how hard you work. And you try to master what you can master. What is above you? You will not decide your future. I am an employee and I give my best for my club that I love.
“I have been here for 21 years and I always respected my contract. I turned the whole world down to respect my contracts. So I am amazed that I still have to answer these types of questions.”
And then the awful truth hits. Wenger’s world may have been turned upside down in that he is no longer the man in demand, but he remains an upright, sound human being. Perhaps that is how he survives all these disasters. He is a resolutely honest man, doing his best, but perhaps not with the skill and flair of two decades ago.
Which is when the inquiry turns to the people who continue to award these contracts. It is time for the very top tier to show some leadership, call time on Wenger’s guardianship and put somebody in his place ready to build the place back up from the rubble that remains.