Wenger outburst is just a load of old rubbish
ARSENE WENGER’S claim that the pressure on his job is down to the fact he is 68 has raised a number of eyebrows at a club where age discrimination has been an unwritten policy for years.
The Arsenal manager normally restricts his public comments to the required Premier League press conferences before and after matches. However, he has a contract with BeIN Sports, part of the Al Jazeera network, to sit down with them at international breaks and provide them with one-on-one access on top of his punditry work.
This week he used the opportunity to suggest that “age discrimination” was behind the negativity surrounding the board’s continued loyalty to a manager who, by May, will have gone 14 years without delivering a Premier League title. “Look, when you age, you focus on doing well for your club and ignore all the rest,” said Wenger.
“The older you get, the more it becomes age discrimination. I accept if the results are not good enough then you have to take the consequences. But, overall, that perpetual thing of how long you have been at a club, how old you are, I find that a bit difficult to take.
“All the rest I have to accept because I am in a public job and have to make results and I accept I will be judged on results.”
However, this latest outburst is typical of Wenger attacking his critics rather than addressing the actual criticism: that Arsenal have been underperforming badly in recent seasons.
Moreover, it marks a U-turn in attitudes from 2010, when he was happy to outline a club policy that specifically discriminated against players seeking new contracts on the basis of the year of their birth.
“So when you have a player who is 32 he will just get a one-year contract,” said Wenger at the time. “It depends on the positions as well. If it’s a central defender, then no problem to sign them until 34. But a striker is different.
“After 32 you go from year to year. A midfielder as well, after 32 you go from year to year.”
Wenger was given a new two-year contract at the age of 67, and if he thinks the negativity surrounding him is to do with his age, he need only look down one division.
Neil Warnock, who admits to regularly needing afternoon naps to survive the cut and thrust of football management, is 10 months older. But because Cardiff are seven points ahead of third place in the Championship with a game in hand, it is hard to find a fan of the club willing to speak against him.
Perhaps results have more influence than Wenger suggests. In fairness to the Frenchman, a rigorous daily routine of hitting the gym and going for runs means he could hold his own against many men 20 years his junior. He has never made any secret of the fact that he feels he would have one more job left in him were he to be let go by Arsenal, and the one thing the Premier League has shown recently is that age is not a concern when it comes to getting the right man of the job.
Guus Hiddink and Roy Hodgson were older than Wenger at the time of their appointments at Chelsea and Crystal Palace respectively.
At Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson still had two more Premier League titles left in him beyond Wenger’s current age.
Ivan Gazidis, the Arsenal chief executive who is 15 years Wenger’s junior, has been in no rush to end his tenure at the club. That explains, rather better than Wenger managed to do, the reason behind the current mood around the Emirates.
It is not the age of the manager that concerns fans, but how old the excuses are.
I know I’ll be judged on results